Assignment 6: Reimagined Classroom

I was pleased, as I read through my Imagined Classroom, that so little hegemonic thinking showed up in my plans. I can honestly say that even before this class I would have excitedly included the descriptions that I did in this assignment of a classroom full of diversity and in which I cultivate a sense of safety through frequent, open, yet controlled dialogue.

At the same time, one of the big themes of the class has been, at least for me, that we must not only be passive allies of those with less privilege than us, we must take affirmative action and be advocates in order for society to change. I saw too little evidence in my initial project of a classroom of active advocacy, and that is primarily what I wanted to change in my classroom.  In congruence with that goal, I made the following changes:

• I would include a seating chart for the students every semester so that they are forced to sit near students who are different from them. My classroom will feature frequent discussion between students sitting near each other, and the best way to help them overcome prejudice and misconception is to have them actually talk to those different from them.
• I will post a 'Safe Space' poster / sticker in a prominent location in the classroom. It isn't enough for me to passively support my gender non-conforming students. I need to actively show my defense of them.
• I will focus my curriculum on a broad spectrum of historical voices, not just those who always possessed cultural or social capital (rich white men). Primary sources in my history classroom will just as frequently be from women, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, and underrepresented groups of every kind. My curriculum will actively bring institutional discrimination and hegemonic thinking to light.
• I will help guide students more into learning the language of power by providing books of various levels in my class library. For students who are  fairly new to learning English, I'll have some lower level books that will help them because the books have more comprehensible input. What's more, I'll try to include and prominently display books that have been written in different students' primary language of discourse-- books by latino / latina authors, blacks, American Asians, etc. In this way both the content and the resources of my classroom will be clearly expansive.
• I will allow the hall pass to be used freely, but will monitor its and address abuse if I see it. Only allowing one student to go at a time may exhibit bias which I have as a man. My female students should be allowed to visit the restroom whenever they need to during their periods without having to feel like they have to wait for someone else to come back with the hall pass.
• I will vocally encourage tolerance and understanding during my unit on religion and take time to read sympathetic accounts of various persecuted religious groups with my students, particularly Muslim accounts.
• I will select only media clips to show that have adequate subtitles. As most of my class will revolve around student discussion, I will plan ways for each lesson that a student with hearing or speech impairment could fully participate.
• As a general rule, I will let the voices of those without privilege be heard just as much in our study of history as the voices of those with privilege. This relates to every possible group: ethnicities, religions, sexual minorities, anything.