Raising cultural awareness and critical pedagogy: Brown ch. 26 & Kumar 11&12

Raising cultural awareness and critical pedagogy: Brown ch. 26 & Kumar 11&12

 

One of my favorite quotes of all time is Ghandi’s quote “You must be the change you wish to see in the world” and I really appreciated that Brown’s chapter began with this attitude. It really set the tone for how much I have grown to appreciate my choice in profession and how I actually will be having an impact on a variety of student’s lives. I am sure that in other professions many people have the opportunity to instill new ideas into the people around them, but with teaching a language it is the absolute perfect opportunity to embrace new cultures and teach how important the appreciation of each individual person because ultimately they make up the world around us.

I really enjoyed the section about “hot topics” in the classroom because it was a good eye opener and also gave pointers on how to avoid mass chaos among the students. By giving all sides of a viewpoint and ensuring everyone has the right to a different opinion is sometimes hard to foster but is ultimately the most appropriate way to avoid any type of cultural collision. I could not agree more with the idea of having a respectful and safe classroom environment and that is an aspect I will stress thoroughly from the moment I enter my room. I think that the title “agents for change” is inspiring because it really is an intrinsic motivation about having this profession because we as teachers may not be able to fight every racist battle we have in this country but we are definitely pushing ourselves and our students in the right direction.

I thought that Kumar’s chapters did a good job of summarizing everything that we learning in ENG 344 last semester. It pointed out the importance of avoiding standardization, accepting minority language speakers, ensuring social relevance to each individual, among many other things.  Also, the “Linguistic Laughs” section on page 259 made me laugh out loud because these types of situations happen all the time and it is important that students understand that everyone is growing together and it could happen to anyone but should be interpreted as a learning experience. I really look forward to learning much more about my students’ cultural backgrounds so that I may be more culturally conscious and grow to appreciate our differences.