Posted on 11/16/2009 9:00:14 AM PST by stan_sipple
Thomas Christie calls his small office, buried deep in the Lincoln Public Schools' administrative building, his museum. Now, he'll have to make room on the wall for a national award honoring the district's multicultural education program. The National Association for Multicultural Education each year honors innovative programs for their outstanding contributions. This year, it chose a program that can trace its beginnings back 37 years - 20 years before Nebraska legislators passed a law requiring all districts to have multicultural education. It grew and changed during that time, when the nation passed Title IX and the district created an equity policy covering not only race, culture and ethnicity but economic status, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age and mental, physical and linguistic abilities. One coordinator covered all those areas until 1990, when the district decided race, culture and ethnicity needed its own program. It hired Radious Guess as the multicultural specialist, until Christie - a longtime teacher and coach at Lincoln High School and a Northeast High School administrator - replaced her as the district's multicultural/community administrator. In support of the LPS award, Jose Soto, vice president for affirmative action/equity/diversity at Southeast Community College, said one cannot talk about the district's multicultural program without talking about Christie. "His unselfish devotion to his work and community have been exemplary and have resulted in the development of programs and improved services throughout the LPS district, for all LPS students, particularly students of color in Lincoln," he wrote in a letter supporting the award. In a wide-ranging interview, Christie talked about the program, the history behind it, where it started and where it's going. Here are some excerpts of what he had to say. The beginnings of LPS's multicultural program It came about because there were some community people who questioned (why) they didn't quite see them or their children represented in the curriculum. (The curriculum director's) answer to them was, ‘You're right. You don't see it there.' So that kind of started the process.
The multicultural advisory committee (which still exists today) reviewed books in the beginning. Because of their efforts, they don't have to do that anymore. Now we have a process set up that reviews books for bias. If those books don't pass that review, we don't buy them.
The history and need for multicultural education
The educational system is Eurocentric. I don't think anyone can argue with that ... to the point that we had a separate (educational) system.
You destroyed the nonwhite educational system and you said this is better and so all you did was put children of color in the buildings. You said they could go in the buildings but you didn't change anything.
So if the system started out this way, the question I ask is, ‘When did it change?' And the answer is that it hasn't yet. And that's why we need multicultural education.
Multicultural education is not reconstruction education, it's truth in education because it includes the missing information and corrects some of the misinformation.
That's the purpose of multicultural education, to try to get the system so that the pedagogy of American education represents the people. All the people.
On cultural proficiency
Basically cultural proficiency is ... having people who can make the education process congruent with a variety of cultures other than the dominant culture.
A lot of kids don't achieve and don't graduate because they don't see the opportunities, they don't connect to the learning process. It's not congruent with their homes and their communities.
On culturally proficient teachers, classrooms
It's as important to have white teachers who are multicultural teachers, who teach it and live it.
If they do bulletin boards or PowerPoints, it would not be of one ethnic group. If they were teaching a math lesson ... they might talk about pesos. They might talk about fry bread, something that might relate to where those kids or other children might come from.
How LPS is becoming culturally proficient
The problem is it's so huge, and people are at different levels and it's ongoing. We're getting better. We're better than we were in '72 but we have a ways to go.
I see various departments that have made great efforts. For example, every student who takes ninth-grade civics looks at the state government system. But alongside of that they look at the five tribal government systems. That may seem so minor but ... you're saying tribal government is legit also. That gives a total different level of dignity and respect of our indigenous tribes in Nebraska.
Every kid that starts kindergarten gets a lesson on melanin in skin. That's huge ... the impact that has on society's socialization. They understand why.
How the mission of the office has changed
I think it first started out ... making sure we found the best multicultural books, and that the curriculum (had multicultural objectives). Now it has evolved into issues relating to student achievement.
We're over 20 percent students of color but 4 percent staff of color. So we try to work at growing our own. ... We set up future teacher groups at each of the high schools, with a person trying to find students (of color) ... who have an interest in going into education and have a workshop for them every year.
(We also do a) workshop for high-ability students. That's with the gifted facilitators. The idea there is to encourage them to stay in the program, to encourage them that rigor is good and (to help them see) the opportunities that are provided them.
One of the reasons I approached the gifted facilitator years ago is I know from my son's experience how lonely it is usually for a child of color in gifted classes.
The first time we had this program, we had about 50-60 kids in there from all the high schools ... It made them feel that it's OK.
Unfortunately, there's this phenomenon that being smart is acting white. But the reason it comes about is because if the school, if the curriculum, is not multicultural, you have to adapt and do and accept so much of the Eurocentric world view perspective to be successful. So their interpretation of that is, you're not being who you are, you're acting white.
We have a program where we work with the various community organizations and we identify (high school) kids (with GPA's 3.0 or better) and we have a program in coordination with those communities to celebrate those kids.
Are we there yet? The answer is no, but we're on a journey.
This is a parody, right?
The world is made up of different cultures, and different countries. Throughout most of history there has been war and conflict between cultures. How is it to our benefit to create a microcosm of that here?
In my best robot voice: yes, we are all alike, no culture is superior to the other, must conform to the norm, there is no danger, assimilate, assimilate, resistance is futile...
sorry, this is real, how much money are we pouring into this ?
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