Hey Carlisle,
As a parent who drops their toddler off at daycare every day, I know exactly what you mean. The most frightening thing to me right now is to wonder what kinds of impressions could be forming on her that are outside of what we define as acceptable at home. I am hoping that exposure to diversity at a young age (AND growing up in a household that does not tolerate racism or other forms of hate and violence) will help guide her as she grows into her own person. But you’re right, what do we do when they leave the nest? A lot of it comes down to having faith that you did your job as a parent, but what about the crap they might be picking up from influences we can’t/don’t know as parents? I agree that one way we can help create a better society is to raise our children well and to expose them to as many cultures and experiences as possible while we have the time with them.

And Anna–the struggle is real. If my daughter didn’t go to her daycare where the environment was so racially and culturally diverse, that part of her education would more or less be up to me, her dad, and whatever multi-cultural Netflix documentaries I could expose her to. (At this point in time… or at least until I’m Dr. Harrell and we are on our merry way…) Southwest VA is definitely a bubble, especially for graduate student parents of small children.

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I appreciate that you bring up the challenge of how to work with kids to address bias from a young age. It reminds me of a story that a colleague of mine told about her experience raising kids in an urban area and trying to expose them to diversity.

To boil it down, when she was deciding what house would be best for her family, she found two similar options with the main choice being whether she wanted her kids in a diverse school district or the one that tended to have better performance. Ultimately, she opted to choose the option that granted her kids access to the “better” school and try to find other ways to expose her kids to diversity. While she was all about transparency with her kids, I can’t imagine how you would go about describing that decision making process to a six-year-old.

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http://amynelson.net/gedis16/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Inclusive-Teaching-Strategies.pdf <–Link to "Inclusive Teaching Strategies" I neglected to include it above. 🙂

Hi Farha,
This week inspires a lot of soul-searching for everyone, I think! I appreciate you allowing some insight into what you are working on, particularly when you talk about what diversity and inclusion will mean for you as a future professor. I ask myself that, too, and I am so grateful for all of the resources that we have access to through this course and all of the versions of this course that came before. There were A LOT of readings this week, so I wanted to point you to two that I think might be helpful.

Katherine Phillips writes “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter” and she references some of the research on how diversity makes us more creative and innovative. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter/?wt.mc=SA_Facebook-Share

And on the Schedule page, if you go to bonus material from past courses, there’s a really great 1-page PDF called “Inclusive Teaching Strategies” that might be a nice guide or place to start. There are many scholars who have come before us and tried out many strategies. Think of this doc as a “best of” list that you can use to save time from developing your own from scratch through trial and error.

Hi Anna,
I think by putting there the sentence “I believe that a lot of our views as children come from our parents, grandparents, and those who have raised us”, you just confirm that people are who they are because of what they were told when they were young. What I am calling change is what occurs or what children become after receiving parents` or whomever`s education (which can have good or bag effect on the children) . What I want to highlight is that as teachers at lower level contribute as well to the upbringing of children, emphasizing more on diversity and inclusion in those learning spaces can help make the children eyes opened and make the work easy for colleges and universities.
I think I have mentioned in the first part of my blog the benefits of inclusive pedagogy.
It is good that your friend did benefit from her college experience and has her eyes opened and I am sure many of us have experienced the same.
Thank you for your contribution.

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I think you make really valuable points about the way diversity is approached in higher education today, and while you didn’t use this terminology, I think it has a lot to say about the difference between diversity and inclusion. I think the diversity aspect is important, like you described having a student body representative of different backgrounds, but I doubt many of us are going into admissions or working with student recruitment, so that can be hard for us to work toward.

I feel like we work on the side of inclusion. We can’t determine the demographic makeup of our classes, but we can be prepared to support diverse students in the ways you mentioned. I think that’s vitally important since pushes for diversity through recruitment and admissions initiatives are in vain if we can’t support a diverse student body once they actually arrive at the institution.

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Hi Omoule,
Your post this week (and this amazing comment thread) is challenging me to think differently about diversity and inclusion. On one hand, I do see where Anna and Khushboo are coming from; but to read your words and Seungbee’s, I am left wondering what can be done? I wonder what else can I do as a person, as a teacher, and as a role model for those around me? I know that as a parent, I am 100% personally responsible for the values and lessons that I share with my daughter, and as such, I am raising her to see value and worth in all people and to be kind, curious, and respectful of cultural and physical differences. And yet, there is only so much any parent can do, and then it’s up to the rest of the people in a child/young person’s life to help “raise” them through experience. So, I do support teaching the importance of diversity and inclusion at the university level because unfortunately so many seem to have missed those lessons. It would be great if we didn’t have to. But until society changes, we have to seize every opportunity we have to create learning moments and to make the case for a just and civil society. University may be both the first and last time a person is exposed to these ideas.

I wish there was a way to have more of the benefits of this kind of teaching and less of the negative. Would you be willing to share (in private if need be) which prompts were painful for you to get through? Knowing that could help us lead the class better in the future if we are aware of the issue and can give a better brief on the prompt and what to expect from course reading materials.

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Hi Amos,
You are asking some tough questions in the opening (and throughout) your post this week. This notion of “sustainable inclusive pedagogy” is interesting–especially when you talk about being genuine vs superficial. I wonder how much people might bother to “play nice” in public or professionally, while still maintaining exclusive values within themselves. (I know they exist, I’ve witnessed it before!) You’re right, it can’t be sustainable if we aren’t reaching the ones who need to hear the message most. You go right to the heart of the issue when you ask whose duty it is to champion for inclusive pedagogy. Your answer: It’s all of us. All the time. And you’re right. This is a job that we all have to take on, staying ever-vigilant until we’ve reached everyone.

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I learned a couple of really important things from your post and I appreciate you sharing your experience with us. The challenges you describe in creating trusting relationships with the teachers and having to describe every little up and down to everyone in order to get support are definitely spoon-consuming tasks. As some-one who has not fathomed such struggles in getting an education, I am grateful for this teaching moment!

Hey Akshay,
The “irritating commentary” wasn’t so bad at all! It gives the reader a bit of humor to chew on while processing the heavier issues of our biases and what we do or don’t do while on autopilot. There’s a lot of nature vs nurture at play in our development, but at a certain point, we must recognize that we are adults and have to take responsibility for our choices. I think there are many of us that are eager to mobilize the winds of change on November 6. In the meantime, your post reminds me that it is so important to be conscious and mindful, from the big choices to the little ones.

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