Goal:
- Make the course material meaningful to your students.
- When you attempt to diversify your curriculum without meeting with your students first, it can result in a stereotyped understanding of your students cultural interests.
- Example: If you don’t get to know your students first, you might assume that all students in the southwestern US would relate to a book about the struggles migrant farmers. However, when students arrive, you may have Dominican students and students from northeastern Mexico who don’t have the same histories, cultural heritage, or interests. What happened was a tokenized understanding of what a particular type of "diverse" student cares about.
- Most textbooks make the same tokenizing assumptions! Common examples are often exclusively White and end up being more accessible to White and/or wealthy students.
- Even with the best intentions, we can inadvertently value Whiteness and European ways of being above all others.
- Ask students questions about what they want to learn about. Listen and respond accordingly!
- This does mean that you can’t just teach the same exact way every year, but there are a lot of resources to help!
- Closely evaluate each aspect of how you teach. Consider if some students are being valued over others, even if it’s unintentional.
- Make every effort to call on and engage all students in the classroom.
- Take note of which students you call on more and whose names you learn faster. Why do you think that is?