Blog Entry 10: April 28, 2018
Response: Interview a person who grew up in a different culture
Assignment for EDTE 302 class
Description of Culture
I interviewed a 24 year old man who was born in Hyderabad, India and lived there until he was 10 years old. I’ll call him Sam (fictitious name) for this report. Hyderabad is a huge economic center in the southern part of India, and the city has almost seven million people. People speak Telugu, Urdu and Hindi in Hyderabad, and there is a complex caste system that identifies people of different social levels (Wikipedia, accessed Feb. 10, 2018). Sam’s family left India when he was ten years old, and this is the story of his educational experience. He attended three different school systems while he was growing up, and it was interesting to hear his perspective on education in India and the United States.
Sam’s home life and upbringing were very different when he lived in India. He was part of a large extended family, with his Grandfather, Father and three Uncles all living together in the same house with their wives and children. They were Muslim, and they were relatively wealthy in India. They lived in an 8 bedroom house with an interior courtyard in the old part of the city, where streets were narrow and buildings had an historic flair. Each day the men went off to work or school, and the women stayed home and tended to the house and children. Children of school age went off to school in a tuk-tuk (motor car), and a maid and her son came to the house to clean and cook. This stable family existence in India was interrupted when one Uncle and then the Grandfather moved to Chicago. They both viewed America as a key to better jobs and better lives for the family. Soon the whole family followed, and Sam’s family moved to Duluth, Minnesota, and then Tracy, California.
Description of Education
Sam has attended school in Hyberabad, India, Duluth, Minnesota and Tracy, California. These were very different educational experiences, and it was interesting to get his perspective on each. In India he was not considered a person of color, and didn't think about race. He attended a private school that would have put him on a college track, and race or ethnicity were not an issue. He told me that Indian school was hard and strict, and corporal punishment was common. Students who were misbehaved or turned in poor quality work were sometimes whipped or paddled. He told several stories about friends that got in trouble and were severely disciplined, and Sam's hands were slapped repeatedly with a ruler when he broke the rules. Children sat in straight rows, didn’t talk, and had limited options at recess. Boys were on one side of the room and girls were on the other side, and they didn’t mix. Instruction used a lot of memorization and repetition, and we would probably see some similarities to ”essentialism” after some of today’s modern methods (Koch, p. 55). This was essentialism with a heavy edge, and it didn’t sound like much fun. Even Kindergartners had math lessons, and there was heavy emphasis on what we would call the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Sam said that India is gearing up to be competitive in world markets, and science and math were part of the curriculum at all levels.
In spite of some of these heavy-handed methods, there were positive aspects to the Indian school. Students memorized facts, and this may help with retention in math and science (Koch, p. 56). As an example, Sam said that middle school students in India repeated the times tables up to 20 x 20 each day, then they do it backwards. This extra emphasis on science and math produces results. Many of our doctors in the United States come from India, and the success of Indian students is a result of their educational system. Sam graduated from Sacramento State last year and is currently working as a Pharmacy technician. He hopes to go to Pharmacy school, and has a bright future ahead of him. Sam’s background let him transfer fairly easily to schools in the United States, although English was his biggest challenge.
Sam’s view of schools in the United States was generally very positive. He appreciated the time his teachers spent helping him adjust, and I have a feeling he met some special teachers in Duluth. He was initially put in speech therapy when he started school, but within a few years he no longer needed it. Today he speaks English without a trace of an accent, and he mentioned very specifically that he is grateful to those teachers who helped him learn English. Sam had a normal American High School experience from many angles; he participated in sports, took a variety of classes, made friends, and generally appreciated the relaxed atmosphere and social activities in American schools.
Sam had an easy adjustment period compared to many immigrants. He had family support, and his classmates in America were tolerant of a brown person. Duluth Minnesota was very white but accepting, and Tracy California was ethnically diverse so he fit in easily. Sam succeeded at school and his grades were good enough for college acceptance. He told me this was due to his family’s view about education. His Dad started teaching math again in an American High school, and the main reason they emigrated was for better education and employment opportunities. Thanks to the support of his extended family, this is happening.
Sam did face challenges in American schools, and many of these challenges are tied to his traditional Indian background. He did not associate freely with girls in Indian schools, and he mentioned that he is still a shy around women. His culture and immediate family tend to use arranged marriages, and there is little or no dating involved. Ahmed told me his mother met his father the night of their marriage, and they are happily married more than 30 years later. His sister is recently married, and she talked to her future husband on the telephone many times, but hadn’t met him before the wedding. This is a huge contrast to a California High School, where liberal thoughts and liberal dress are common. I understand how he would be hesitant to abandon his upbringing and beliefs, and it could be very difficult to associate easily with American women.
Sam also faced religious challenges. He usually went through the fasting month of Ramadan without telling his teachers or classmates. This meant that he went entire days without food, meanwhile trying to learn new material, take tests and practice with the football team. That would have been incredibly difficult, and he kept his beliefs to himself. He also had dietary issues. He doesn’t eat pork, and his family practices Halal, where meat is slaughtered a certain way and has religious approval. This meant that he usually kept to himself for meals and brought food from home. This may seem small at first, but the social scene in a High School lunch room has huge significance, and there is emphasis on fitting in. It would be incredibly difficult to have different social or religious beliefs than the majority of your classmates.
Educational Recommendations
This interview and the readings about multicultural education spun my head around. I’m the old white guy who thought he was color blind, and I’ve spent the past week trying to reconstruct some of my basic beliefs. Color blindness may actually perpetuate racial differences, because it maintains white privilege and takes the discussion of race off the table (Gollnick and Chinn, p. 63). I realize now that the only reason I can be color blind is that I’m a privileged white male. If I were anything else I wouldn’t have the luxury of ignoring race. People of color deal with race every day in a multitude of subtle ways, some positive but many outright discriminatory and negative. The answer and the educational recommendation is multicultural education (Gollnick and Chinn, p. 29), and I will adapt my teaching strategies as best I can to have an inclusive and multicultural classroom.
Addressing race and diversity directly is one of the fundamental parts of a multicultural curriculum. Some schools have an underground culture of voluntary racial segregation and racial intolerance, and this may extend from students to teachers. It is important to confront racism directly. Students should be told that racism is unacceptable, and teachers and students should step in when students use racist language or behavior (Gollnick and Chinn, p. 64). Race can be presented in a positive sense through multiculturalism and an appreciation of diversity. This includes a curriculum that shows people of color as students and teachers in classrooms (Gollnick and Chinn, p. 67), and activities that are sensitive to different religions, diets and social norms. It is important to respect racial and ethnic differences in the classroom, and allow students to keep and celebrate their ethnic identity.
Hate groups are a special threat to democratic and multicultural education, and many have developed sophisticated techniques of packaging their message for children (Potok, 2017). This may include online games or puzzles that express hateful and racist messages. Students may be exposed to patriot groups, neo-confederate groups, antimuslim extremists and anti-gay groups. This exposure usually comes from family or friends. Teachers and parents must be on constant watch for these harmful influences, and there are internet blockers that may solve the problem on a device-by-device basis.
A multicultural or ethnocentric curriculum that includes ethnic studies is one option for addressing the needs of underrepresented groups. Including topics of race and ethnicity in the classroom brings out the issues, and this may open up discussions and lead to better understanding between students . This approach is viewed as liberal or progressive, and may be extreme for some schools. Conservative or traditional areas of the country often prefer to stay closer to the core curriculum (Gollnick and Chinn, p. 66). Personally, I think these classroom-based solutions for race seem antiseptic and white-centered once again, and I prefer some of the multicultural approaches outlined below.
A teacher in an inclusive, multi-cultural classroom needs to know each student as an individual. Teachers who take the time to learn about their students can identify educational challenges that are specific to cultural or religion beliefs, and may be able to help the student succeed. As examples; meals on a field trip should accommodate students who have different religious or dietary needs, and maybe the football and the soccer coaches need to get together and hold a late practice for a handful of Muslim students. These seem like little details, but when we learn more about a student’s culture (InTASC standard 1, p. 11) we can tailor their educational experience around their beliefs and traditions, rather than excluding them. Students and parents feel included, and are more likely to be supportive of classroom activities.
Classroom activities are an excellent indicator of a multicultural and multiethnic classroom (Gollnick and Chin, p. 66). A multicultural classroom celebrates diversity- literally! In my middle school classroom I plan to use festivals ranging from the Day of the Dead to the Lunar New Year to expose my students to multicultural beliefs. I will weave these events into the curriculum, and include many aspects of the celebration in my lesson plans. As examples, a math lesson about fractions can produce recipies for a feast, reading and writing lessons can involve a story about a festival or cultural practice, and language arts can look at roots of words that we recognize in other languages. Music and dancing are excellent physical education activities, and involving parents in meal preparation will highlight their culture and bring them into the classroom. To be most effective, a multiethnic curriculum should extend from the lowest grades to graduation and adult education. It should reflect the ethnic diversity of the each class, and should be sensitive to individual needs.
As a teacher I will be able to modify the culture of my classroom, and I plan to promote a culture of diversity and inclusion. This will help people like my friend “Ahmed”, who hit some social and cultural obstacles in his American education. Modifying the culture or attitudes of a school is not a simple task, and the issues of equity and diversity need to be approached from several directions. I believe that we need to use a multicultural or polycultural teaching approach, and this starts in the classroom when we get to know our students as individuals.
References
Gollnick, D.M., and Chinn., P.C., 2013, Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society, Pearson, 429 p.
Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTACS). (2011). InTASC model core teaching standards: A resource for state dialogue. Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers, p. 10-19.
Kock, J., 2014, Teach, Wadsorth Press, p. 55.
Potok, M. (2011, Spring). The year in hate and extremism. Intelligence Report, accessed Feb. 12, 2018 at: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2017/year-hate-and-extremism.
Wikipedia summary: Hyderabad India, accessed Feb 10, 2018 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Telangana_by_population#City_categorization
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