“This book is an attempt to…provide a Rethinking Schools vision of anti-racist, social justice education that is both practical for teachers and sharp in analysis” (Au, 2009, p. 1)

“ [It] is an attempt to reclaim multicultural education as part of a larger, more serious struggle for social justice, a struggle that recognizes the need to fight against systematic racism, colonization, and cultural oppression that takes place through our schools” (p. 3).

According to Au, multicultural education:is grounded in the lives of our studentsdraws on the voices and perspectives of those

“being studied”teaches through dialoguecritically supports students’ identitiesembraces and recognizes the value of

students’ home languagescritiques school knowledge, knowledge that

has historically been Eurocentricinvites students to engage in real social and

political issues (p.3)

Definition continuedcreates classroom environments where students

can meaningfully engage with each otheris rigorous, and recognizes that academic rigor

is impossible without itconnects to the entire curriculumis rooted in an anti-racist struggle about which

knowledge and experience should be included in the curriculum

celebrates social movements and the fight against nativism, xenophobia, and white supremacy

explores how social, economic, and cultural institutions contribute to inequality (p. 3)

Section 1: Anti-Racist Orientations

Addresses the role of race and culture in schools

Focuses on anti-racist orientations necessary to bring into the classroom

Explores the relationship between teaching, culture and privilege

Recognizes the historical and institutional inequalities we see today

Example: Chapter 8, Once Upon a Genocide: Columbus in Children’s Literature By Bill BigelowChildren’s literature contributes to the perpetuation

of colonialists perceptions to children, promoting hegemony in our curriculum.

Most texts focus on Columbus’ quest for adventure as opposed to his quest for wealth and usually end accounts after his first landing, omitting how he enslaved, attacked, and killed the indigenous Tainos he encountered “He ordered every Taino on Hispaniola 14 years and

older to deliver a regular quota of gold. Those who failed had their hands chopped off. In two years of the Columbus regime, perhaps a quarter of a million people died” (p. 74)

Section 2: Language, Culture, and Power

“Language is central to culture, and how we understand and treat language in our classrooms speaks to issues of power both inside and outside of education” (p. 4)

Connections between LanguageCultureBlack EnglishBilingual educationCultural norms for communicationClassroom communicationsStudent Identities

Example: Chapter 16, Raising Children’s Cultural VoicesBy Berta Rosa Berriz “Our students are African Americans and Latinos

whose family cultures differ significantly from mainstream U.S. culture. Thus, they move between two cultural worlds—their home culture and the mainstream culture” (p. 148).

Describes the two-way structure to their team taught Spanish immersion program-the students learn from one teacher for two weeks in English and the other for two weeks in Spanish

Shares their use of writing and art with autobiographies to draw students cultural experiences into the classrooms

Explains the use of a sheltering language development strategy to scaffold writing through talk

Section 3: Transnational Identities, Multicultural Classrooms

“[They] look at what it means to be an anti-racist, social justice educator within the context of immigration, globalization, and colonization—where our students’ identities are transnational, both rooted in the United States and not rooted in the United States” (p. 4).

Cultures and communities are dynamic, not staticCultural identity can be confusing and relativeStudent groups can be “stretched” out as

opposed to grouped together, sharing their unique experiences

Example: Chapter 18, What Happened to the Golden Door: How my students taught me about immigration. By Linda Christensen “Turning over the classroom circle to my students

allowed them to become the “experts” and me to become their student. While I lost control and power over the curriculum and was forced to question some key assumptions of my teaching, I gained an incredible amount of knowledge—and so did they” (p. 179).

Students teach their classmates about immigration in their own family.

Students start to see each other as unique and don’t make glaring generalizations as easily.

Section 4: Confronting Race in the Classroom

“…provides concrete examples of anti-racist teaching at the elementary and secondary levels, in multiple grades and across multiple subject areas” (p. 4).

How teachers have critically addressed race, culture, issues of equality and social justice in their classrooms

Trials and successes associated with raising these complicated issues

Example: Chapter 28, Brown Kids Can’t Be in Our Club By Rita Tenorio Principal and former first grade teacher,

Tenorio shares practical classroom strategies for teachers of young children to address already apparent issues of color and race.

Addresses developmental concernsDescribes “Me Pockets” an activity to involve

families and start dialogue about cultureTeaches respect through communication and

social skillsConverses about and studies skin and skin color

Strengths and Weaknesses

I chose Reteaching Multicultural Education: Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice as a way to answer the plaguing question about theory: how do we apply it in the real world?

It is overwhelming for many teachers just to come to terms with their own biases, but then to realize they may be inadvertently contributing to the social injustices in society that drew them to teaching in the first place is an overwhelming process.

There needs to be a starting point where teachers can take small steps towards change. Au and the authors of this text, not only help take teachers through this process, but give them something concrete to look at as examples for how they can change too.

ReferencesAu, W. (Ed.). (2009). Rethinking multicultural education:

Teaching for racial and cultural justice. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

Banks, J. (1993). Multicultural education: development dimensions and challenges. Phi Delta Kappan. 75 (1), 22-28.

de Marrais, K.B. & LeCompte, M. D. (1999). Theory and its influences on the purposes of schooling. In The way schools work: A sociological analysis of education (3rd ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1-22.

Friere, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum Books.