Spring 08 - 2nd Tips for teachers Meeting

We read “Diversity and Complexity in the Classroom: Considerations of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender” by Barbara Gross Davis, and started with a discussion about cultural difference by considering the impact of reading Abu-Lughod or Nafisi if we have women wearing head scarves in the class. One teacher present said that she did have a student who wore a head scarf who did not come to class on the day that this reading was being discussed. However, in contrast, another teacher present said that when he did this reading, a woman in a head scarf provided lots of extra information completely voluntarily.

The question then arose as to whether we can ask our students to tell us about cultural differences, or whether we should wait to see if they volunteer. It seemed to us that it depended on the country of origin, as one British person present said she thought nothing of it when her son was in kindergarten and the class was studying England, and the teacher asked her to come in and tell the class about the country.

One teacher suggested that the suitability of asking a minority student about a particular issue perhaps depended on the number of students in that particular group who were in the class, and if there was only one student a direct question should be avoided, but if there was a significant number of the group, such as a fairly large number of Indian students in a 201 class about The Family, then it was fine to ask them questions about arranged marriage.

We talked further about the cultural diversity in our classrooms, and the important difference between using the word ‘tolerate’ (meaning there is still a problem but I’ll put up with it) and ‘accept’, which is a more whole scale embrace. One teacher mentioned how the readings in The New Humanities Reader were not all diverse.

We also discussed how the teacher her or himself might be from a minority group, and we wondered, therefore, how the students read us. It was agreed that successful students adapt to each professor they have, and in general, it is the teacher’s aim to try to establish rapport.

We went on to mention how the act of writing is a very personal one, so that if a paper is criticized, it feels to the student that he or she is the object of criticism. This led to a fruitful discussion about commenting on student papers, and how, since our comments to students are mostly in writing, we have to be exceptionally careful that we are not being misinterpreted.

We also mentioned the importance of not giving an excessive number of comments, as the students might not read them and might feel overwhelmed, and how instead we should perhaps try to identify patterns of error, as well as using pens of different colours (one for mechanical errors and the other for content).

Not only should we be careful with our written comments, but also with comments in class discussion as well. The article discusses how sometimes the best intentioned teachers, if giving special privileges to minority groups, might be interpreted as being demeaning to them. For example, some teachers might unwittingly say, “We Americans treat immigrants well”, and this we/they divide automatically can be problematic. The same could be said to be true for the I/you divide of some teachers, rather than saying 'we’ to encompass everyone in the class, including the teacher.

One teacher also pointed out how she took offense at a student complaining about the course and the particular reading, and said she was going to write back straight away. However, she prevented herself from writing an e-mail while in a ‘hot state’ and allowed some time to pass. Then she wrote asking him to explain his comments, and found to her surprise that he was not meaning to criticize her, but that he had taken a previous course and had not liked it. She realized, therefore, that he was giving a criticism about the reading, and not about her. This shows the importance of really trying to find out about a situation, rather than making assumptions.