[MCP] Question for Felix, Jimmy, and Others

Wed Mar 14 20:24:52 EDT 2007

Thanks, Kelly.

Part of my frustration with this is that this list was essentially created
as a place where people interested in, committed to, equity and social
justice in education could get together and push each other and discuss
these topics. It's frustrating to move the conversation backward being have
folks spend energy on this list trying to "convince" people that these are
valid concerns, some of whom seem that they would rather us just "OK" their
biases. It's frustrating to see folks post questions, then demonstrate no
intentions at being informed in any real way by the responses. And it's
frustrating to see people no unsubscribing from the list due to the same
frustrations.

Having said all of that, my primary vision for multicultural education is to
stop spending so much energy on Taco Night and other surface-level cultural
events and to address the underlying equity and justice issues in education.
In terms of teacher education, I believe this means that we have to teach
directly about systemic racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and so on,
and I think much of the discussion currently happening on this list is
illustrating why we need to do son. There are a LOAD of bad assumptions and
misinformed statements being thrown around to justify an oppressive system
and an oppressive society, much of which is based on age-old forms of U.S.
socialization that prepare people to participate in that oppression. We need
to educate about this directly before any real conversation on multicultural
education can move forward, and that's what you see happening on this list
right now. We're not talking ABOUT multicultural education, we're educating
about some very basic concepts of equity and awareness, and we're doing so
for folks who seem to have no interest in having their assumptions and
biases and senses of entitlement questioned or uncovered.

Paul

********
Paul C. Gorski
EdChange: http://www.EdChange.org <http://www.edchange.org/> 
Multicultural Pavilion: http://www.EdChange.org/multicultural
Social Justice Store: http://www.cafepress.com/edchange
Multicultural Poster Store: http://www.EdChange.org/posters
SoJust Civil Rights History: http://www.SoJust.net <http://www.sojust.net/> 
Nat. Assn. for Multicultural Education: http://www.nameorg.org
<http://www.nameorg.org/> 
Minnesota-NAME: http://www.mn-name.org <http://www.mn-name.org/> 

-----Original Message-----
From: mcp-bounces at edchange.org [mailto:mcp-bounces at edchange.org] On Behalf
Of kelly_hobbins at juno.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:09 PM
To: mcp at edchange.org
Cc: mcp at edchange.org
Subject: Re: [MCP] Question for Felix, Jimmy, and Others

I also joined MCP for a Multicultural class. I am an administrator in New
York working with grades Pre-K to 12. 

Paul- Many of us are new to the list and just trying to gain a little
insight into the world of multicultural education. Perhaps you can share
with us what your vision is for the future of multicultural education. I am
particularly interested in early immersion and incorporating it as part of
the actual culture of a school or program. I welcome research or reading
recommendations. I see many districts trying to force the issue by assigning
a different heritage to each month. It typically drops off because of a lack
of follow through. I am sure we can do better. 
K

Hi Everyone,

My name is Jimmy Liu.  I will be honest.  I am participating in this forum
for a class.  I'm sorry that you feel that the questions asked have been
simple.  I guess I should have looked at all the other forums before posting
any questions.  I'm a Chinese immigrant but refer to myself as American
since I came to America when I was 3.  I wouldn't say that I am resistant to
multicultural education.  However, I do question it because I've noticed
that students in my school which is extremely diverse (25% of each major
group) lacks a sense of unity.  Certainly I appreciate my own ethnicity but
do not feel that k-12 education should focus on the culture of each
ethnicity and culture.  Those types of focus is reserved and rightfully so
to college studies or taught at  home.

Jimmy Liu

  _____  

From: "Paul C.Gorski" <gorski at edchange.org>
Reply-To: "Multicultural Pavilion's discussion group on equity, social
justice,and multicultural education." <mcp at edchange.org>
To: "'Multicultural Pavilion's discussion group on equity, social
justice,and multicultural education.'" <mcp at edchange.org>
Subject: [MCP] Question for Felix, Jimmy, and Others
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:43:01 -0600

Hello.

As list administrator, I've noticed that over the last week or so several
new folks have subscribed to MCP and then began asking some very basic,
simple questions. I've also noticed most of these new folks have been very
resistant to any transformative or critical vision for multicultural
education. (I also noticed that every one of you uses a Hotmail account,
which is either a coincidence or a bit odd.)

So my question: Did you all join this discussion group as a requirement for
a class? Can you do what many folks do when they enter the conversation and
give us a little context about where you're from, why you're interested in a
conversation about multicultural education, and so on?

Paul

********
Paul C. Gorski
EdChange:  <http://www.edchange.org/> http://www.EdChange.org
Multicultural Pavilion:  <http://www.edchange.org/multicultural>
http://www.EdChange.org/multicultural
Social Justice Store:  <http://www.cafepress.com/edchange>
http://www.cafepress.com/edchange
Multicultural Poster Store:  <http://www.edchange.org/posters>
http://www.EdChange.org/posters
SoJust Civil Rights History:  <http://www.sojust.net/> http://www.SoJust.net
Nat. Assn. for Multicultural Education:  <http://www.nameorg.org/>
http://www.nameorg.org
Minnesota-NAME:  <http://www.mn-name.org/> http://www.mn-name.org

>****************************************
>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Multicultural
Pavilion email discussion group. To unsubscribe or change your subscription
settings, visit:
>
>http://edchange.org/mailman/listinfo/mcp_edchange.org
>
>For more equity, social justice, and multicultural education resources
vist:
>
>EdChange: http://www.edchange.org
>Multicultural Pavilion: http://www.edchange.org/multicultural
>Transformations Book Store: http://www.edchange.org/transformations
>Nat. Assn. for Multicultural Education: http://www.nameorg.org

________________________________________________________________________
Interested
<http://track.juno.com/s/lc?s=198954&u=http://www.usatoday.com/news/front.ht
m?csp=24> in getting caught up on today's news?
Click here to checkout USA TODAY Headlines.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/mcp_edchange.org/attachments/20070314/09b51c13/attachment.html 