Navigating school systems- race and class
Two articles that have me thinking we’re a long way off from the kind of schooling Dewey proposed.
Tips for getting into Magnet schools in LA
For many minorities, UC Riverside is the campus of choice
dotedu
blogging about .edu stuffArchive for multiculturalism
Equity, equality, words & meanings
I understand the different now. You can spend a lifetime never really understanding what a word means. Sometimes it’s because you don’t understand or know enough about the context(s). Sometimes it’s because people around you don’t understand or use the word accurately.
It becomes more complex across languages, which is what I love about languages, the discovery of new ways of thinking. Yesterday I was talking with a German friend about the word Zuvertrauen which usually translates as confidence; faith and trust (religiously). The word has another meaning for her that isn’t captured in any of these meanings, each of which has a German equivalent. Because she’s a writer words and meanings matter to her.
Words and meanings matter to me because I rely heavily on them to understand the world. At the same time you can’t afford to be closed off to others’ meanings, particularly because meaning making through language is a political device.
Equity=fairness
equality=sameness
Intermingling worlds
Second Life and Pedagogy of the Oppressed seem to be two very different worlds at the moment for me. The people, the themes, the points of departure are incongruent and I don’t think they have to be. I don’t think I’m missing the point when I argue that liberating educational practices might be achieved with the aid of emerging technologies in ways that may not have been conceived of before. Participatory culture, the ways in which social technologies enable us to express, share, create and use artifacts and ideas, is one of those ideas that seems new, but in fact is an old notion recast to convey what is happening in our connected world.
Developing a global orientation
Along with our College of Education, we’re adopting NCREL’s 21st century skillsas a guiding framework for thinking about where we’d like to go. While it’s intended for students, I find it useful. Here are the competencies for
Global Awareness
In thinking about myself as an educator, I also want to be able to articulate and develop my global orientation. How do understand myself in a global context, working with colleagues from various cultural backgrounds and in various cultural settings? One metaphor might be a Russian doll, with its selves inside of selves. They all look alike though so I’m not sure that works. When I’m in an international context, I’m perceived first as woman and an American. To what degree do I understand my colleagues’ orientation and relationship to that? How they behave towards me and interact with me? How do I adjust my behavior? How do I want to interact? Am I really willing to collaborate, to absorb and learn? Or is my orientation and the backbone of my field narrowly focused? Who are the pundits, what are their nationalities?
I think Hofstede (in Makoto Su, Wang, Mark, Aiyelokun,
Nakan, 2005) makes a compelling argument for using nationality as a criterion for culture particularly for us in education:
“…the concept of common culture applies strictly speaking, more to societies than to nations. Nevertheless, many nations do form historically developed wholes even if they consist of clearly different groups and even if they contain less integrated minorities…there are strong
forces towards further integration: (usually) one dominant language, common mass media, a
national education system, a national army, a national political system, national representation
in sports events with a strong symbolic and emotional appeal, a national market for certain
skills, products and services.”
I’m curious what others are thinking about this. Having lived abroad for the bulk of the 90’s, I have a rather different global orientation than many of my colleagues, most of whom are American.
It’s also painfully apparent that living in the United States and having no personal connection or affliation with people in say in Spain or China, renders you hopelessly isolated and by default somewhat globally retarded. Why is that? (For my rants go to my other blog)
Comments off
China vs India: the match of the century
by Nury Vittachi
31 – 3 – 2006
The epic 21st-century contest between the Chinese dragon and the Indian tiger is at the level of ideas as well as economies. Nury Vittachi, who has a foot in each camp, referees.
Read it.
I’m still surfing on the Friedman’s The World is Flat wave. As a Dutch colleague said over a beer last year in Twente, Europe’s on its way to becoming the second-world. Really, I thought. That was before Friedman’s book had circulated.
Comments off
