Teaching Diversity

Unlike the current White House administration, the average Lincoln classroom is tremendously diverse. A first glance through Lincoln’s gates, or at our Fact Book*, reveals a largely African American student body composed of more women than men (63% women at the undergraduate level, 71% at the graduate level), but you don’t have to dig very deep to find that our students come from different social, socioeconomic, geographic, religious and cultural backgrounds. Lincoln has a little over 3% international students, many of whom come from west African and Caribbean countries, and we draw American students from 30 states. Many of our student are first generation collegegoers with neither parent ever attending college. About a quarter of our students have parents that live together, more than half (64%) have parents who live apart, while a full 10% have lost one or both parents. Religious backgrounds vary (although a vast majority come from families that identify as Christian), as do cultural identity, sexual orientation and gender identity. Add to that the students’ physical abilities and disabilities, along with mental, emotional, and cognitive abilities, and you paint an even richer picture of diversity. We have students that are athletes, dancers, musicians, writers, visual artists, activists, leaders, followers – the list goes on. The point: our classrooms are diverse. 

With diversity comes strength; any ecologist, whether a biologist or sociologist will tell you that a diverse ecosystem is more stable, resilient to disturbances and recovers more quickly when catastrophe strikes. But diversity can also bring challenges including less cohesiveness and effective communication side by side with increased anxiety and unease. Both faculty and students are bound to make assumptions based on their own cultural frame of reference. For example, you may talk about parents as being married, or assume that a household has a mother and a father, but our Fact Book tells us that this only holds true for a quarter of our students. What if a student was raised by two moms or two dads? Changing the language in the classroom to be more inclusive may mean that more students feel valued, which translates to a sense of belonging. Anytime students feel like they belong, they are more likely to contribute to classroom discussion and to be engaged learners.

It is also useful to identify the assumptions that the students bring to the classroom and begin to deconstruct biases and beliefs that are obstacles to group discussions or projects. I must admit that I don’t always feel like I have the time or resources to talk about classroom diversity with my students. I often ask students to work in groups, and although I am aware of a few techniques for effective team-building, I don’t always use them to help construct functional groups where everybody contributes equally and diverse opinions are respected. These skills are so important that the World Economic Forum has listed them among the top ten skills required by future employees to be successful in a global economy. We don’t even have to look to outside sources for affirmation of the importance of diversity; our very own strategic plan lists Globalization and Diversity as Imperative 6 with the additional description:

   “While we remain committed to our legacy of providing the highest quality education to African American students, we recognize the importance of offering students a diverse environment and global collaborations which will prepare them for leadership in the 21^st Century.”

Have you developed effective tools to celebrate and draw on classroom diversity in discussions and projects? What are your thoughts around classroom diversity at Lincoln? Have you explored the biases that you bring to your classroom, and how those biases influence your teaching?

References:

The web offers a plethora of information on diversity in higher education. I found the following reference to be most concise and useful with several good references for further reading:

https://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Benefits_Challenges.pdf

*Lincoln University Fact Book 2016: http://www.lincoln.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/institutional-research/2016-Factbook-Final-web.pdf

Sensitive Topics in the Classroom

Guest Blogger: Heather Bennett

November 8^th 2016, a day that will live in infamy.  We elected Donald Trump as our next president. While some celebrated, many people were terrified.  For months the world watched as Donald Trump reduced races of people to negative stereotypes, marginalized many minorities and women, and indirectly promoted hate amongst American citizens.  For many, the election of such an individual to the most powerful position in the country brought about fear and terror. 

For many of my students, 60% of them international students, 98% of them women, and all of them African American, the election of Donald Trump instilled a deep fear, anger, disappointment and an overall lack of confidence in the workings of our government. My students seemed a little more discouraged the day after the election when they walked into class. It seemed awkward not to mention the election, as I could clearly see that my students wanted to discuss what they were thinking. I was hesitant to open up for discussion such a sensitive topic. I did not want lecture time to be consumed with discussion on the presidential election or the topic to lead to a hostile environment. However, I did not want to minimize their feelings, or fail to acknowledge the validity of their emotions. Simply not mentioning the election, I felt sent a message that I did not care how my students maybe feeling. I wanted to give students a safe space to share and elaborate on these feelings of fear and disappointment. I also wanted to encourage and support them.  I decided to address the “elephant in the room” and encourage students to disclose their feelings. I asked for students to take a few minutes and to quietly write down what emotions they were feeling after learning the results from the presidential election.  I then left it open for students to share, if they felt comfortable, their feelings with the rest of the class. I stressed that students must be respectful and listen to their classmates. I challenged them to try to understand each other’s views. After sharing, I had students ball up the paper with any negative emotions and throw them like a snowball at the front of the room. I then challenged the students to share how they could use these negative feelings for something positive. The activity only took 15 minutes of class time and several students thanked me for giving them an opportunity to voice their feelings. One student said prior to my class no teacher had mentioned the election results and it seemed as if no one cared how the students may be feeling or perhaps they too should just get over it.     

For many of us our performance on any task is tied to our emotional well-being. As an educator, I think it is important to realize that our students will be greatly affected by what may be happening in society.  We must learn how to engage students in meaningful discussion and try to understand how the emotions of our students may influence their learning. I am curious, how do more experienced educators discuss difficult and sensitive topics in the classroom? What are some techniques or strategies teachers use in the classroom to help students handle emotional topics?