looking hard at ourselves

Having confidence as a teacher while also recognizing our shortcomings is a true challenge. We don't want to be so certain about our capabilities that we stop learning. On the other hand, we don't want to be incapacitated by our uncertainties. Overconfidence can blind us but doubt can also cripple us. In thinking about teaching to culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students, it is necessary to consider our presumptions. We know that's not easy but the problems with not recognizing such possibilities may result in teaching that is not fair for all children. Dr Felicia Moore wrote about this in a recent article:

Getting preservice teachers to reveal, confront, and discuss their cultural biases is not easy because challenging assumptions and beliefs, making ideological shifts, or constructing new cultural models are difficult. If assumptions and biases are not challenged and changed, then these ideas may impede democratic and just teaching practices for all students (p. 88, Felicia Moore, Preparing Elementary Preservice Teachers for Urban Elementary Science Classrooms: Challenging Cultural Biases Toward Diverse Students).

Her study documented the difficulties her future teachers had with their perspectives about CLDs. Their reflections revealed an awareness that they harbored biases that arose from their upbringings.There was genuine pain embedded in the confessions of guilt. It hurts to know that one has been using biased views -- and after having already worked with students, there is a concern that those biases may have interfered with the quality of teaching provided to children.

The only way out of such discomforts and dilemmas is to accept its reality and choose to move forward committed to not perpetuate those mistakes. This is crucial stage in become a more mature and compassionate teacher. James Baldwin acknowledges how much hurt we feel when we find out how wrong we have been. The key becomes using this new knowledge to act in new ways:

In great pain and terror one begins to assess the history which has placed one where one is and … attempt to recreate oneself according to a principle more humane and more liberating; one begins the attempt to achieve a level of personal maturity and freedom which robs history of its tyrannical power, and also changes history.

As teachers we are told to recognize and embrace the backgrounds students bring to our classrooms. We are not supposed to do much more than simply tolerate those differences. We are to see those as resources upon which new discoveries and understandings can be created. We should allow ourselves that much, too. We are products of our environment and that may include carrying around incorrect beliefs and assumptions about people whose backgrounds differ from ours. Letting go of old ideas can be nerve-wracking and confusing. On the other hand, if we have had access to fresh ways of thinking about teaching science to culturally and linguistically diverse students but we do NOT change our perspective, then we are acting in ways that are not only ingorant but potentially negligent.