It’s important to think about the language used: is developing a sense of agency another way of saying developing a critical consciousness, or are these meaningfully different? Utilize the reflection guiding questions provided by the instructor in the course reading folders and write 5 pages reading reflection. You are only required to use sources from this course。
What can we learn from and how can we use the model for shifting discourses around ASL and Deaf culture, how to educate policy-makers and the public in order to influence reform in the broader education sphere?
• Are there important differences in the way these different scholars discuss these processes of educating non-dominant students or are they interchangeable discussions?
• Are we developing more knowledge about complex processes or more nuanced and differentiated ways of saying similar things about a fairly simple and straightforward process?
• Consider the role of the teacher and the teacher’s background: note the white woman who is “culturally black” and engages in good teaching with predominately African American students. Is being culturally black a form of, or the inverse of, Collins’ social blackness? It’s an interesting discussion on the social construction of culture.
• What connections can you make between this week’s readings and previous examples of students and teachers who either maintained the status quo or resisted the deficit/harmful structural practices to student groups in schools (e.g. the teachers in Foley who seemed to fear La Raza and a conservative school board, resorting to a bland, unthreatening formalism to avoid trouble v. teachers in the Hill-Collins articles who created safe spaces)?
• What are some of the classroom practices (or teacher training) that need to happen according to these authors? Are they realistic?
• If you are going into teaching, do you think you will be able to enact these forms of resistance in your classrooms? If so, what? If not, why?
• Why do you think certain groups are constantly portrayed negatively in mass media despite the evidence of strong community bonds and histories of activism – often time against great odds? Do you think things have changed in some ways? If not, what progress is left to be made (specifically as it relates to education)?
