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Molly, you did a great job of highlighting figures in history that can add multiculture to education. I think one of the great ways this is done is through Black History Month. Within this month, students learn and discover tones of multicultural individuals that have helped shaped the world we live in today. How else can we incorporate more cultures into the curriculum like this?

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Rachel, I think you did a great job of presenting the data on the results of old policies and student not seeing themselves in the curriculum. You also brought up the very controversial topic that schools still seem segregated. This is a controversial topic because it ties to certain public schools getting more state funding than other public schools. The divvying up of state funds is based off the standardized assessment scores. So the schools that have high assessment scores are usually schools that are already providing their students with a lot of resources. The same amount of funding is not usually given to students in lower income districts because students from those school districts aren't getting those extra resources and scoring high on the assessments. Since immigrants coming in to the country go to the lower income districts, that diversity is not added to the higher income schools.

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Molly, thank you again for a wonderful presentation! I truly appreciated your information on the shift in curriculum and how educators can implement MCE into their classrooms. Also, I enjoyed the personal reflection questions. Personally, race affects me deeply on both a personal and professional level - my fiancé is African American and attended the school district in which I teach. He did not have a positive school experience at all, and it inspires me every day to make school a positive and safe place for my students, who are all African American or biracial. I believe there are so many wonderful things that we can learn from other cultures. As I have mentioned previously, MCE is only beneficial. While it may be uncomfortable or tricky for some educators at times, when done respectfully and thoughtfully it is truly enlightening for everyone.

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My biggest takeaway from your presentation is the lack of representation we give nonwhite historical figures. I think that's something really important to consider especially as we start to look at new textbooks for social studies. Great presentations!

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Molly, thanks for your great presentation on multicultural education.  This is definitely a topic I feel compelled to study more in hopes that I can be more intentional about included multicultural themes into my classroom.  I appreciated your ideas on this mindset of shifts within the curriculum that must take place.  I also really liked the idea of reading multicultural storybooks to improve tolerance an positive attitudes towards our diverse cultures.  This is a practical idea I'll definitely use with my first graders.

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Thank you so much for your presentation. You did a very nice job! I liked the theories you discussed, Critical race theory is something that I have never heard of before.

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I, too, teach in the same district as Cole and a couple of others where 91% of the student population are white. I think this is tough from a teacher perspective. As you stated that 80% of teachers are white and we don't really think about the differences, or even know how to teach to the different cultures. I do appreciate all the resources you provided. I will be using these in my classroom.

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Rachel, it's clear that this is a topic you are passionate about and I'm thankful for the knowledge you shared in your presentation! I loved your emphasis on teachers learning to talk about and discuss racism. So often we shy away from these topics because we don't want students (or ourselves) to feel uncomfortable, yet it's incredibly valuable and necessary that we have these hard conversations. Thanks for sharing!

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I loved that you pointed out that "not all powerful historical figures are white". I would add on to that that not all are white males! We are constructing our social studies curriculum at our school and we had made it a point that we need more mentor texts that would be considered diverse reads.

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I enjoyed listening to your projected statistics regarding how our classes are projected to include a greater population of students of color. I teach in a school that is predominately white. Last year, a hispanic student joined our class. My students welcomed him but it was evident they had never been around a student who looked different than they do. Considering your projected statistics, I think my school might not experience those numbers as much as others but I do believe that as time goes on, we will see a change in demographics at my school.

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I have learned about the importance of including a variety of races within multicultural education. I hadn't put as much of an importance on the blinders we're putting on when we don't advocate for change and I have not focused on white privilege. Thanks for opening my eyes to new aspects that I need to consider not only in the classroom but in day to day life.

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When I was listening to your presentation, I was reminded of my Literacy Theory course I took last spring. If you haven't taken it, after our group discussions on Flipgrid, I think you would enjoy it. Dr. Handsfield connects with critical race theory and I think it resonates with your message. One vignette in her book discusses a 1st grade classroom that is invited to bring an artifact into the classroom that related to their topic, Dr. Martin Luther King. One student brought a picture of protesters in Ferguson, Missouri and discussed (in his own terms) racial profiling and police brutality that are still present today. The classroom teacher, caught off guard, told him, "we're not going to talk about that today." Although I can imagine that it was unexpected and I know that sometimes it's easier to think about it and come back but I feel that the fact that they were discussing Martin Luther King and that was her response must have left an impression on her class and especially the student who brought it up. I don't know if she thought it through and revisited the topic at a later date, but I hope she did.

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As an educator, of predominantly white students. I feel like it is my job to show them the different perspectives from people of other races. These students will grow up in white households, with their families customs and beliefs whether they are positive or negative. Therefore, as a teacher, I can shed some light on the amazing leaders from our nations history. I love the idea of using inquiry based learning with multicultural education. The students would be able to learn so much. Another step I have taken this year has been to build up the diversity within my library. Scholastic has a whole section called We Need Diverse Books. I make sure to buy several books from that section each month and then I showcase them on a bookshelf in my library. This has helped students read more about these amazingly different perspectives and start some great discussions in my classroom around multicultural education.

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I teach in a school that is primarily white. Teaching about race in education is a very one sided discussion. I have had students research different perspectives, write letters from different races, and read books, watch articles, and read books written by people of other races. I am not sure if this is meaningful or if it helps them understand. However, I am not sure how to enhance their learning, especially when they are primarily white.

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Molly - I enjoyed your presentation! I personally enjoyed your slides on white privilege and your reflection questions that went along with them. I love that you gave us information about how to accomplish a multi-cultural education curriculum. I find it difficult to address this in my classroom and finding the time to do this. I think that since I teach in a predominately white school that I don't always see the importance of teaching students to accept others from different backgrounds. However, this is such an important topic that needs discussed. I find it difficult to find other ways to do this aside from mentor texts. Does anyone have suggestions for this?

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I teach in a school that is prototypical of many of the schools you described: Middle Class/White. In my experiences, students are not exposed to collaborating with those from different backgrounds. In my discussion this week, we talked about "heroes and holidays". I feel that I am more of a "hero and holiday teacher". Meaning, that discuss different cultural holidays and heroes, but not much more in terms of race. I discussed that I need to do a better job of this in the curriculum that I teach. I also feel that as a school we need to do a better job of finding ways to implement this into the curriculum.

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Rachel-  You did a really great job at presenting on multicultural education with a focus on race.  I think one of the biggest issues of race in our schools deals with the fact that people either don't see that there is a problem or ignore it.  There is a problem with our education system when dealing with race and it needs to be addressed.  While researching many topics in the past three weeks from NCLB and Restorative Justice, I have seen similar research on the segregation of schools.  It is still a "thing" and it has to be addressed.  I was wondering if you thought that multicultural education needs  to start in a classroom and work its way larger or if it be a large initiative that moves its way into the classrooms?  Personally, I try what I can to bring multicultural education into the classroom through diverse texts (mentor and chapter books) and topics.  I would love to hear other's ideas on how to incorporate it into my curriculum.

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Molly- You did a great job of addressing the issues of race in our schools today. A lot of what you mentioned have also stuck out to me in my diversity class. The idea of "heroes and holiday" and color blindness. One of the major issues that teachers have today is they say they don't see color. This is a problem because it just suppresses the issue. We need to bring out the differences in our system. Personally, I have been very luck y to have taught in two very diverse schools. This has taught me a lot about multiculturalism, but something I want and need to improve on is incorporating multicultural education into my classroom. Next year I will be teaching in my hometown that is predominantly white. I feel it is still important, if not more important to still make multicultural education a goal. Currently, I use texts as the main way to bring other races and culture to my classroom. I teach fifth grade and would love to hear form others on how to make sure I embed it throughout and not just around the "heroes and holidays".

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Do you have any advice for how to address any dissent when students or parents disagree that white privilege exists? I teach in a semi-rural area just north of Springfield and there are a lot of hardworking (and affluent) families in the area , and as a result, they think that there is no such thing as white privilege since their parents are hard workers.

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You describe how students of color are mainly left out of the curriculum and you gave the example that Texas Board of Education wanted to describe slavery as "Work Program." Are you aware of any textbooks that exist or school districts out their that focus on people of color in their education? Right now I feel like there should be a second US History requirement where the focus is rooted in multicultural education instead of the main non-diverse narrative that is typically taught in our schools.

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Molly, thanks for a great presentation. One of your discussion questions asked us to share our experiences with a multicultural curriculum. As much as I really don't like our ELA curriculum (for various reasons) they do make sure the characters are multicultural. Like you said roughly 37% of students are not white and that is expected to increase. The texts we read need to reflect that. We read stories about African-Americans, Chinese, Indians, and white people. However, I've noticed that the characters of different races come from very small books. So while I think it is definitely a step in the right direction, we spend 20 pages talking about Chinese children and their culture and we spend probably close to 800 pages on white children. I think we need to even the playing field a little bit more and help that 37% of non-white students find connections to people they can relate to in stories that we read.

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Rachel, I appreciate your presentation on multicultural education specifically in regards to race. I agree with you that race is incredibly important to teach about and the injustices that many races still face today. It can be uncomfortable to teach because it is such a controversial topic, but as you pointed out it is so important. I also teach in a middle class school with mostly white students. I did a family history project (during our study of Ellis Island) and had 4 very general questions for students to ask both of their parents. Things like where did your ancestors come from, did any of them go through Ellis Island, etc. I had a very upset parent because the assignment was not geared towards all races. She wrote on the paper that these questions don't apply to her race. I had no intentions of making anyone feel that way and I really just wanted to get my students to hear about their family history. I think that experience made me recognize that I need to be more sensitive of experiences in regards to race, but also that these topics are important to talk about in the classroom.

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Multicultural Education: Race- Molly Ippolito

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Multicultural Education: Race- Molly Ippolito

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Rachel, great job! I also presented on multicultural education with an emphasis on race. I also touched on white privilege in my presentation. One piece that I didn't get the chance to touch on, but found throughout my research was the school to prison pipeline. Did you run across this theme during your research? What are your thoughts on the image below?

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White privilege is something that is hard to talk about when it is something that has been a part of my entire life. I think it's important for teachers in our position to push the narratives of power, privilege, and justice with our students. Being that I teach 99% white students I think it is something to make them aware of. Do you have any ways that you talk about this issue with your students?

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Didn't realize we had another Pekinite in this class. I agree with what you and Cole discussed. I just see it as nearly impossible to implement without it being generic. Outside of learning about different cultures in foreign languages, I feel that students wouldn't relate. The best thing I do to try and bring race into class discussions is talk about current events. Do you feel the same or am I off track here?

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Molly, great work! As an educator, I greatly value my diverse classroom. As a parent, I want my children growing up in a diverse school as well. As a white male raising while daughters, I appreciated your honesty and transparency about the real relevance of white privilege today. You referenced the "blinders" that white people can obtain due to ignorance and a lack of awareness. To be transparent myself, it is easy to put on these blinders and act like their is no evidence of racial privilege in our county and schools. The more you are around diversity, the less likely you will be to put on the blinders.

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I am absolutely floored by the projected statistic you mentioned of 55% of students being of color and 80% of teachers being white. That's simply staggering to me. Did you come across any evidence in your research to why more people of color are not pursuing a career in education? Great work!

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I teach in a school that is prototypical of many of the schools you described--- Middle Class/White. The town is becoming more diverse, which I think is a good thing for our schools, but we must adjust how we do things to create an environment for all learners. In my classroom, we discuss different cultural holidays, but honestly, not much more in terms of race. I think implementing more curriculum in this area is something myself, and my school could definitely do.

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Curriculum Panel: Multicultural Education - Race