Week 6: Assignment B- Teaching at the Intersections and 5 Tips for Being a Good Ally

Teaching at the Intersections and 5 Tips for Being a Good Ally 

5 Tips for Being a Good Ally

The behaviors surrounding being a good ally seems so easy. As described by the video, it can be done so easily in 5 ways.  I am pretty sure being a good ally takes practice, awareness and sometimes courage. These 5 easy tips for me, brought almost all the content/topics we have discussed in class into one space. I will remark on a couple of those tips.

 

To understand privilege was something that I didn’t have practice doing until I sat in my seat for the first time in FNED 502.  One easy tool is a privilege wheel, one can insert themselves into privilege spokes of the wheel and identify certain privilege spoke where they don’t belong. This exercise allows an individual to form their own privilege identity.  I strongly believe, as the video stated, that one must understand their own privilege and acknowledge experiences of others. Allan Johnson articulates this in his article Power, Privilege and Difference. Johnson argues, “All of us are the problem. There is no way to avoid that as long as we live in the world. But we could also make ourselves part of the solution only if we knew how.” He goes on further to say that “we all learn from our experiences, but we must investigate the experiences of others.” His words are describing Tip 1. Check your privilege, consider those who don’t have the same privileges as you and acknowledge those privileges and experiences. 

Tip 3 Speak up, not over reminded me of some elements discussed by German Lopez and his work All Lives Matter. “It’s a common conversation these days: One person says, “Black lives matter.” Then another responds, “No, all lives matter.”  This exchange is an example of speaking over and not speaking up.  Click the link below for some tips on speaking up.

https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/publications/speak-up/six-steps-to-speak-up

Teaching at the Intersections

Teaching At The Intersections argues that a teacher who takes the time to uncover and acknowledge the depth of a students’ identity is then able to support their students as individuals. “An educator must see the students’ situation through an intersectional lens: recognizing that race-, gender- and class-related circumstances are contributing to her achievement issues.  The intersectionality framework assists one to connect the influence of racism, of sexism, other modes of discrimination, where they come together (intersection) and “create sometimes unique circumstances, obstacles, barriers for people who are subject to all of those things.” 

When many identities intersect, a student may become oppressed in the ability to achieve. At times students are ill equipped to navigate their own identity. 

A powerful quote from a teacher featured in the article, “Everything in a classroom is dictated by me. Every day kids enter class, there’s an opportunity for them to be empowered or oppressed.”  The quote helped me to reinforce Lisa Delpit’s article Other People’s Children. In the article, Delpit explain that teachers must become ethnographers. In doing so teachers may be able to collect qualitative data. Collection of such data helps teachers to identify and understand the cultural and social behaviors of their students. Once the behaviors are identified the teacher is better equipped to break out of the process or skills boxes and to communicate clearly and explicitly the rules and codes of power that exists across cultures. Blending process and skills can assist students to actively learn by power acquisition and establish their own voice. That voice can be heard in the classroom as well as in society.  When students are encouraged to assert their voice, is the opposite of oppression.