(a.) When thinking about my beliefs and attitudes about teaching students in a culturally diverse classroom, I believe that it is a challenge that needs be faced with an attitude of openness, acceptance, patience, and love. Teaching students of different cultures will pose challenging for any teacher, simply because of the word "different." As teachers, I believe that we need to approach this situation with the mentality that different does not mean wrong. It is easy to view something that is different than what we know and assume that since we do not understand it, we cannot work with it. Teachers need to forego this attitude and adopt an attitude I learned when going through Olivet's mission trip training when preparing to travel to Honduras; "That's different, but that's okay." I do believe that teaching students of different cultures will be a challenge because it requires attentiveness to those cultures, taking time to understand them, and learning how to best fit them all into a classroom and classroom curriculum. In order to do this it requires time and openness on my part. I believe that I am willing to accept the challenge, take the time to invest in the lives of my students, reflect a positive attitude, and to show my students that what is important to them is important to me.
(b.) Growing up as a Caucasian white female in the city of Chicago, I grew up surrounded by a multitude of different cultures. I do not remember race as something that I was taught about, I just remember never considering it to be a boundary in the first place. As I grew up with friends from all different races and cultures, I never felt different or set apart because of race. Most of us in my K-8 elementary school were from the same neighborhood and felt a sense of unity in that. I became used to the diversity until I went to high school. Due to my local high school being known for gang activity and lacking in an education that prepared students for college, my parents decided that I would attend a private Catholic college prep school. This decision was based purely on getting a strong education before college. I remember feeling sad about this decision at first because almost everyone from my graduating class was planning to attend the local high school.
My high school experience challenged my religious identity, socioeconomic identity, and cultural identity. The school I attended was Catholic, and included monthly mass, religion classes on the Catholic faith, and a strong acknowledgment of Saints and how we can connect to them. This was different than what I have ever known because I grew up as a Christian, non-denominational, and had never attended a traditional Catholic mass more than once or twice in my life. My socioeconomic identity was also challenged as the high school was very affluent and consisted of students who seemed to have never known what it meant to struggle with finances. For me, money was something I grew up learning that you needed to work for, and that it was never something that was handed to you. This caused me in the beginning to feel inferior compared to the "rich kids" of the school who wore name brand clothing, received new cars when they turned 16, and had houses that seemed like 4 of my houses in one. The high school was also majority Caucasian students and while there was some diversity, it was nothing like what I was used to. This challenged me because I grew up knowing and appreciating the diversity of Chicago which helped me remain open to interacting and becoming friends with students who were racially and culturally diverse at my high school. I believe the socioeconomic and religious challenges impacted my interactions with others because there was a struggle with money that others could not relate to, and there was a sense of relationship with God that wasn't a priority among some of the students I met. It seemed that students at my school were Catholic because their parents were, and while they claimed a religious identity and went to Sunday Mass, it seemed they were eager to step into the party scene of high school and were not too interested in a daily relationship with God. Although these were challenges I believe that my upbringing caused me to be open to everyone, and to learn how to find common ground with those who were different than me whether it be in race, socioeconomic status, or religion.
(c.) Thinking about the experiences I have described about my elementary and high school experiences, I have thought a great deal about both privilege & class-ism and racism & xenophobia. Seeing and hanging out with the students from my high school, I saw a lot of hand outs. I would see kids get brand new cars, brand new Iphones the day after they dropped and shattered their other ones, and I would go shopping with friends who seemed to have unlimited money to buy brand name clothes and to eat at the nicest restaurants. I remember always feeling like I had to work for everything before I could earn it; I had a go-phone until after high school when I made enough money to buy my first Iphone, I had to work to earn money from my parents if they were going to give me it, and I learned to be frugal with my money in the sense that I had to make wise decisions about what I bought and what I spent money on. I felt like this upper class did not understand the value of working for a paycheck or waiting for a special occasion like earning Christmas or birthday money that you could use to save for that name brand sweater or fancy pair of shoes. From these experiences, I assumed that all of the wealthy students were this way, but over time I learned that there were a lot who while although wealthy, did not have the same privileged and entitled attitudes as others.
My experiences in school and in my hometown have encouraged me to think about racial issues because where I am from, race is everywhere. You do not have to travel far to find others who are from a different race than you. I am compelled to think about the dividing racial issues that I see in my neighborhood, among peers, and in the news. In addition, I have thought about xenophobia as there were often students who would attend my high school as foreign exchange students and I noticed that others sometimes treated these students like they were unapproachable solely because they were from a different country. I remember inviting a foreign exchange student to sit with me and my friends at lunch because she could not find anywhere to sit with friends in her grade level, which made me wonder; why? Why did others not take the opportunity to make someone else feel welcome? These experiences have and will continue to shape my teaching in a multicultural classroom because I know what it feels like to be a student who feels different, and I have seen the positive outcomes of what happens when you take the time to know someone and eliminate any racial and social stereotypes you might have of that person.
(d.) My main struggle with racism is understanding how it still goes on. I have a no tolerance attitude for it and I will especially have no tolerance for it in my future classroom. I plan to confront it from the beginning by explaining to students my policies and feelings about respect and the importance of creating a positive classroom environment.
I still struggle with the issue of privilege, especially at a university like Olivet where I feel like I have been more conscious of money than ever before. Although I still struggle with this, I think that I continue to learn to be grateful for what I do have, and I have found that there are a lot more people who struggle with money than just me. I plan to address this issue in my personal life by continuing to remain grateful and to remind myself of where I should place my treasures and learning what is most important.
(e.) As I discussed earlier, growing up in Chicago has hugely impacted my insight into multicultural issues. I have experienced diversity in my neighborhood, my schools, my friendships, and personal relationships. Growing up in Chicago has greatly increased my awareness of different races, cultures, and social classes. Chicago is an interesting place because if you go downtown you can see some of the richest and poorest people walking down the same street. These experiences have helped me feel comfortable working with students of different races and cultures and has helped me form attitudes of acceptance and love, never allowing racial and cultural differences create boundaries. It has helped me learn about others perspectives along with their cultural and religious values and how to be respectful in asking about those values.
(f.) In Chicago, media greatly affects audiences views of different cultures. You hear about violence, shootings that go on, and lots of other criminal activity. It can be hard for others not to assume that certain racial groups are associated with certain activities because the news skews our perceptions and does not always give us the full story. A certain poem by Langston Hughes comes to mind; "Ballad of the Landlord." In this poem, an African American man continually reaches out to his landlord in the hopes of getting the issues in his apartment fixed. After asking for assistance multiple times and making no progress, we find that news headlines declare that the man threatened the landlord and is now in jail. This news snippet given in the poem does not give us the full story, and gives no opportunity for the African American man to share his side of the story. The news is often this way; stories of violence and crime instill fear and prejudice into others, and the vicious cycle begins. I do not let media influence me and I often do not watch the news. Personally, I have a hard time knowing what news sources I do trust partly because of my lack of news watching and also because I feel like you have to pick and choose what information seems trustworthy. I know that violence and crime exists, but I do not let these affect my opinions of others from certain races because evil has no race and can come from anyone.
(g.) I believe that being white puts me in a privileged group because I have never experienced the struggles that minorities face. This is true as I have never known what it meant to be excluded solely because of race. My identity as being a part of the middle class put me at a struggle for affording college due to falling right in the middle for earning financial aid, but I believe my socioeconomic status still puts me in a privileged group compared to those of a lower socioeconomic status. People can still look at me and associate me with this group because I have been given the opportunity to go to a private college while some do not have the funds to make that work even with financial aid. The same can be said about attending a private high school; even though I was not at the same socioeconomic level as others at my high school, I was still able to afford the tuition.
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