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What I've Found to be Best Approaches in Ethnic Studies.

4/7/2020

When I was first assigned to be an ethnic studies teacher, i did a summer of research to prepare for what was to come. though i deeply appreciate the hard work people have done to make this class a reality and have shared their resources freely, i thought it was best to create my own curriculum to bring in practical concepts, intersectionality, and move away from the de-politicization of ethnic studies as it has expanded throughout the state. I am not here to say my curriculum is best - i am here to explain my unique approach in teaching this course.

I think it's important to note that my best practices to approach ethnic studies have not entirely been based on scholarly sources or research. However, in my experience there are sources that would validate some of these practices as you'll read below.

-----------------------------------------------------Best Practices-----------------------------------------------------

"Knowledge is power" is a fallacy.
1. i've seen teachers say that education is change in itself. however if our education system is built upon compliance, then it inherently supports the status quo economically and socially. Therefore, knowledge and education about identity and race is not enough to be change.
2. according to Dr. Laurie Santos of Yale University in her course "The Science of Well-Being", she references the GI joe fallacy. this fallacy ultimately states that the idea that knowing is half the battle is false.
3. to explain the gi joe fallacy further, she states that knowing doesn't actually have a correlation with doing or changing habits.
Some essay questions are problematic. period. Be reflective on the type of questions you pose. some examples of actual essay prompts I've seen from history teachers:
1. to what extent were the japanese internment camps justified?
  1. there was well documented PTsd from those who were imprisoned in the camps.
  2. this ultimately set a bad precedent that our country tried to revive in the 2000s towards muslim americans, south asians, and middle eastern folks.
  3. as someone who worked for a congressman who grew up in the internment camps, he does not talk about these camps positively at all. that should be acknowledged without argument or rebuttal.
2. to what extent were the building of indian reservations justified?
  1. read about the quality of these reservations and the restrictions of rights on people on their own land. i don't see much of an argument.
  2. check up the historical use of the word indian.
3. in your opinion, Who is the most admirable historical leader?
  1. your answer will likely be men, or a person with a marginalized identity from a very specific period in time.
be explicit about different types of change.
1. instead of teaching students to "educate parents" or "talk to friends" or "write a letter to your member of congress", using role play or scenario-based activities in the classroom help students generate their own style on approaching conversations about identity.
2. as i have been more explicit about scenarios and situations i myself have been in such as microaggressions, students have been able to notice moments of oppression in livetime because they've had verbal practice and visual cues in the classroom.
3. i have asked students examples of what it means to stand up for your rights. many cannot state specific examples. i ask for specific rights. many cannot state specific rights.
avoid binary thinking.
1. some questions simply aren't debatable. yes, genocide is bad. yes, racism is bad. arguing otherwise isn't critical thinking, it's promoting DISCRIMINATORY and tone-deaf thinking.
2. in the tv show "the Newsroom" by aaron sorkin, one of his characters says that there aren't 2 sides to every story. sometimes there's 20, sometimes there's 5, and sometimes there is just one. this monologue in one of his episodes has stuck with me ever since.
3. our society promotes either or thinking. there are 2 political parties, 2 sides to an argument, etc. it doesn't have to be this way.
4. I'd like to call binary thinking as zero sum thinking. this can imply that conflicting truths cannot both be true at the same time. in reality, they can be and this happens frequently. this can also imply that some arguments can be dismissed because i as a student am ultimately choosing one conclusion over another. for example, as a high school student i used to argue that FDR was a ultimately a good president because he created programs for the good of americans, which outweighed the bad such as placing racial restrictions on these programs and incarcerating 120,000 japanese americans. instead of just thinking FDR was good or bad, i argue for a more nuanced answer instead of tallying for arguments on both sides.
5. there are many essay questions I have seen from teachers and from ap courses that promote binary thinking, aka yes/agree/true or no/disagree/false answers. i do not promote binary thinking. examples such as:
  1. does the arc of the moral universe truly bend towards justice?
  2. are americans truly free?
as a solution, i promote spectrum thinking.
1. i don't even teach racism/non-racism. i teach the racism scale.
2. i don't even teach the idea of biased/unbiased.
3. i have asked students to self rate from 1-10 their conscious racial and gender bias. i have also asked students to take a test on their implicit racial and gender bias from Harvard University. the test itself says "slightly leaning" or "strongly leaning" rather than "yes" or "no".
4. when i create a problem or a question, i ask students to rate the issue from 1-10. instead of asking whether or not racism is a problem in american society (this has actually been asked by a teacher, and the answer is yes obviously), i would ask a student to rate it from 1-10. How much is racism a problem in american society? Note that i've never actually asked this question - i still personally find it problematic but understand if one uses it for a pre and post assessment.
5. you could argue that primary sources are inherently racist.
  1. According to Dr. Jeff DUncan Andrade - because we have historically and currently have disparate results in educational outcomes, language ability, promotion in VARIOUS industries, we would then have to acknowledge that primary sources are
  2. sourced from a small group of people who have a lot of identities and backgrounds in common.
  3. only certain voices have been heard and seen and noticed and validated. if certain groups (let's say women in this case) were not allowed to go to school, then we are missing this viewpoint.
  4. it is important to note that exceptions are not necessarily a normal/common viewpoint. for example, quoting frederick douglass is considered an exception. he was taught to read and write (not to diminish his pain and oppression) and has a different experience of that time for his identity than someone else. this is the case for all people. also, using one person (in this case, 1 man) as a sole source easily creates exceptionalism. exceptionalism feeds into false hope, false meritocracy, and in my experience student disengagement. lastly, douglass does not speak for the entire black/african american community - that is racial ambassadorship, and that is a form of racism.
  5. to showcase the diversity issue just a little bit and how that leads to a bias in primary sources:
    1. lawmakers are majority white on all levels of government.
    2. ~80% of the nation's teachers are white.
    3. the least amount of racial diversity and lowest turnover in the teaching profession are history teachers.
    4. ~75% of all journalists/news network staff are white.
    5. ~90% of film award winners are white.
    6. note that #1-5 are people historically viewed as primary source generators.
    7. Time freezing: example - films about the black/african american community are primarily about one time period. think of all marginalized communities that are essentially "frozen" in a time period whenever showcased in any form.
    8. tech companies/the tech industry is majority white, east/south asian american, cis, and male. this would imply that algorithms created from nondiverse staff would then mean implicit biases are generated and generate revenue and spit out implicitly biased information.
find specific laws, and find the quantity of laws.
1. In my class, I will showcase 200+ jim crow laws. students will start to remark in ways such as,
  1. "wow, they really couldn't do anything back then."
  2. "if blacks were getting fined so often back then, does that relate to how so many people of color are poor today?"
  3. "is this when the school to prison pipeline really started?"
2. in 1 teaching observation, a teacher showed five lines of jim crow laws in regards to housing. this again demonstrates the limited depth and frequency of this type of oppression.
3. i am a big proponent of teachers teaching just how awful things were in history. for example, kids will often recite to me that jim crow laws affected people in places like water fountain areas, schools, and bathrooms. This demonstrates the limited amount and depth of oppression explored in classroom.
when thinking about a historical event, be sure to think about the aftermath/consequences/feelings of the marginalized. if you can, combine historical concepts of the time. when i taught international baccalaureate history HL, i made a few examples:
1. in my experience, i have gotten students emotional though not intentionally. hiding the collective pain and trauma means that today we are likely to dismiss people who are not like us.
2. although i personally don't agree with any wars we have fought, those who fought in the war as a person of color (remember women could not fight) were not allowed to be formally recognized with medals for a time. think about how it feels to not be qualified to do/be awarded.
3. when japanese americans returned from the camps, their homes were taken (occupied by many jewish and latinx folks) and they were homeless. they lost income for many years. many became sharecroppers.
4. during the push for the 19th amendment, think about how it would feel to be a latinx woman of the time being verbally dismissed by a white woman. how many women became homeless. remember that most people believed in eugenics, so not only were people dissing people of color, but they thought they were dumb as rocks and used "science" to prove this.
use a variety of sources.
1. think of which sources do represent a community.
  1. if you overuse sandra cisneros as the sole storyteller of that racial community, students will disengage easily. it's like beating a dead horse (speciesist, i know)
  2. Battle Hymn of the tiger mother by amy chua is a source that has been used in an ethnic studies class. i will tell you, she does not represent the AANHPI community. many AANHPI folks would agree with me.
2. historical vs. contemporary sources: similar to #2, but really reflect on what historical and contemporary means to you besides just that time period.
3. primary vs. secondary sources - having a balance of both, not only primary. please note that this is heavily discouraged in the history teacher communities from my experience.
4. instead of simply assessing the different mediums you will provide as a history teacher (political cartoons, news articles, etc.), be sure to assess different forms of diversity within your teaching materials.
where does your bias lie?
1. for example, in my case:
  1. being an asian american teaching non-asian american students means i care about intersectionality a lot.
  2. i come from immigrant parents - every time i critique the "system", i feel a rush of fear. there's an element of conservatism/lack of risk taking that dominates much of what i do and how i do it. i acknowledge it is hard for me to connect to people who are on the "front lines" because i am working on having that courage.
  3. as a kid growing up in cupertino during a period of white flight, major news networks such as the wall street journal essentially blamed asian americans for "scaring away white students" due to competition and for increasing teen suicide in the area. i have a lot of unresolved feelings about white-identified folks.
2. we all have biases due to our identities. it is okay (to some degree). it is our need to be reflective to notice what we like and what we need to work on.
CAN YOU FIND SOLIDARITY?
1. THERE ARE FEW BUT IMPORTANT SOLIDARITY MOVEMENTS IN HISTORY. AS AN ASIAN AMERICAN WOMAN WHO TEACHES MAJORITY LATINX AND BLACK STUDENTS, I HAVE FOUND THIS TO BE A USEFUL TOOL TO BREAK DOWN SEGREGATION AND RACIAL HOSTILITY. THIS HAS HELPED ME BUILD CULTURE AND CONNECTION IN THE CLASSROOM. IF YOU DON'T KNOW OF ANY SOLIDARITY MOVEMENTS, CONTACT ME AND I CAN POINT YOU IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
2. FOR EXAMPLE, MOST STUDENTS WILL REMARK THAT THEY DID NOT KNOW THAT THE RED POWER MOVEMENT, CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, LABOR MOVEMENT, CHICANX MOVEMENT AND ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT ALL HAPPENED IN THE SAME ~15 YEARS. THIS MEANS A BIAS WAS CREATED - ONLY CERTAIN RACES WERE "SMART ENOUGH" TO STAND UP FOR THEIR RIGHTS. THIS WILL EFFECTIVELY DISEMPOWER CERTAIN IDENTITIES AND RACIAL COMMUNITIES BECAUSE THEY DO NOT KNOW THEY COME FROM FIGHTERS AND POWERFUL PEOPLE.
3. OUR COUNTRY AND SOCIETY WILL CONTINUE TO BELIEVE IT'S A "BLACK PEOPLE PROBLEM" OR A "NATIVE AMERICAN PROBLEM" BECAUSE WE POSE PUBLIC POLICY PROBLEMS, SOLUTIONS, AND HISTORY BASED ON THIS.
Fact check your stuff.
1. "Equal Rights For Others Does Not Mean Less Rights For You. It's Not Pie."
2. affirmative action does not actually take away college spots from asian americans. i saw the model minority (not the modely minority myth, mind you) narrative taught in a class once!

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Here's my blog.
I talk a lot about education, race, and ethnic studies... right here.
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What I've Found to be Best Approaches in Ethnic Studies.

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Here's my blog.​I talk a lot about education, race, and ethnic studies... right here.​Down below.

Whoa. People actually want some more.

What I've Found to be Best Approaches in Ethnic Studies.

Archives

Categories

Here's my blog.
I talk a lot about education, race, and ethnic studies... right here.
Down below.