Teaching multicultural diversity: process, courage, and transformative learning.

Abstract

Teaching multicultural diversity as the mere acquisition of factual awareness based on intellectual and mastery learning may be leading to a false sense of competency. The purpose of this article is to present methods used by the author in teaching multicultural diversity (MCD). The pedagogy presented is based in part on multicultural education, adult education, and transformative learning theory.

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This article is based on my teaching multicultural diversity (MCD) to adult students. The class examines social, emotional, and psychological impacts of oppression, discrimination, and racism related to ethnic and racial minority status. Marilyn Cochran-Smith's (2000) challenge to educators is descriptive of what I present here. She states that educators should unlearn racism by "interrogating racist assumptions that are deeply imbedded in the courses and curricula that we teach, owing our often unknowing complicity in maintaining existing systems of privilege and oppression, and grappling with our own failures to produce the kinds of changes we advocate" (p. 157). Teachers of MCD integrate self-awareness, critical reflection, and reconstruction of previous assumptions that will contribute to transformative learning via an experiential and process-focused approach.

Teaching Approach and Philosophy

According to transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1991), our assumptions must be examined from alternative perspectives, critiqued, critically reflected upon, and changed. The changes are deeper than learning to master the material and the addition of new knowledge. Teaching MCD with a transformative approach is to go beyond achieving cognitive and intellectual changes. Brookfield (1990) refers to transformative learning occurring when what was once was thought permanent and stable was suddenly observed to be relative and situation specific. Emotionality, challenge, reflection, and unexpectedness as used by Brookfield are also critical elements in teaching MCD.

Banks (1997) views teaching ethnic studies at a transformational level where students view issues from the perspectives of the ethnic groups being studied. I take this one step further and encourage students to participate in what they are studying. Oppression and racism is not something that affects others only, but is a reciprocal process whereby they are encouraged to focus on the consequences of oppression and racism for themselves. If students do not actively participate in such activities, then they are encouraged to explore how they benefit from past and current oppression and racism.

In order for MCD to be effective at a transformative level the teacher needs to have the courage to teach sensitive material and issues about oppression, discrimination, and racism, as they really exist not only in society but also within the very institutions where the courses are taught. A decision needs to be made whether the course will be taught in an intellectualized and safe manner or whether one will bear with and push through discomfort and resistance in order to achieve learning at a significant and meaningful level.

View From the Inside Out

When considering effective teaching one needs to not only consider how one teaches the class, but also consider who the teacher is (Palmer, 1997). I am a Mexican American male--older than the students and originally from a lower American social and economic class. Although I have a doctorate degree and have managed to move into the middle class, I gradually reveal who I am by imbedding my own experiences within the topics of the MCD course. Presenting myself as a bicultural individual living in two cultures and having a perspective from inside the experiences of oppression and racism results in meaningful learning. I have found that the view from the inside out contributes significantly to learning about MCD.

Process Preparation

It is helpful and important for students to clearly understand the objectives of the class and what the class will be like. I let them know what I intend to do and how I will do it. I make them aware of potential reactions they might have. For the majority, multicultural diversity is an entirely new subject that represents an unknown. Therefore, providing structure and exposing expectations at the beginning is important. A focus on process--or an awareness of what is actually occurring in the class--is explained. Students are prepared for process questions such as "What is happening now? .... What is another way of looking at what we are discussing now?"

Students also know what to expect in terms of possible reactions they might have to controversial topics and issues. I let them know that annoying, frustrating, and even angry feelings may occur. I encourage them to become aware of their feelings and to see what the feelings are about. The aim is to have students learn about themselves through the reactions they have to the subject matter. It is expected that they will pause and reflect on their thoughts and feelings. They are encouraged to actively critique their previous assumptions in order to achieve a new level of awareness.

It is important that the instructor be aware of the process and the class dynamics. Unlike teaching many other academic courses,--teaching MCD requires an instructor who stays in contact with students consistently. In essence, the instructor must listen closely and remain open to students' feelings and emotions during the learning process (Palmer, 1997).

MCD Teaching Methods

The methods that I have used to reach the most students in a MCD class includes a combination of brief lectures, small group discussion, experiential exercises, fieldwork exercises, role-play, reaction papers, guest speakers, audio-visual materials, personal dialogue, and journal writing.

Sensitive issues such as racism and privilege may be difficult for some students to deal with (Lawrence, 1998) and may lead to the development of resistance (Jackson, 1999). In order to manage resistance, I use successive approximation--an approach with a gradual increase of topic sensitivity. Factual topics such as immigration and population statistics are presented first. Issues such as cultural gender roles are presented next and next those related to gender, age, educational and occupational background, and language are presented. Culture, ethnicity, and race follow as the course progresses. As students become more acquainted with me and the other students, issues with oppression, discrimination, and racism are presented. The use of videos such as Skin

Deep (Reid, 1995) and The Color of Fear (Wah, 1994) bring issues to life and result in emotional reactions from students that are then processed, reflected upon, discussed in small groups, and written about in reaction papers.

Lectures are helpful to begin the class at a cognitive and intellectual level. The presentation of facts and figures helps to provide continuity for many students due to structures that are similar to those of other classes. If the lecture is based on material from printed sources, the teacher must be careful that the material does not perpetuate stereotypes. Information must also be current, accurate, and from reliable and authentic multicultural sources.

As the class moves beyond an instructor-centered course, small-group discussion is an essential element of MCD teaching. Small groups are a way of involving students who would otherwise not become involved. When dealing with sensitive and challenging MCD issues--a large class can feel intimidating for some. In addition to feeling safer, students have more time to talk about their own personal experiences contributing to self-directed and collaborative learning. Feedback from students about MCD small-group learning has always been positive.

Some students can learn vicariously if demonstration modeling is used. I have found that by modeling students get much more out of the class. I videotape role-plays and then use the videos for presentation and discussion of multicultural interactions. An awareness of students' reactions to the exercise is emphasized. The objective is not to learn rigid behaviors but to identify assumptions, thoughts, and feelings that may impede the development of open communication during a multicultural encounter. Interactions will be much more positive if students can learn how to be themselves and to be open and attentive to the other person. Role-playing is used to prepare students for multicultural interactions during class visitations by multicultural community speakers and during site visits to multicultural communities.

I invite speakers from the community who have expertise in varying multicultural diversity areas who can bring to class a different perspective from the instructor or the text. A question and discussion session can provide students with learning relevant to their own needs. During these discussions the instructor needs to act as a facilitator to insure that the discussion is relevant, meaningful, and productive. Interaction with community speakers can lead to a more intensified level of MCD learning--the multicultural community site visit.

I sometimes have students visit local communities that represent ethnic/racial groups and multicultural environments. Community visits can be an intimidating experience for some students and issues of safety need to be considered. A required paper includes the students' description of what they learned about themselves as they interacted in a multicultural environment. They respond to questions such as "What were your behaviors like? What were you thinking and feeling?" Class discussions of these visits are usually very informative and provide an opportunity for students to collaborate in their MCD learning.

Resistance, Courage, and Dialogue

Learning that contributes to students' emancipation can be anxiety provoking (Brookfield, 1990; Mezirow, 1990). Teaching multicultural diversity can exacerbate anxiety and contribute to resistance (Jackson, 1999; Tatum, 1992). Defensiveness and resistance will contribute to some students wanting to avoid such feelings and therefore prevent significant learning (Valdez, 2001). In this situation, the instructor needs to go beyond a comfort zone and venture into facilitating expression of discomfort, avoidance, and fear. One way that I have done this is to have a dialogue with my classes.

The dialogue is used to make my own feelings known to the students; feelings that at times mirror students' experiences. I give students an opportunity to ask me questions about my own experiences with discrimination, oppression, and racism. I also disclose my own contribution to a system that oppresses others and I admit to my own unearned privileges, biased acts and feelings that may contribute to the oppression of others. I present myself as having such qualities simply because of the cultural environment where I live. I have found that dialogue of this type is liberating for the students and for myself. This dialogue provides something similar to what Rogers called the "freedom to learn" (Rogers, 1969), which hooks sees as the "practice of freedom" (hooks, 1994), and others identify as emancipatory learning (Cranton, 1994). I believe dialogue in teaching MCD is a critical and necessary process needed for what Mezirow (1990) calls transformative learning.

I want to emphasize that learning MCD as presented here is a voluntary process. While there are requirements that all students must meet, there are also alternatives for those who choose to learn in a manner and pace that feels safe for them. Students who do not talk much during class can express themselves during small-group sessions, or with the teacher during individual meetings, or through journal writing. Feedback can be provided through a one-on-one interaction between teacher and student or through a written journal dialogue (Valdez, 2001). The result is that students feel they are listened to, acknowledged, and supported. There is also a debriefing after each class. Students are reminded that if they have unresolved feelings they need to talk to someone they feel comfortable with. They are also reminded that the teacher, a teaching assistant, or other faculty members who have volunteered to be available are there to listen and provide support.

Conclusion

Not all MCD classes are taught in exactly the same format or sequence as presented here. Setting conditions that allow spontaneous learning to take place contribute to a course that cannot be rigidly fixed. Teaching MCD is also a process of continuous development. I teach but I also learn. I always return to the students what I receive from them and in doing so the process of teaching the class changes.

The results of my teaching have been for the most part positive. Students describe their experiences as significant in contributing to how their views of oppression and racism change. Some students find it difficult to explain their MCD learning experience. The only way they can describe it is as a transformation. However, not everything has been well received. Similar to others whose teaching challenged students in unsettling ways (hooks, 1994), many students find it hard to accept MCD and my teaching. I expect this to happen since the giving up of much of what has been assumed as true and ideas, such as admitting to unearned privileges and benefiting from oppression and racism, is hard to accept.

I believe that a long term and meaningful contribution to students' learning happens outside of the restricted intellectual criteria used to measure learning. Students have contacted me years later about how much they learned about themselves and MCD. Students also wrote about bow they became aware of what they had learned when they were given feedback about their effective MCD work. These examples show that transformative learning reveals itself in the real world much more clearly. Perhaps much more accurate and positive results about teaching MCD would be revealed if, as Brookfield (1995) says "Instead of teachers being evaluated only on whether they pleased students (by means of forms that ask students whether or not they liked the teacher or the course), there would be items on end-of-course evaluations that would probe the extent to which students felt they had been stretched, challenged, questioned, and introduced to alternative perspectives" (pp. 252-253).

References

Banks, J. A. (1997). Teaching strategies for ethnic studies (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Brookfield, S. D. (1990). The skillful teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Cochran-Smith, M. (2000). Blind vision: Unlearning racism in teacher education. Harvard Educational Review, 70(2), 157-190.

Cranton, P. (1994). Understanding and promoting transformative learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress. New York: Routledge.

Jackson, L. C. (1999). Ethnocultural resistance to multicultural training: Students and faculty. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 5(1), 27-36.

Lawrence, S. M. (1998). Unveiling positions of privilege: A hands-on approach to understanding racism. Teaching of Psychology, 25(3), 198-200.

Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Mezirow, (1990). Fostering critical reflection in adulthood. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Palmer, P. J. (1997). The courage to teach. Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Reid, F. R. (Producer & Director) (1995). Skin deep [Videorecording]. Berkeley, CA: Iris Films Production.

Rogers, C. R. (1969). Freedom to learn. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company

Tatum, B. D. (1992). Talking about race, learning about racism: The application of racial identity development theory in the classroom. Harvard Educational Review, 62(1), 1-24.

Valdez, J. N. (2001, August). Moving beyond resistance: Journal writing and multicultural counseling training effectiveness. Symposium presentation. American Psychological Association, 109th Convention, San Francisco.

Wah, L. M. (Producer & Director), & Hunter, M. (Co-producer) (1994). The color of fear [Videorecording]. Oakland, CA: A Stir Fry Production.

Jesse N. Valdez, University of Denver, CO

Valdez, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor, Licensed Psychologist, University of Denver College of Education.