Inquiry Post #1

As I begin to start posting on here, I'd like to introduce to you, my reader, the topic at large for this TE 408 inquiry project. As a student who belongs to several different minority groups, I feel that as a future teacher I would like to use my minority background to help connect with my future students. As I've attended different seminars and participated in on-campus groups at Michigan State University (or MSU), as well as worked as a resident mentor within the residence halls, I feel that it's an important factor for any person, especially a teacher, to understand issues involving race and sexual orientation within the classroom.

I plan to cover things such as harrassment and how the teacher can facilitate a positive classroom atmosphere where students respect each other (as well as the teacher and other faculty); as well as discussing topics of inclusion of racial and sexual identities within the curriculum and the classroom in general.

As I've gone through the teacher's education program at MSU, I've come across quite a bit of information involving this topic and through this project I'd like to group it together and make it more clear to myself and hopefully make it public to other teachers as a resource for dealing with the issues that involve race and sexual identity within their classroom settings.

After reading from Weinstein's book on classroom management, I was touched by something that was said...

"It's not about whether or not one is racist, but rather, HOW racist one is and what one can do to change that."


As I educate myself on my journey, I hope to come across some of the answers to the following questions:
- How can a teacher incorporate minorities into the classroom without losing sight of the goal of the curriculum?
- What is race? What is sexual identity and orientation?
- How do these two affect the classroom? And why?
- How common is harrassment based on race and based on sexual identity?
- What are ways a teacher can prevent harrassment?
- Why is it important to be aware of these?
- Why is it important to create a safe classroom?
- What's the difference between racism in an urban setting, a suburban setting and a rural setting?
- What's the difference between sexual identity harrassment in an urban, suburban and rural setting?

... And more... but I'm sure I will try and cover as many of these as I can and probably add and subtract some as I go along.

The following are resources that I've gathered for this first report...
A Class Divided
This link is a 5-part video from PBS about a teacher who did a controversial lesson about race relations. Although the students are elementary-aged, I feel like this could be adapted to older students and make a point to them as well.

Incidents of Harrassment and how they were dealt with
This is an interesting link with different incidences and how the school handled them and how the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory analyzes the situation and how it was handled. It just gives some interesting insight into the types of things that a teacher may have to deal with.

EdChange
This is a great link for resources on eradicating harrassment in the classroom.

Teaching Tolerance
I've used this resource for tools as a mentor. It's got some great information and great tips on creating positive change within the classroom setting.

Multicultural Lesson Plan Ideas
Ideas for teachers to incorporate multicultural identities within the classroom.

Hand-Outs on Multiculturalism and Racism
Interesting hand-outs for teachers on breaking down racism, paradigm shifts and fact sheets.