SPED - TLT 404, Summer 2015 - Course record

Owned by Tom Hammond
Last updated: Jun 24, 2015
14 min read

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Session 1 - Wednesday, May 27

Before class

  • If you can, get into CourseSite and poke around
  • Purchase copy of the textbook

During class (ppt)

  • Brief introductions
  • Course discussion/rationale – why a diversity course? Why this kind of a diversity course?
    • American teachers vs. American students – e.g., recent-ish AP story.
    • Complexity of diversity (in American context?), via a Key & Peele skit.
    • Complexity of American educational politics
    • The difficulties of looking in the mirror
      • Personal example from TCH, centering around class
      • Categorical example of professors! Recent op-ed in the New York Times. (See para. beginning, "Professors were more responsive to...")
    • ...plus we're doing this course at Lehigh, which has not had the most distinguished track record, in terms of diversity / multiculturalism / sensitivity...hence the lawsuit. (And if you need some further background, here's an article from the Brown and White. The updates are handy, and the comments are essential reading.)
  • Frameworks / metaphors for the course 
    • Hands up demo
    • Metaphors to work by: Teacher as collaborator, communicator, student
  • Going through the first part of the syllabus
    • Online resources for you to use
  • Going through second half of syllabus: Assignments we'll be doing
  • An ice-breaker: The matching game
  • End of history effect
  • Discuss Self-in-Context assignment
  • Closure

After class

  • Reading
  • Assignments
    • WTL
      • In CourseSite, post to class forum (and update your profile with a current pic)
      • Start your individual thread and share it to my gmail address. In your first post, please briefly summarize the prior experiences you have had (if any) in diversity / multicultural ed. Did you take a course? Have a class session focused on identity, culture, or privilege/oppression? Attend a workshop? It doesn't matter if this was in college or in your K-12 experience. Out of these experiences, what worked for you or didn't work for you? What insights did you gain (if any)?
    • Bring in an artifact for your personal sharing. (For example, I’m posting a URL to my flickr feed)
    • Start working on Self-in-Context assignment
    • Please let me know if you have any contacts with traditionally underserved families that might agree to participate in the Family & School Interview project. Just fill out this form. (If you have more than one contact in mind, you can fill it out multiple times.) Thanks!

 

 

Session 2 - Friday, May 29

Before class

  • Complete readings (in CourseSite)
  • Do WTL
    • Class forum (in CourseSite – two postings) on the topic of metaphors for teaching
    • Private thread – this is what you're supposed to create on your own in Google Docs and then share to my Gmail address. If you need help with this, let me know. Topic = prior experiences in diversity classes (see above)
  • Work on self-in-context assignment
  • If you have any leads that I can use in matching folks up for family & school interviews, please let me know! I created this handy form to collect suggestions. (If you have more than one contact in mind, you can fill it out multiple times.)
  • Don't forget to bring in an artifact for sharing something about your personal background!

During class (ppt)

  • Bridging last session & this session
  • Conceptual work
    • Sharing artifacts
    • Dimensions of identity; identity as monopolar or multipolar
    • Challenging the model: WEIRD people...and just how weird are we, anyway? 
    • Defining culture
    • Personal identity & broader cultural context
      • Special case: religion
    • Models of cultural identity development
    • Identity & cultural context revisited: Privilege and oppression
      • ur-text: McIntosh "Invisible Knapsack" 
      • Going broader: PrivilegeCheck.
      • Two suggested tactics for recognizing the constraints of identity & culture
    • Something more pointed: Concept of "white fragility"
    • Broadening your reference base
      • A habit to establish or continue: Consuming media from viewpoints/funds of knowledge different from your own
      • The "vicarious experience of diversity" topic for your private writing-to-learn thread
  • Closure

After class

  • Complete and turn in your Self-in-Context assignment by uploading it to CourseSite. Don't forget to look at the assignment description in the syllabus, particularly the grading checklist.
  • Writing-to-learn
    • Class forum (in CourseSite)
    • Individual thread (via Google Doc shared to Dr. H): Think back to your own school experiences and/or what you're observing in your current field work. Identify one or more areas where you feel a group of students (and this could be you!) either received a privilege or was oppressed. Explain what the privilege / oppression was, under whose authority it took place, what the community reaction was (if any), etc. How did you feel about it? Did you speak up or take action? 
  • Reading

 

Session 3 - Monday, June 1

Before class

  • Turn in Self-in-Context paper.
  • Complete reading
  • Complete whole-class WTL & individual WTL

During class (ppt)

After class

  • Reading: Grant & Ray, Ch. 2, 3, & 4 – pdfs will be posted in CourseSite
  • Assignments
    • WTL
      • Private – on your own!
      • Group: Topic is up in CourseSite (family-school interaction) – make first post by Sunday, second on Monday.
    • Work on F&SI project and/or Fieldwork.
    • Watch the trailer for If You Build It – it's 3 minutes or something. On Monday we'll discuss whether we want to take class time to see this and participate in the discussion on Monday, June 16.

Session 4 - Wednesday, June 3

Before class

  • Complete reading
  • Do WTL (both private and group)

During class (ppt)

  • Conceptual work: Families and communities
    • Opening activity: Selections from In My Room: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms.
    • Families: Life cycle theory, crisis/coping, resiliency
    • Community
      • Again, as with individuals and families, challenge of creating acceptable models, definitions. Typology, yes; functional clarity...not so much.
      • To ground this conversation in a reality: Southside Bethlehem. Let's do a modified KWL activity
        • Establishing the frame: What geographic area are we talking about?
        • K: Write down 5 facts that you know about SSB. For each: How do you know this? Personal experience? Hearsay? Something you read or saw on TV?
        • W: Write down 3 things you want to know about SSB. For each, write down a possible source.
        • Investigation phase
          • Share your Ks and Ws at your table. Can you help one another out in filling in gaps of knowledge? Thinking about resources? Do you have any conflicting knowledge?
          • Turning to (social) media: Without overtly focusing on your 3 "want to know" items, use the following tools to learn more about SSB. Feel free to divide up the labor at your table, or just do a free-for-all. We'll start with a demo with this YouTube clip from April, 2012.
            • Organized media, focusing on Southside results
              • The Morning Call. 
              • Channel 69, WFMZ.
              • The Bethlehem Press. You're probably best off using a Google scrape of their site, so follow this URL to this search for their items related to "Southside."
              • Patch.com's Bethlehem bureau. Note that these results are pretty out of date...I'm wondering if they no longer have a correspondent or coverage of the area?
              • LehighValleyLive.com. (Note that I just had to use 'southside' as the term to get any current results, so some hits are from elsewhere in the LV)
            • Social media. Note that you need to use some surfing smarts here: Find a video or an image that seems fruitful? Look at the related items, look for more items by that user, etc. Also, keep in mind that social media is, by definition, pretty much unfiltered; surf within your own comfort limit.
            • Specialized media
              • Bethlehem City Hall has made a couple of maps, including a walking guide to the Southside.
              • Pennsylvania Department of Education's database of info on BASD schools – the Southside schools are Donegan Elementary and Broughal Middle School; Fountain Hill Elementary is adjacent.
                • More school district info: Here's a very-much-unfinished web-GIS map of area school districts: http://arcg.is/1dMuJMx – if nothing else, pay attention to the SHAPE of the districts....
              • The Bethlehem Area Police Department also publishes its crime records on crimemapping.com.
        • Discussion at your table: What did you learn about SSB? What sorts of information did different media channels tend to offer? Try to focus your discussion on funds of knowledge – what funds of knowledge were presented in the organized media? Social media? What funds of knowledge do you think exist within SSB that the organized media might not report? That the university might not know about? 
      • L: Class-wide discussion of what we learned, what we would need to do to investigate further. 
    • Putting the exploration of the Southside into a larger context
      • Research perspectives vs. parent perspectives
      • Schools' community action efforts to support schools and/or support families
      • Support families: Deficit-based approach and/or asset-based approach
      • Real-world examples
        • Broughal as a community school
        • Asset map of Easton
        • Harlem Children's Zone
    • Closure

After class

  • Reading
    • Grant & Ray, Ch. 6 & 7
    • Follow up on one or more of the community investigations mentioned in class!
  • Assignments
    • WTL
      • group (posted in CourseSite)
      • private (open topic)
    • Plan for your Neighborhood Walk!

 

Session 5 - Monday, June 8

Before class

  • Complete the reading.
  • Organize your Neighborhood Walk (via the group writing-to-learn thread)
  • Private WTL. Maybe use this session to complete one of the 'floating' topics?

During class (ppt)

  • Housekeeping
    • Setting up Family & School interviews
  • Conceptual work: Race/ethnicity
    • From communities to race
      • Something I knew about but never really thought about: Redlining. For an overview, consult the Wikipedia article. For a more detailed description of redlining–addressing it as something that pre-dates the New Deal–in a specific location (Richmond), see historian Robert Nelson's "Redlining Richmond" project. (The maps I'm using are pulled from Urban Oasis' archive of digital HOLC maps.)
      • Something I didn't know about until recently: "The Ghetto is Public Policy", focusing on Chicago. Note that the author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, recently expanded this discussion to a long article published in The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations. (See comments on the article here; see the author's discussion of his 'evolution' on the issue here.) The article opens with an extended example of Jim Crow law in the South, immigration to the North, and then the impacts of redlining and other forms of institutionalized racism, culminating with the efforts to fight back against it.
      • Something you probably knew about already: Chinese-American exclusion act, placed in background of other legislation
      • Quote system applied to Jews (and others) in school admissions
      • Chicano experience of the border
    • John Dewey on schools and society
    • Man is the animal that teaches (relevant YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48rhtgtNxRI )
    • School IS society – revisiting cross-cultural boundaries with "SooLing" scenario
    • Race, society and schools, starting with the Carlisle Indian School
    • Unpacking race

    • Considering role of race in social contexts: schooling, labor, even social phenomena such as gun deaths – see CDC report on gun deaths.

    • Education research on impact of race

    • Setting up your reading of Harry & Klingner, 2006, Ch. 5
  • Closure
    • As always, apologies in advance if this misses the mark, but let's turn to Key & Peele for an implied statement about race and norms: "Substitute Teacher" And in case the point (that names and pronunciation are deeply culturally encoded) needs further clarification, consider the opposite side: "Americans Pronounce Latino Names"
    • Closing thought from Lisa Delpit that's worth thinking deeply on, reinforcing needs for a strengths-based approach to teaching & schooling.

After class

  • Reading
    • Harry & Klingner, 2006
    • Blanchette, 2006
  • Assignments
    • WTL
    • Work on other assignments!

 

Session 6 - Wednesday, June 10

Before class

  • Complete reading
  • Complete WTL
  • Work on your Neighborhood Walk assignment!

During class (ppt)

After class

  • Complete (if you haven't already) your Neighborhood Walk write-up.
  • Group WTL = none
  • Private WTL: What are your own experiences of being normed in terms of gender or sexuality? For example, what is the first moment in which you had an awareness of "I'm a boy" or "I'm a girl" (or, to address sexuality, "I like girls" or "I like boys")? What messages were conveyed at that time? Do you feel this early experience has largely helped you or hindered you in your later development in terms of your gender/sexual orientation? 
  • Reading: Please explore one or more of the links from the material above

 

 

Session 7 - Monday, June 15

Before class

  • Turn in your Neighborhood Walk assignment.
  • Complete reading
  • Complete WTL (no group, just indiv – open topic)

During class

  • Conceptual work (ppt)
    • Opening anecdote: Classism and a car alarm
    • Class in America
      • Class inventory activity
      • Sharing experiences of class, class-conciousness
        • Self-disclosure: My middle name is (was) a car
      • Playing mother-may-I with American household income
        • 1979-2003, then we'll go back and do
        • 1947-1979
      • Examples of class as the Forbidden Subject
      • Considering that most of us are (or grew up in) middle class / affluence, and that many students come from less economically advantaged backgrounds, how do we prepare to teach them? Well, here's a handy Framework for Understanding Poverty. 
    • I have an agenda to sell you
      Special case of language & class
      • Ruby Payne and Understanding Poverty. 
        E.D. Hirsch and cultural literacy.
      • Ron Clark and...whatever label you want to apply to it. Sub-components
        And to be fair: James A. Banks and multicultural education; Paul Gorski and edchange.org.
      • And my agenda?
  • Closure: Team & circle game

After class

  • Grant & ray, Ch. 7
  • Select 3 or more items from the "Handouts" list on EdChange.org (I am particularly fond of the "Taco Night" piece by Paul Gorski)
  • Follow up on 2 or more items linked above from tonight's session or else identified in the ppt's Notes section
  • Work on next assignments

 

Session 8 - Wednesday, June 17

Before class

  • Complete WTL (just private, no group assignment; topic is open)
  • Work on fieldwork

During class

  • Conceptual work (ppt)
    • I have an agenda to sell you
      • Ruby Payne and Understanding Poverty. 
      • E.D. Hirsch and cultural literacy.
      • Ron Clark and...whatever label you want to apply to it. Sub-components
      • And to be fair: James A. Banks and multicultural education; Paul Gorski and edchange.org.
      • And my agenda?
    • Special case of language & class
  • Closure: Team & circle game

After class

  • WTL: nothing class-wide, just a private topic: What is your 'agenda' as an educator? True, you're there to teach, you have a standards-aligned curriculum, etc. All of this instruction, however, comes within a context – how do you hope to shape that context? Conversely, are there certain things you intend to avoid?  
  • Select 3 or more items from the "Handouts" list on EdChange.org (I am particularly fond of the "Taco Night" piece by Paul Gorski)

 

Session 9 - Monday, June 22

Before class

  • Turn in either your Field Experience paper or your Family & School Interview project
  • Private WTL: What is your 'agenda' as an educator?

During class (ppt)

  • Conceptual work: Culture & acculturation
    • Immigration in the United States
    • Culture & acculturation
    • Nexus of race, culture, and education currently colliding: NYTimes article and video.


After class

  • Reading: Grant & Ray, ch. 9 & 10
  • Assignments: Work on either Family & School interview or Field Work, whichever you haven’t done yet
  • WTL
    • Whole-class: When have you been in the cultural minority? Where was that? How did you respond / cope / adjust?
    • Brainstorming in preparation for our ELL discussion.

 

Session 10 - Wednesday, June 24

Before class

  • Work on next assignments
  • Complete reading
  • Complete WTL (group only, nothing required in the private thread) –  I'm particularly interested in what you have to say about your prior knowledge and learning interests regarding ELLs

During class (ppt)

  • Housekeeping
  • Conceptual work: Language & diversity; linguistic minorities & education
    • "Multiplied challenges" of under-served ELLs
    • Significance of language
      • Who here has studied a language other than English? Who here speaks one? (And how can you tell if someone's American?) 
      • Who here speaks a second (or third? Dare we hope for fourth??) language? What was the context of learning it? Using it? 
      • The challenges of learning another language: mental, physical, emotional – even perceptual! See Ta-Nehisi Coates on learning French; his commenters are even more useful!
      • Examples of things we don't think about
      • Language is more than words; hearing is more than de-coding sound waves – think about language and culture via Amy Walker's 21 Accents video
    • The significance of English – it's not easy to acquire!
      • ESL stages, time-to-mastery
      • Dual coding (Triple coding?)
      • Spoken vs. written (vs. txt? Chat? LOLspeak?)
      • Slang vs. 'marketplace' vs. academic
      • Formal vs. informal writing, genre writing, concept of 'voice'. Example: Mark Twain's writing of Huck Finn's father
      • Think about how you learned it. Example: 'If I was president' / 'If I were president' – formal instruction? Modeling? Or did you never learn it? Could you explain it to someone who was learning it for the first time?
      • English as a high-stakes language (and set of cultural conventions) to learn
      • Example of 'push back': English-only laws via Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement
    • Flipping the script: We are now in class in Haiti, and I will be speaking Kreyol...very badly, but I'm thinking I'll get away with it....
    • Working with ELLs
      • Awareness – who are the ELL students / families / communities in our area? What are the trends nation-wide? 
      • Standards: Meet (if you haven't already) the PA ELPS
      • Resources
      • MIND-SET
        • Out-bound (teacher-to-student) action: Translation as a human right. Think about it. 
          • Book that may be of interest: Found in Translation, particularly the anecdote about a mis-translation of 'intoxicado'
          • And look at this! Exact same name, and in fact addressing the exact same topic! Found in Translation.
        • In-bound (student-to-teacher) action: Teach me your language (or culture, pronunciation, etc.). Think of this as a form of 'reciprocal teaching' – described at NCREL; see slightly more detailed entry in Wikipedia.
  • Closure: Meet people! Go new places! Try new things! Keep growing your cultural competence! An interesting concept: http://www.language-exchanges.org/

After class

  • Reading: Grant & Ray, Ch. 11 & 12
  • Assignments: Complete EITHER the Family & School Interview or the Fieldwork paper, whichever you haven't done already
  • Class-wide Writing-to-Learn: Post one or more ideas for your Teacher Resource project
  • Private Writing-to-Learn: We're coming down toward the end of the class...how do you think it has influenced you? Is there anything in particular that you've read or seen, or is there a class discussion or assignment that you feel has given you a different perspective?

 

 

 

Session 11 - Monday, June 29

Before class

During class

After class

 

 

Session 12 - Wednesday, July 1

Before class

During class

After class

 

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