Read Chapters 4 - 6
Answer the following questions:
1. How does your deep culture impact how you respond to a student or a situation?
2. Which trust generator comes most naturally for you? How is this connected to your deep culture?
3. How could you use the information in figure 6.2 to increase rigor in your department?
Before I get to chapters 4/6 I think a comment on 3 is important. we all need to understand and learn that immediate responses are WIRED into EVERY BRAIN. it is a genetic, highly heritable trait essential to survival. NOT immediately responding to 'protect myself' must be trained out. I spent my career studying the neurochemistry and biochemistry of the longer term 'flight or fight' reaction, and trust me it's real. If we can understand that we can do away with many cultural differences right off the bat, and give students and colleagues time to react, then come in 'sideways' as it were, non-threateningly, and start a real conversation and learning.
ReplyDeleteMany of you may chuckle as you might think I 'come on strong' or 'speak my piece' and I won't deny that, but I can and do and 'have the evidence for' listening to others as well and acting for the good of the group. I learned that the hard way...
So first understand that it is innate for people of any age to 'protect' themelves.
to the question:
my cultures was 50's/60's/70's go to school, get a good education, work in an important career. i chose the university research and teaching path, which in many ways is great and in other ways is brutal, as any of you know who have competed for highly prestigious and extremely competitive grants, and been successful and then of course being one of those choosing who 'wins or loses.' It is almost impossible NOT to get a sense of 'this worked for me, it's the right way, the only way, listen to me..." and that carries over not only in scientific research but teaching.
so the 'culture' of 'I know the facts, listen to me, write them down, spit them back'. actually works very well and in large part we have never been challenged on it. Until recently, when in fact anyone with a little curiosity and some background can look up about every single 'fact' that there is. Now....we need to help them sort the 'facts' from the ''other" So the cultural change is 18 to 22 year olds, almost all of them 'successful' STEM students (they took the college prep courses, aced the ACT/SAT, etc), lived through freshman chem and bio....and they have all the biases and programming and mis-perceptions. So how do "I" as a successful scientist, honor both 'facts are facts' and 'you can have your own opinions but you can't have your own facts' and the cultural/knowledge background of the student? I can't let the go to vet school, or work with animals at all, if they think feeding pure meat to dogs is good because dogs are wolves, or to vote on agricultural policy when they don't understand the math behind feeding 8 billion people'. BUT I CAN LISTEN TO THEM, and talk WITH them, and provide them opportunities to see how the FACTS FIT INTO THEIR WORLD CORRECTLY AND HOW THEIR WORLD CONTAINS FACTS. If I can do that, I've succeed being a 'culturally aware' STEM teacher.
This is where phenomenon based instruction and NGSS gives us tools. If you ask a group of students to draw a cell, including everything that is in it, you will get a progression of Eukaryotic cells with various organelles, but you might also get a cubicle with bars, a commode, sink and bed. The challenge is to design experiences for the students that connect the culturally diverse perceptions while building understanding of the structures and functions of a living cell as the building block of life.
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