.6 Addressing Ignorance

I want to start by talking about how sometimes the problems we have with multiculturalism are not necessarily problems of will, but problems of default. We simply don't know how to act or we don't have the kind of experience that allows us to act appropriately. For example, I encountered the following experience in New Mexico where wewere doing a microteaching session: (In microteaching, which I developed at Stanford University, you first teach ashort lesson and then you receive critique. You then re-teach the lesson after you have the critique.) I saw this young
woman teaching elementary school, and when a little white kid would come up to her, she would put her arm around the kid affectionately and talk to him. When a little black kid would come up, she was just very uneasy and remote.

Her behavior was very dramatic on the videotape, so we called this to her attention during the feedback session, andit turned out that she had never had experience with any type of minorities. In particular, she had never touched black hair and she was afraid of it. Now, that may sound silly, but it's true; she was afraid of touching black hair. So before she taught the next round, we gave her the opportunity to have a little black kid sit on her lap. She was able to talk to him and tell him a story, and touch his hair, so that in the next re-teach, the difference was dramatic. A little black kid would come up to her, and she would be very affectionate. She made a point of rubbing him on the back of the head. It was one of the most dramatic examples we have demonstrating the way you can get very dramatic changes in behavior very quickly.

The kinds of changes that are easy to get are the changes where people simply don't know what they are doing. All you have to do is call it to their attention, and if they don't have an attitude problem or anything, they are able to respond immediately. Now, I wish all things were that easy!

What are the problems we have with multiculturalism usually a result of?
Mrs. Dray teaches seventh grade English in a middle school that is 70% African-American, 28% White, and 2% Hispanic in its population. When racial difficulties occur, how can Mrs. Dray prevent them from overpowering her classroom, and, ultimately, the school population as a whole?