Annalisa McHenry
December 12, 2012
CI 260
Hey! This Wasn’t Made for Me!
A Multicultural Social Justice Unit on Making School Better.
And More Fun.
“They will not gain this liberation by chance but through the praxis of their
quest for it, through their recognition of the necessity to fight for it”
–Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Education is by its nature political. Societies model schools in their image in order to
insure their own survival and maintain the status quo. For this reason, schools favor the dominant
group because it is this group that benefits most from maintaining the current social order. In
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire framed this issue as the struggle of the oppressed
against their oppressors—those whose existence as the dominant group relied on the sacrifices of
the working class (1993). He writes that the very humanity of the underclass is denied because
they must always “extend their trembling hands” in order to accept the meager offerings from the
oppressors. In Teaching to Change the World, Lipton and Oakes note that most people do not
understand to what extent the wealthy use their money to control the lives of the others (2007).
They write that while the dominant ideology in America is one of self-determination and
opportunity, the reality is that high levels of wealth cannot be maintained by all. This, by
definition, creates an underclass that will always be vulnerable to the desires of the wealthy and
powerful. Freire wrote that for the oppressed to be liberated, they needed to first understand and
name that which subjugated them, and then free both themselves and their oppressors by doing
away with that dichotomy. Without a ruling class there would be no need to marginalize
segments of the population.
We can see the oppressor/oppressed dynamic in schools across the country today. Our
education system makes sure to retain the dominance of the ruling group by offering a different
quality of schooling depending on one’s race, class, and socio-economic level. Schooling for
most students of color and other minority groups tends to be skill and memorization based with
little room for creativity (Lipton & Oakes, 2007)). My students have never been taught in any
other way. Not surprisingly, test scores at my school (and across the district) remain low while
other, more affluent towns in the county boast some of the highest scores in the Bay Area.
Because of poor test scores these students like these are labeled as deficient and subjected to
remediation instead of being offered bilingual and/or culturally relevant education. Prospects for
these students are dim. While nationwide 73% of African American students will graduate, only
20% will finish college compared with 33% of White students (Lipton & Oakes, 2007). Latinos
fare even worse with a graduation rate of 53% and college completion rate of just 15% (Lipton &
Oakes, 2007). This translates into lower-paying jobs and perpetual poverty.
Yet there is growing research that offering students a Multicultural Social Justice (MCSJ)
education can boost achievement in students from traditionally underserved communities. In
Making Choices for Multicultural Education, Grant and Sleeter, argue that providing students
with a culturally relevant education is key to their academic success (2007). More importantly,
they note that students must also be empowered to change a system that has historically
oppressed them. They write that “beginning with the premise of diversity rather than justice can
lead to addressing only diversity and ignoring social justice issues” (Grant & Sleeter, 2009).
Thus students should not only be taught in a way that is in line with their cultural backgrounds,
they should also be empowered to change the injustices that affect them and their families.
Empowering students to take ownership of their situations is the benchmark for SJMC
Education.
The goal of this unit is to shed light on a social justice issue that is very close to my
students’ lives: inequity in public education. While America in theory has free public education,
the curriculum design, focus on standardized testing, attacks on bilingual education, and White
centered school culture mean that minority students do not receive the same quality of education
as enjoyed by many of their White peers. This unit is an attempt to address the issue of unequal
and inappropriate education and show my students that the way in which they’re taught matters,
both for their future success and their happiness.
Unit Objectives:
1. Students will analyze textbook depictions of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual
orientation, and socio-economic levels.
2. Students will aggregate, display, and analyze information about instructional quality at
their own school and another school in the county.
3. Students will understand that young people are taught differently depending on their
background and what school they attend, and that this has an impact on their future
success.
4. Students will understand that some students have the privilege of attending schools
whose cultures mirror their home cultures, other students are left on the outside.
5. Students will research if and how graduation rates in their county relate to race and
ethnicity.
6. Students will participate in designing a plan for a “dream school” represents their
interests, cultures, strengths, and aspirations.
The following lessons show how students can work together to collect data, create and
research a hypothesis, and understand issues of social injustice in the education system.
Lesson 1: An Introduction to the themes of the unit
Objectives:
1. Students will examine their own thoughts about the value and relevance of their
education.
Procedures:
1. On the rug, I led a discussion about what students do and don’t like about school and
their school materials. Students first shared with partners, then shared out with the class.
Discussion questions included:
•
How does what you learn in school relate with what you learn at home?
•
Do you enjoy learning at school?
•
Do you use what you’ve learned at school in your home?
•
Do you like your schoolbooks? Do they show people like you?
•
Is what you learn in school important?
I wrote student responses on an anchor chart and students can also took notes in their
journals (Appendix A).
2.
I then explained that over the next few weeks, we would be learning about why they are
taught the way they are and how this can affect their futures.
Assessment: Students were assessed based on their participation in the discussion in pairs
and with the whole class. Every student participated to the discussion and I felt at this point
that there was sufficient student interest and “buy-in” to continue with the unit.
Lesson 2: Does my textbook represent me?
Objectives:
1. Students will understand that their textbooks do not necessarily reflect their ethnic and
cultural backgrounds.
2. Students will learn how to calculate percentages.
3. Students will display data in multiple visual tools.
4. Students will discuss implications and meaning of misrepresentation in their learning
materials.
Procedures:
1. In small groups, students investigated assigned sections of their Spanish Language Arts
anthologies. They looked for and tallied the number of photographs, illustrations, and
diagrams that feature people of African, Asian, Latino, and European descent.
2. Next, we looked at how these numbers compared with the ethnic make up of our class.
Students then discussed discrepancies in groups and shared with the class.
3. Students then illustrated the results in bar graphs (Appendix B).
Assessment: Students were assessed formally based on successful completion of the tally chart
and graph, as well as on their discussion participation and journal entry. All students were
actively engaged in textbook analysis and it was very interesting to listen in on their discussions
about how to categorize individuals in the book. It struck me during this portion of the lesson
that I should have prefaced this activity with lessons about stereotyping, but more on that later.
Creation of the bar graphs, a third-grade content standard, went well. Students were engaged and
had good mastery of the skills required.
Lesson 3: How are we taught?
Objectives
1.
Students will understand the breakdown of their instructional time.
2. Students will create visual displays to mathematically display data.
Procedures
1. As a class, we went through each day of the week to break down actual instructional
minutes (language arts, math, etc.) (Appendix C)
2. We then calculated the percentages of time spent in each subject area.
3. In the computer lab, we then made a pie chart showing the different percentages
(Appendix D).
4. Students discussed first in groups and then as a class what they think about our school
model. Is it effective? Should there be more time spent on some areas and less on others?
Assessment: Students were assessed formatively on their participation in the discussion.
Most students participated and many made references back to our anchor chart, noting that
their feelings about school were justified by our breakdown of instructional time. I based the
summative assessment on their completion of breakdown of time and the pie chart. While all
students successfully completed both tasks, I had to offer more scaffolding than I expected to
calculate percentages. This was a very teacher-centered, direct instruction lesson, which I had
hoped to avoid. Calculating percentages is not a third-grade standard so the content was
completely new to them—I suppose I hoped that exposure in a genuine context would be
more meaningful and thus more manageable.
Lesson 4: Who Finishes School and why does it Matter?
Objectives
1. Students will participate in internet-based research.
2. Students will learn about and understand the connection instruction and graduation rates.
3. Students will display their findings visually in graphs.
4. Students will discuss how findings show implications for their own education and future.
Procedures
1. In the computer lab, I demonstrated to students how to search school websites for
graduation rate and demographic information. I then gave students a list of schools to
investigate.
2. Once students had recorded information, they worked in groups to search for patterns in
graduation rates. Specifically, I asked them to see if graduation rates in the more affluent
district are higher than their own.
3. Students then made graphs to display their findings (Appendix E).
4. Finally, students presented their findings to the class. We then had a discussion about the
implications of their findings. Discussion questions included:
•
Are graduation rates different in different districts?
•
Do you think the students in one district are smarter? Do they have more
resources? Is this fair?
•
Why is it important to graduate?
•
Which group of students will be more successful in the future?
Assessment: Summative assessment was based on student completion of Internet research
and the graphs, which all students completed with minimal support. Formative assessment
was based on discussions and questions throughout the lesson. The final discussion proved
particularly eye opening for many students. At this point in the lesson, I believe that the
pieces started coming together. What had, up until now, been an entertaining and unique
series of lessons, had become something bigger. Students began to see the actual differences
in instruction and success of students of different groups and question the fairness of this
reality.
Lesson 5: My Dream School
Objectives:
1. Students will survey and discuss all of the data collected to draw conclusions about
the effectiveness, quality, and fairness of their education.
2. Students will develop their own “dream education” scenario.
3. Students will complete independent creative projects that illustrate their visions.
Procedures:
1. On the rug, as a class we reviewed everything we’ve done in this unit. Starting with
the anchor paper, we moved chronologically through the phases of research and
analysis conducted by the students. I encouraged discussion throughout this process
so that students could talk about what they’ve learned and how it is important to
them.
2. Next, we brainstormed possible solutions for some of the problems we’ve seen. I
asked students to focus on how their day-to-day instruction and materials could be
changed to better address their educational needs.
3. I then explained that students would be developing their “dream school”. They should
think about all aspects of schooling: teachers, classmates, curriculum, textbooks,
instructional time, classrooms, principals, parent and community involvement, etc.
4. Students displayed their projects prominently at the school and answered questions
from other students, teachers, and parents (Appendix F).
Assessment: Students were assessed formatively based on discussion participation and
formally based on their projects. All students did outstanding work and it was clear that
they were very motivated to express both what they’d learned and what they wanted to
change. Many students focused on simpler fixes for their school: more art, P.E., free time,
etc. But others talked more about the overall culture of the school, noting that they
wanted to feel more respected by their teachers and peers. Several students mentioned
their desire to learn more relevant and exciting information, and to use that knowledge in
more practical ways. Overall I believe that value in this lesson was simply getting
students used to the idea that their input was valuable.
Discussion
The goal of this unit was to give students a front-row view of how quality education is
dispensed to different students. Rather than simply giving students the numbers and explaining
the implications, I wanted to let students work collaboratively and hands-on to create and
develop their own understanding of the politics and effectiveness of their education. Keeping in
line with the ideals of SJMC Education, I felt it important to make this unit as student-centered
as possible.
Ultimately, I felt that the unit was a success. Students were actively engaged throughout
and contributed enthusiastically to discussions. If I were to teach this unit again, I would spend
more time in the beginning talking about race and stereotypes. Most of these students had never
talked openly about race and what it means. All knew the common slang, but few really knew
what race means as both a reality and a social construct. For them to have started this unit with a
solid background in what we mean when we say Latino or White may have helped them process
our findings more efficiently. In the future I would also like to spend time talking about the
measures used to assess students—the CST and the CAHSEE. I would like for my students to
contemplate the validity and effectiveness of these high stakes tests and perhaps come up with
potential alternative assessments.
While I do believe that it was empowering for my students to investigate the way in
which education is distributed, I do not think we went far enough towards changing the status
quo. According to Freire, in first stage of liberation, “the oppressed unveil the world of
oppression” (1993). This unit made a small step in that direction by showing students clear and
pertinent examples of injustice. However, for my students to be truly empowered, their actions
must be self-originated and motivated by compassion towards all. Or, put more eloquently,
“Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free
both [the oppressed and the oppressors]” (Freire, 1993). As a full-fledged member of the
oppressive class, my lessons and guidance can only go so far. It is the students who must, and
will, revolutionize public education.
References
Freire, P., (1993). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Continuum
International Publishing Group.
Grant, Carl A. & Sleeter, Christine E., (2009). Making Choices for Multicultural Education: Five
Approaches to Race, Class, and Gender (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Lipton, M. & Oakes, J., (2007). Teaching to Change the World (3rd ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill.
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Appendix F