Assignment

INSTRUCTIONS

The following case studies incorporate many of the issues, facts, and topics considered in this course. Thoughtfully read and consider the challenges embedded in each situation. Then write an expository essay response to one of the scenarios. Your essay should be informative, descriptive, and explanatory. Remember, expository essays compare, explore, and discuss problems. Your purpose is to explain and report on the situation or event from a culturally responsive educator's perspective.

In writing your essay, be absolutely certain that your essay actually responds to the case study you have selected; and that you, use the course's required text, readings, group and individual student presentations, your notes and other resources in defending your ideas. A satisfactory essay incorporates and engages with the main sources for this course, therefore, be sure to consider all of the evidence available to you in constructing your answer.

All papers are to be typed in 12-point Times Roman, Calibri, or Tahoma and double-spaced - including title page, headings, etc. Margins must be 1-inch at the top, bottom, right, and left of every page. Alignments should be left justified. Papers should be edited for proper writing mechanics, grammar, spelling, and APA formatting, of course. You are urged to consult your APA Manual, along with the writing rubric and the course syllabus. Your submission must be at least 5 pages. Remember, late papers will not be accepted. You may find the following case study analysis guidelines helpful:

Case Analysis Process: An Equity Literacy Approach

Step 1: Identity the problem or problems posed by the case

Step 2: Take stock of varying perspectives, trying to remember the full variety of
stakeholders and community members, including those who are involved directly and those who are involved at more of a distance.

Step 3: Consider possible challenges and opportunities, paying special attention to biases and inequities and how the situation presents an opportunity for dialogue and positive change, not just for those immediately involved, but for the institution.

Step 4: Imagine equitable outcomes, remembering that equity requires a fair distribution of opportunity and access-a resolution of the bias or inequity, not just a resolution of interpersonal conflict.

Step 5: Brainstorm immediate-term responses, thinking specifically about how you might respond immediately in order to overcome challenges and maximize opportunities.

Step 6: Brainstorm longer-term policy and practice adjustments, keeping in mind that school and classroom conflict usually are symptoms of bigger structural inequities.

Step 7: Craft a plan of action, including both immediate-term and long-term components Gorski, P. C., & Pothini, S. G. (2013). Case studies on diversity and social justice education. Routledge.

Case Study #1: Remembering Terrance

Lone Star Elementary is a PreK - 8 urban school. The school has 258 students, 2 classes per grade level and 3 self-contained EDB units (K-2, 3-5, & 6-8). All other special needs students are fully included in the general education population with a fulltime highly qualified elementary classroom teacher and a fulltime highly qualified intervention specialist, that team teach and share the responsibilities of educating all of the children in each class. The families in this diverse working-class neighborhood are very involved in the school. It's common to have parents walking to and from the school daily. Several mothers volunteer during the day and because of the location, district and community leaders frequently visit. Lone Star sits directly behind the community recreation center with only a manicured park (with a couple of basketball courts, tennis courts, park benches, and picnic tables) and an inviting colorful playground between them.

Terrance was a vibrant 7th grader who attended Lone Star from kindergarten. He and his sister, Lauryn (a 6th grader) enjoyed school. Their working mother was raising them alone, but very involved with their schooling. Lauryn was doing well in school. Terrance, however struggled academically and socially, but was comfortable with the routines of his self-contained SpEd classroom and had very good relationships with his teachers. While playing after school one October evening Terrance was fatally wounded. A policeman mistakenly assumed a toy pistol was real.

FASTFORWARD: The first anniversary of the tragedy is approaching. How should the new 8th grade EDB classroom teacher prepare for this class?

Case Study #2: Who God Hates and Why

You are teaching English in a rural school in western North Carolina in fall 2004; your second period class is comprised of seniors, who are currently working on giving speeches in preparation for their senior projects (which have an oral presentation component.)

All is going as well as can be expected until Marcy gets up to give her speech, which is in favor of gay marriage (an ongoing debate in the national furor leading up to the elections to be held next month.) Marcy's speech states that she herself can't see anything appealing about a gay lifestyle, but that "they" should be able to get married just like "we" can because of the civil rights issues on being able to marry (custody of children, joint property, combined incomes, and so on.)

Mike, Earl, Joey, and Ambrose, four boys, who sit in the back corner, yell, "That's GROSS!" when Marcy begins her speech. You freeze them with your basilisk glare and they subside, but after the speech, during the rebuttal section, they offer the following commentary:

"God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

"Jesus hates fags. It says so in the Bible."

"That's just nasty!"

"Are you a dyke too?"

(and, under someone's breath,) "Can I watch if you are?"

On the first such comment, you try the basilisk glare again; on the second, you tell Joey, the speaker, that he's not allowed to call people "fags." The boys stop using the epithet, but they continue to answer Marcy's answers with similar stereotypes. Marcy's upset about being called a "dyke", and her answers shift from defending her point to defending herself, trying to prove she's not gay. Her voice starts to tremble.

Gorski, P. C., & Pothini, S. G. (2013). Case studies on diversity and social justice education. Routledge.

Case Study #3: Right Here in River City

As a new teacher, you've got a great unit planned for your eleventh-grade class on the 1920's, Modernism, The Great Gatsby, the Harlem Renaissance-it's your favorite literary period, and you're loaded for bear.

It turns out, though, that all that great literature isn't going as well as you expected. First, you give your students a web quest, with each group checking out a different aspect of between-the-wars literature. One strand leads a group to background information about the Harlem Renaissance; they have to visit the site, answer the guided questions, and present their findings to the class. On the day of the web quest, you notice that the Harlem Renaissance group is having problems. One student, Michael, is doing all the work; Joachim, next to him, wants to spring happily around from group to group and takes constant minding; and the third, Dawn, is sitting back sulking. She doesn't say anything to you, but as discussion mounts and students seize the opportunity to "share" informally during group time, you overhear Linda ask her what her group's studying. Dawn replies, "Black people!" and both she and Linda laugh like it's the greatest joke in the world. Dawn goes on to say they're "all poor" and she thinks this assignment is stupid.

It's a bit hard to do anything immediate about this because the class noise level is mounting, you've just dragged Joachim back to his seat again (you remind yourself to ask if you can check for an IEP on him, in case he suffers from ADD), and you need to get everyone on task again.

However, when they come to present, the issue comes up again. The Harlem Renaissance presentation is erratic at best; Michael's learned something, but neither Dawn nor Joachim seems to have. They're convinced (or want you to think they're convinced) that the Harlem Renaissance is about poor people in a ghetto. They seem to have missed the artistic and literary aspects of the movement.

Not sure what to do about this, but very sure you don't want the rest of the class to take home this impression, you undertake to fill in the gaps yourself. You explain about the artistic resurgence that took place in Harlem; you quote W.E.B. Du Bois. The kids aren't impressed. You add that this was especially interesting because all this literary flowering was coming out of a tradition of plantation oppression, Jim Crow laws, lynching, unequal laws and education, and all the rest of it. They look unimpressed and uncomfortable.

Deciding to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, you ask them what's up with that. What's bothering them about studying the Harlem Renaissance? (You look at Dawn meaningfully.) What's so funny about studying "black people"?

Your class, I should add, has no visible "black people" in it, if by that they mean African-Americans. There are about three "brown people", that is, darkly complected students who might equally be Hispanic, Cherokee, deeply tanned "white" people, or none of the above. The rest look "white."

But your question unleashes a flood of answers. Lois says that "they" hate "us" anyway, so what's the point of studying "them"? Tom says he's tired of being made to "feel bad" about "black people" when he's never "done anything" to "them." Brad starts rambling about migrant workers in Henderson County and how "they" create trouble wherever "they" go, ride around in cars trying to "start something" and being "noisy." The darker students in the class (and you don't know yet what their ethnic heritage might be) aren't saying much.

Now, you knew your students came from a homogeneous rural environment, so it was all but given that you'd encounter some racism. But you're surprised... paws.wcu.edu/ccarter/417/casestudies2.doc

Case Study # 4: Who's the Victim?

As the new teacher at Cherokee High, you're excited about your position. The school has funds for you to embrace extracurricular activities; as something of an amateur historian, you know that the Cherokee nation has suffered a lot in the past from inadequate education and racial and cultural stereotyping, and you're eager to make a difference.

But as a young, white teacher, you soon begin to feel that maybe all's not as great as it seemed to be. For one thing, your sophomores aren't very well trained at all. They don't seem to know material from the ninth grade Social Studies Course of Study (and even earlier). You have great activities to get discussion started, but they don't seem to like discussion. In fact, everyone seems happiest when you simply lecture and "give notes" . . .notes which, unfortunately, they don't actually take down. You don't especially like lecturing; you want them to be involved and enjoy class; your mind goes uneasily to stereotypes you've heard about a culture of apathy, about the individual allocations fostering disinterest.

On the second day, when you were giving an overview of the syllabus, John asked, "Do we have to read about white people in this class?" A bit taken aback, you said, "Yes, we're going to read about everybody in this class." John subsides, but he doesn't look happy. As one of three "white" people in the class, you're not sure you're so happy either.
paws.wcu.edu/ccarter/417/casestudies2.doc

Case #4: Suffering a Witch

Although you're licensed in 9-12 language arts, you wound up teaching middle school, not unlike many other secondary education majors. Since the beginning of the school year, you've been a little concerned about Jeanette, a tall, blonde twelve-year-old in your seventh-grade class. Jeanette wears dark "Goth" clothing to school, although not to the extent that some students do, and she's quiet and shy around her classmates and around you. She has a sweet smile, but you've rarely seen it. Her classmates generally tease her rather than talk to her, and she seems to have no close friends.

When you confer with her mother, Marie, you tell her that Jeanette is doing C+/B- work, but that you're sure she can do better. Marie comes off as a loving mother, if one with little time (as a single mom, she works a lot); she tells you that Jeanette likes to write poetry, play her flute, walk with her dog, and read her religious books. She gave Jeanette her favorite notebook for her birthday, the one with Justin Timberlake on the cover. You're relieved to hear that Jeanette has some outlets, and that her mother seems to know what's going on with her.

In late October you come back into class from the hall to find a circle of other students around Jeanette's desk, chanting "Jesus Loves You." Jeanette, apparently not finding this reassuring, has her arms wrapped tightly about herself, her head down, and her hair hanging over her face. You ask loudly what's going on, and the group scatters. You ask Jeanette if she's okay; she nods and doesn't say any more.

A week later, you hear the chanting again; this time, the students are slower to break up, and one of them is holding a Bible. When you demand an explanation, Katie tells you that Jeanette's a witch. You ask, "What?" and several kids say, "Yeah. Witch. Black magic."

You tell them not to be silly; there are no such things as witches, but there are such things as grammar tests, so they'd better get started on theirs and leave Jeanette alone. Later, you ask Jeanette if she wants to talk; she says she doesn't and hurries out of the room.

Over the next months, though, the taunting seems to escalate. Jeanette is alone more and more, and most students call her, "that witch girl" even when you reprove them. "But she is a witch," Penny tells you earnestly. "She reads witch books. And she wears all black because she's a witch." You roll your eyes and tell Penny that Jeanette's not a witch, she's just dressing Goth; sometimes it's hard to believe kids have such wild imaginations, or can be so intolerant based on them.

At your next parent conference, you hope to see Marie and ask her what she knows about this, but Marie doesn't make it in. You phone her at home, and after a few days she returns your call. You ask about Jeanette: whether Marie thinks she's okay, why the kids would think she's a witch.

"Oh, she is a witch," Marie agrees. You're startled. Marie goes on, "That's her religion: Wicca. They call it neo-paganism too. She asked for the books, and there didn't seem to be any harm in them, so I got them."

You're even more startled; you may have heard something about this on the news occasionally, or seen part of an episode of Charmed, but it's largely off your radar. "Do you mean . . . she's a Satanist?" you inquire.

There's a pause. "I don't think so," Marie says. "I read through some of the books, and they all talk about love and nature, and being part of everything. It's a new religion. It doesn't have anything to do with Satan. Jeanette says witches don't believe in Satan anyway."

Stumped, and not wanting to mix church and state, you change the subject. "What about the kids making fun of her? Does Jeanette talk about it?"

"I know she gets picked on," Marie tells you. "And of course it bothers her. But I don't think it's any worse than a lot of kids get. Kids are mean. They just are. There's not a lot you can do about it."

She has you on that one; Jeanette's hearing a lot about Jesus, and about how bad witches are, but it's hard to equate chants of "Jesus loves you" with the hazing that happens on the football team, the boy who got thrown down the stairs and broke his arm, or the young woman whom no one speaks to at all, for any reason. You thank Marie and hang up.

You mean to look up "Wicca" on the internet, but it's getting toward the end of the marking period and you never seem to get around to it. As the grading piles up, Jeanette has good days and bad days; her work isn't looking so good, but it's hard to spend a lot of time worrying about it because of all the students who are difficult in more noisy ways. There are thirty students in Jeanette's class alone.

In the middle of February, Jeanette misses school. The next day you read in the paper that she's hanged herself from her bunk bed with a scarf.

In her journal, which becomes largely public knowledge over the weeks following her death, she attributes her unhappiness to being persecuted about her religion by her classmates; she writes that she will always be alone and that no one will ever understand her. More than a hundred students attend her funeral, some leaving notes saying that they didn't mean what they said, that they didn't want her to die.
paws.wcu.edu/ccarter/417/casestudies2.doc

Case #5: Not the Bias You Expected

As a second-year teacher at a school on the outskirts of Asheville, you expect to encounter issues with racial and cultural diversity; but you're surprised to see that your first-period class of ninth-grade language arts appears to be all "white." You know that you can't necessarily assume everyone's the same race by looking, but on the face of it, this is a very homogeneous class. You're both disappointed-you felt well prepared with activities, readings, and posters which emphasize appreciation of diversity-and a little relieved: at least you won't have to deal with students attacking each other with racial slurs, though you can still expect more abstract, casual forms of bigotry.

As the semester progresses, though, you find that your suburban white kids actually have quite a lot of issues with not-so-sensational diversity. Some examples: there are four children who are significantly overweight for their ages, especially Jenny. The students don't pay a lot of attention to her one way or another except for Mel, who always calls Jenny "Skinny," clearly not as a term of affection (Mel is a master of youthful verbal irony.) Most students refer to Jenny as "the fat girl" and to the two other children as "the whales," though apparently not with especial malice, and mostly not to you. Jenny cringes when she hears it, but she doesn't let it stop her from voicing her opinions about anything and everything else as loudly as possible. In fact, the only thing you haven't heard her talk about is her weight. You feel for Jenny, but you also wonder if she wouldn't have an easier time if she weren't so loud and obnoxious, or if she'd just try to lose a few pounds. No one seems to have physically hurt Jenny or the other heavy students, at least not recently; you don't know if Jenny mostly doesn't think about her weight, if her vocal outbursts are an attempt to compensate for her sufferings and show that she doesn't really care, or what you ought to do about relatively mild, sporadic demonstrations of prejudice against weight from the other students. If you say something, are you making a big deal out of it? If you say nothing, are you contributing to the heavy children's suffering?

Your students routinely use "retard" (the noun) and "retarded" (the adjective) to mean "stupid", "uncool," or "temporarily looking foolish." You don't like this; you like it even less because you have three students with learning disabilities, Mick, Andy, and Sonya. The class presumably knows about Andy's disability because he takes his tests in a separate setting; you're not sure if they know that Mick has a mild form of dysgraphia or that Sonya suffers from ADD. You also suspect there may be some still-undiagnosed disabilities among the other students, and when you have time, you're pursuing efforts to get the students in question tested. Meanwhile, your students are astonished when you tell them you don't want to hear these words; as with "fat," they clearly think these are simply descriptive, if derogatory, words, and feel oppressed that you don't want them to use them. Some students keep using them out of what appears to be resistance; some seem to simply forget, and look astonished all over again when you call them on their language. Whatever the reason, you're not having much luck stamping out this language; you're pretty sure your students with disabilities feel targeted (except for Sonya, who seldom stays in her seat, they're very quiet and keep a low profile); you don't want to spend the rest of your school year sending your class one by one to the office for saying, "You retard!" every time one of them drops a book or trips over a chair or "that's retarded!" when they hear that there's a test coming up.

By the same token, the class has already learned that "gay" means stupid, uncool, and lame (itself an interesting shift from a descriptive word to a derogatory one.) The same thing happens: you tell them you don't want to hear the word, they make some efforts not to speak it but forget or resist at least as often as they succeed; you aren't sure how many of them really know what "gay" means; and you don't want to get into it with their parents for "condoning" or "preaching" a gay lifestyle in your classroom. You wonder what to tell them and how to prevent this; you wonder how many of your students already know that they themselves are gay and are learning every time the word is used that no one respects them.

In short, you may be off the hook on racial issues, which never seem to come up; but three of our culture's favorite prejudices are alive and well among your fourteen-year-olds. What do you do?

paws.wcu.edu/ccarter/417/casestudies2.doc

Case #6: Two Moms

Ms. Ribiero, a second grade teacher at Gibson Elementary School, was no fan of controversy, but she was very attuned to her students' needs and equally committed to building authentic community in her classroom. So when she learned that Denise, who lived with her two mothers, would be in her class, she did some research and found two highly-recommended books that depicted families with same-sex parents to add to her classroom library. She had no intention of teaching a lesson on same-sex partners or reading the book aloud or anything that might upset some of her other students' families. She just thought as a simple matter of inclusion that the books ought to be available to Denise and her classmates. She mentioned this to Denise's moms at Back to School Night. They appreciated her thoughtfulness.

A couple months into the school year, Ms. Ribiero noticed a few students picking one of those books up and looking it over before putting it back and choosing something else to read. Then, one day in mid-November, she noticed Denise reading one of the books. Julia, one of Denise's classmates, was sitting next to her. "What are you reading?" Julia asked Denise.

"This," Denise replied, showing her Julia the book cover. "It's called Emma and Meesha My Boy: A Two-Mom Story."

"What's it about?"

Without skipping a beat Denise replied, "A little girl who lives with her two moms and they have a cat." Ms. Ribiero, overhearing their conversation, walked slowly toward them.

"Two moms?" Julia asked, voice elevated, eliciting the attention of other students who were reading nearby. "You mean she has two moms who live together? That's weird."

Brandon, another student sitting nearby looked up at Ms. Ribiero and, as if telling on her, pointed to Denise and said, "She's reading a book about weird people."

"OK Julia and Brandon," Ms. Ribiero interrupted, "focus on your own books and let Denise focus on hers."

Immediately Ms. Ribiero was dissatisfied with her response. She was uneasy, as usual, about doing anything that might seem controversial. She definitely did not feel comfortable trying to teach a lesson on same-sex partners on the spot. She agonized that evening over what to do. She knew she needed to do something, not as a matter of marriage rights or explicit advocacy for lesbian or gay people, but as a simple matter of accuracy. Families with two moms do exist. Plus, although as far as she knew, Denise was the only student in her class with same-sex parents, others lived in one of many other family structure scenarios.

Despite her uneasiness, Ms. Ribiero decided to read Emma and Meesha My Boy aloud to the class the following day. She wondered for a moment whether she should wait and maybe even send home notices so families could opt their children out of the activity if they wanted to do so, but she figured, because she was using the book to begin a conversation about family diversity rather than "gay marriage" or "gay rights," the controversy would be averted.

She was thrilled the next day to see how open and curious her students were about the book. "So your family is like that?" Julia asked Denise.

"Yes. Two moms, and no dad" Denise replied, holding up two fingers.

As other students began asking Denise questions, Ms. Ribiero felt tempted to stop the conversation and remind them that there are many forms of family diversity. But she paused, proud of how respectful the students were being with one another and how empowered Denise appeared as she answered their questions. They did go on, after a while, to talk about other forms of family diversity, about living with grandparents, single parents or guardians, extended or joint families, and a foster family. Ms. Ribiero was thrilled with how well it went.

She was thrilled, that is, until the next morning, when she learned from Principal Hernandez that several parents had called him complaining that she was teaching about "homosexuality" and "gay marriage" in class. "You know me and controversy," Ms. Ribiero said, "and you know I was not teaching about homosexuality or gay marriage."

"I know, I know," Mr. Hernandez responded, "but several of these parents apparently talked with each other and are coming by the office after school today. Some already have asked to have their children moved to another class."

Filled with anxiety, Ms. Ribiero explained, "All I did was read a book about a little girl with two moms. Denise is in my class and her classmates had questions. In a year or two those questions are going to turn into bullying if we don't do something now."

"Well, I know you're the last person who would purposefully start a firestorm. And I know you need to get to your classroom before the students start arriving. Come down to the office right after school today. The parents are arriving around 3:45 and I would like you there. That will give us about half an hour to talk about a strategy." "OK, thank you," Ms. Ribiero said nervously before heading to her classroom.

Gorski, P. C., & Pothini, S. G. (2013). Case studies on diversity and social justice education. Routledge.

Case #7: Insufficient Accommodations

Ms. Thurston, a sixth grade science teacher, always believed in the power of experiential learning. Students didn't learn science by studying concepts out of a book, she thought, but by being scientists, using their senses and reasoning to explore and apply scientific concepts.

One of Ms. Thurston's favorite activities, and one she arranged every year, involved taking her students to Meadow Creek Park, a nearby nature reserve, where they could walk the same trails and explore the same terrain as scientists from the university who studied local ecology. She was especially excited this year because the park had hired a new education director, Ms. Parsons, who had designed a one-mile conservation hike specifically for middle school students, basing much of its content on sixth, seventh, and eighth grade state science standards. Ms. Thurston couldn't wait to take her students on that hike!

Two weeks before the field trip to Meadow Creek Park, a new student, Justin, was added to Ms. Thurston's fourth period science class. A cheery young man who was especially enthusiastic about science, Justin had cerebral palsy, a condition that required him to use crutches. At first Ms. Thurston was concerned about whether or not Justin would be able to participate in the field trip. He could navigate the classroom and school pretty easily. But because she never had needed to know, Ms. Thurston was not sure whether the learning center in the park was accessible. Certainly it met basic Americans with Disabilities Act standards with ramps, accessible parking, and wheelchair accessible bathrooms, but these were minimal standards.

Ms. Thurston decided to call Ms. Parsons and inquire about the accommodations offered for students like Justin. The last thing she wanted to do was to discourage his love of science with a negative experience, especially considering his newness at the school. Ms. Parsons tried to assure her by saying, "The hike might be a bit much for Justin, but we have alternative opportunities for students with physical disabilities and learning differences. He'll be fine."

When the bus pulled up to the Meadow Creek learning center, where the students were to check in and hear a short talk about being safe and respecting nature in the reserve, Ms. Parsons was there to greet them. Ms. Thurston was thrilled to see the expanded gardens wrapping around the south side of the building and the fairly smooth paths webbing through them. Perhaps Justin would be able to do some nature exploring after all, she thought.

As the students listened to their short lesson and asked their tour guides questions, Ms. Thurston talked with Ms. Parsons about how they would accommodate Justin. "Looks like he can spend some time in the garden," Ms. Thurston said, "exploring some of region's native plants and flowers."

"Unfortunately," Ms. Parsons responded, "park rules don't allow for that." She pointed to a sign hanging above the door leading through the gardens and around to the hiking trails. It was labeled "General Rules of the Reserve." The third rule read: "For their own safety, visitors with conditions, injuries, or illnesses which may impair their mobility are not permitted on the nature paths or in the gardens. A selection of films about the park and local ecology are available for people who are unable to participate in the hikes due to these conditions."

Shocked, Ms. Thurston replied, "I thought you said you had accommodations. A film isn't an accommodation!"

Heading back toward the students, including Justin, who were gathered at the south side exit, Ms. Thurston felt unsure. Should she use this as a teachable moment? What should she say to Justin, and how could she still make this a meaningful learning experience for him?

"The travails of experiential learning," she thought, wondering what to do next.

Questions

1. Ms. Thurston was frustrated to find that the learning "accommodation" for Justin consisted of sitting inside the center and watching a film while his classmates were on the hike. In your estimation, does this constitute an equitable accommodation? If not, what sorts of accommodations might have been more equitable?

2. Is it Ms. Thurston's responsibility to provide the hike experience to most of her students even if one was to be excluded from any sort of parallel learning opportunity at the park? Should she look for a different learning opportunity that could include all of her students, even if she feels that opportunity may not generate the same level of enthusiasm for most of her student as hiking in Meadow Creek Park?

3. How, as she approaches her students after talking with Ms. Parsons, might Ms. Thurston use this situation as a teachable moment for all of her students? Can she do so without risking making Justin uncomfortable?

4. Now that the class is at the Park, prepared to begin the hike while Justin watches a film, how might Ms. Thurston make the best of what she interprets as an inequitable situation?

Gorski, P. C., & Pothini, S. G. (2013). Case studies on diversity and social justice education. Routledge.