In case it was keeping you up at night:
Instructional Strategies, Journal One and, of course, Journal Two
Something up with Which I Will Not Put
The OLD blog by Maggie
In case it was keeping you up at night:
Instructional Strategies, Journal One and, of course, Journal Two
You posed an interesting, well-founded question about a focus on multiculturalism, or diversity, or whatever you want to call it. My answer is yes, it can and does get in the way, unless you have a very strong administration with the guts and the common sense not to be cowed by screams of racism, because you told a minority student that he or she needs to come to class on time; or that an essay or draft is not “done,” until it’s turned in. And then their are the students with learning or other disabilities; we all have challenges, some of them greater than others, and the ones in my few years of teaching who expected the most special treatment and the most breaks were among those with the lesser challenges. They seemed blind to the blind young woman who walked with the world’s longest white cane; she had grown up under “educator” parents who decided she was stupid because she couldn’t see. Finally, someone tested her, discovered a high level of intelligence, began to help her connect with all available resources, and she took off, rocket-style. No one was ever going to get in her way, and everyone knew to make room, when Karen was on the move. So what kind of student did I get? A middle-aged woman who had never learned to type, didn’t have a computer, and expected an exception to my policy that essays had to be typed or word processed. She was so “humiliated” that she dropped all of her classes that semester.
Mercy.