Multicultural/Inclusive Learning & Teaching Philosophy

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Multicultural Learning & Teaching Is Everybody’s Everyday Work. Period.

Ilene D. Alexander

STUDENTS

capable of learningcapable of learning on their own

capable of learning in other wayscapable of resilient creativity

LEARNERS

Two-Eyed Learning

Adult Learning

1. THINK DIALECTICALLYrecognize contextual, move between• objective/subjective• universal/specific

2. EMPLOY PRACTICAL LOGICattend to internal features of given situation • reason in divergent, deep, critical ways

3. KNOW HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW• become conscious of learning • perspective taking• adjust ways of learning situationally• discern grounds for decision-making

4. ENGAGE IN CRITICAL REFLECTIONassess the match between • earlier rules / practices / practical theories, and• emerging understandings in interpersonal, work,

and political lives as well as learning life

“I need people to see me as an individual, yet entertain the possibility that I am also shaped by

and bring strengths from my cultural ways of doing things.” Mikayla

Teachers and students must engage in multiple of ways of knowing, making sense of multiple sources, realities, solutions, conflicts,

relationships, experiences and methods.

“I need to learn and work in a variety of ways. Life is complex and so should learning be

complex.” Marco

What if we cast the classroom as a net of relationships with people who care about each other’s learning as well as their own?

Integration involves attempts to stimulate, test, and perhaps experience new understandings, and social, personal configurations.

Ira de A. Reid: Journal of Negro Education, 1954

• bias and curiosity• hierarchy and yearning • certainty and whimsy

• concepts and creativity• grammars and innovations

• fear and possibility• facts and discovery

Potential Coalitions

Purposeful Communities

Participatory Collaborations

Principled Considerations

Pragmatic Connections

Pertinent Contact

Poignant Conjecture

Practical Consensus

Plucky Climates

P C

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

William Faulkner

1847 “blue book” report conclusions: the Welsh are ignorant, lazy, immoral

among the causes of this:•Welsh language •nonconformity

•teachers speak only English, provide only English language text-books

GUILT

is not a feeling.It is an intellectual mask to a feeling.

Fear is a feeling. Fear is real.

Read Write Speak D

raw:

To Participate

To Learn

To Change

The work of a teacher involves bridging … recognition of meaning attribution & the power that emotions, values, and personal experience have in shaping interpretation of information.