[MCP] High expectations

[steve greaves]

Not just higher expectations, but deeper sympathies altogether, which  have less to do with good intentions and more to do with the depth of  life experiences and norms shared between teacher and student or  between any service provider and client.
  
  I agree that as a white man, generally speaking, I am less likely to be  as attuned to a black student than a black teacher is, although the  politics of that black teacher or his religion or even his hobbies  could make him less effective with some black youth than I might  be.  But what Nasr Taha says about expectations also holds true  with plain old understanding and "common sense" within the context of  one's cultural paradigms or norms.  
  
   In psychotherapy this same principle applies.  As a domestic  violence perpetrator treatment provider years ago,  I was lucky  enough to receive training from the founders of the Family Centre in  Auckland, New Zealand.  They determined that choices they made  that otherwise might have been wise, or at least normatively sensible,  with European-ancestry clients often proved worse than useless with  Maori clients, for example. One reason was because the lines of  authority and responsibility within families are not the same.   For instance, in one case, siding with the mother of a youth against  the grandmother, as if the typical European nuclear family (husband,  wife, children) were the appropriate cultural-political unit to  consider, proved disastrous for the youth and the mother, until the  mother herself recognized how the assimilationist assumptions of the  therapy team undermined her own and her child's long-term well-being;  she wisely returned to her elder and
 made amends that went against the  white therapist's recommendations but proved much more beneficial to  all parties involved.  When the Family Centre hired a Maori man to  be the bridge between the Maori community and the center, the therapy  services to that community vastly improved, thereby improving overall  community relations.  The communitarian values the Maori man  brought to the Family Centre also improved the relations of the  centre's white therapists with one another, as well.  This  anecdote is based on recollection of Family Centre co-founder Charles  -------'s presentation in Santa Rosa in 1991 or 92.

Nasr Taha <nasrtaha at hotmail.com> wrote:  
I think that a teacher from a given culture or ethnicity will be more 
reponsible. What I mean by responsible is that a teacher from the same 
ethnicity or culture will expect and try to receive higher understanding and 
achievement from their students.  In contrast a teacher outside of the race 
and ethnicity might not have the ambition to make this happen.

>From: awhodat at aol.com
>Reply-To: "Multicultural Pavilion's discussion group on equity, social 
>justice,and multicultural education." 
>To: 
>Subject: [MCP] High expectations
>Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:29:46 -0400
>
>Do you find that a teacher of a given culture and or ethnicity tends to 
>have higher expectations for students of a similar culture and or ethnicity 
>?
>
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>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

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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 


 
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