msleahhbic:

teachplaysing said: A lot of my friends in high school had the same ideas… they couldn’t grasp how being white, living in the midwest, and going to a private school made them atypical in many regards. Fortunately, most of them have learned better since then.

teachopotamus said: When my 17 year old cousin asked me where I wanted to do my ST, I told her I was planning on going to one of the VERY rural schools in southern Oklahoma (200 students in K-12th.) She then informed me that I, “shouldn’t be around people who were…

- Exactly. I feel that as teachers we need to make ourselves more aware of the wide range of student backgrounds that we may encounter. The American education system is so diverse and we can’t take our own experiences in school as the standard. Days like this just affirm for me that every teacher should take some kind of sociology class and some type of gender studies course. Don’t get me started on the day someone told me in class how they don’t think that gay teachers/gay students don’t have the right to talk about their personal lives…. Or the day I was told by a classmate that there is nothing wrong with traditional gender roles (Note: she is a woman).

I deal with these kind of people most of the time in the education department. Most of the people in the department are pretty much the stereotypes of White, Christian, Southern, married people. Most like it their way and don’t want to think about other groups. Even when they “get it,” they don’t really get it; all they usually take from lessons about diversity is that certain things offend certain people and they don’t look much further than that. Don’t get me started on what they say about… well, pretty much everything.

I definitely think that courses on psychology, philosophy, sociology, ethnic studies, etc. would benefit. Personally, I wish there was something more to my art education major. Most of it is art courses and a handful of education classes, which is fine but I want to touch more on art therapy and how to incorporate that as a teacher and other things that I can’t think of right now because my brain is malfunctioning.