The Privilege Walk. Understanding Our Students; Understanding Ourselves

Transcription

1 The Privilege Walk Understanding Our Students; Understanding Ourselves LAVC Core Value: Mutual Respect, Diversity, and Access to Education The college promotes access to educational opportunities for all in a welcoming, supportive, and respectful environment that provides a place for critical thinking, learning, and personal growth.

2 The Walk: Debrief Overall, how did the exercise make you feel? Where were you in the line? How did your position in the line make you feel? Were there any particular statements that were more impactful than others? How do you think our student s feel participating in this exercise?

3 There s always going to be some inequality, but the fact that some of us were steps away from the finish line and some of us were no where near it shows that things need to change. We re all different in some way or another and face our daily battles every day. If people realized that and empowered each other's differences more than hold them back, maybe everyone would start to feel more normal. It felt weird looking at how ahead some people were, or how behind they were. I didn t even want to run because I knew I wouldn t get there first. I caught myself cheating without even noticing at first, I was taking small steps back. I was just doing this because I was ashamed of relating to the negative questions. I mean it didn t really feel like anything other than it was hot. I felt myself wanting more take-a-step-forward statements, and it was frustrating that I couldn t. I realized there are many things you can t change, but I like how at the end we were all able to get to the finish line. This experience was very surprising. I was expecting similar results because we are all in a community college. However, I was amazed of what a huge difference the person in the front of me had with the person in the back. one of the statements was if my parents had encouraged me to go to college. This statement means a lot to me because coming to college and graduating means becoming successful it means I will be able to help my parents and my family.

4 Knapsack Of Privilege Students come into our classrooms with different types of privilege White Privilege Male Privilege Heterosexual Privilege Class Privilege just to name a few How do you think these privileges affect our student s experience at LAVC? How do you think these privileges shape your own biases and the way you treat students?

5 Looking-Glass Self We understand ourselves by how we think others see us We shape these images for students It is a part of our responsibility to shape these images for our students, and it matters! On several occasions I felt judged by faculty members I am bald and I am pretty sure they automatically think I am some type of thug Once the teacher put me in the front row because he said, I might be disruptive, class hadn t even started, I had never said a word before, I didn t understand

6 I once got a comment on a paper that it was obvious English isn t my first language. I have to admit, it hurt and made me so discouraged. this teacher would always skip me, ignore me, or act like they never saw my hand raised, even marked me absent a couple of times. At first I was uncomfortable, but I would accept it because I am aware that not many people can understand me the very first time. This gave me a feeling of loneliness because not only was the teacher making fun of me but also no one stood up against them, not even me.

7 The Good News: What Can We Do? Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (hooks, 1994) Start Seeing Diversity: The Basic Guide to an Anti-Bias Classroom (Wolpert, 1999) Continue a dialogue with each other; with students Incorporate diversity into our curriculums How would it benefit students of a multi-ethnic, multiracial urban school if the teaching staff evaluated students behaviors from the point of view of cultural relativism rather than ethnocentrism? (Shaefer & Feldman, 2015)

8 THANK YOU!