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Conversation Starters

A conversation in my Covering Urban Affairs class last week reminded me of how much work there still is to be done in our journalism classrooms.

I teach at Columbia College Chicago.  It tilts liberal and takes pride in its diverse student body.

My Covering Urban Affairs class is a hybrid between civics and urban reporting.  I drag my students to City Hall and require them to visit the offices of elected officials so they can see how the "City That Works" really works.  The course is pretty intense -- much reporting and writing is required -- and with only a couple of weeks left in the semester, the class roster has thinned from 13 to seven.

Of the students in the class, five are white, one is Filipino and one is black.  Oh, and the teacher -- I'm black, too.

The other day during a brainstorming session we were talking about multiculturalism and diversity in urban elementary classrooms, the focus on one of the student's enterprise story.  The discussion stumbled onto the challenges faced by white teachers in predominantly black classrooms.  One of the students mentioned how he had heard stories from some of his teacher friends about black students refusing to do work because they said they could not relate to their white teachers.

A couple of my students shrugged this off as the black kids simply trying to get out of work.  (The one black student in the class was absent that day.)

I attempted to get the class to explore why some of the elementary students might be defensive and why they might feel distrustful of an outsider of a different race.  I also raised the possibility that teachers need to be better trained to deal with these situations. Some of the students appeared to consider these possibilities and the student writing on the education topic added that she had read materials raising a similar explanation.

In the end, we had a good discussion.  But, I realized that journalism instructors need to do much more to encourage discussions that touch on race and class even if we have to push the envelope.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder took a lot of heat recently for calling us a nation of cowards for ducking and diving conversations about race.  I think he's right. What a better place to start the conversation than in our journalism classrooms.

Teaching our students to have a more empathetic and reasoned approach to race is important, especially for developing journalists.  Of course, we all bring our own baggage and experience to our writing and reporting.  But, we have to work with our students to get them to identify their biases and to think, explore, report and write with open minds.

Curtis Lawrence is a journalism professor at Columbia College Chicago and a member of the SPJ Diversity Committee.







Published Monday, May 04, 2009 1:03 PM by CurtisLawrence

Comments

# re: Conversation Starters

Wednesday, December 02, 2009 5:19 PM by hfox
I agree that we are being cowards running away from the talking about the issue of race publicly. In my high school I know some of the students ( a majority of them black, though there were some black people in the class who didnt care) would not stay in a class if they had a gay teacher teaching them. When I have a black teacher, being a white female, I feel like there is a lot that I have to learn from them. I also feel that there is a certain level of professionalism that I have to have with them versus white teachers. There is this pressure to change the tension that lies under our day to day acitivies because of race. I dont feel like I can speak my mind because I have had black teachers who would not let me voice my opinions. I have had black teachers who treated me and my white friends differently because of our ethnicity. The problem is that we are turning the racial tension into negative responses on both sides. We need to stop pretending like this world is in shades of black and white. There are other races out there with cultures just as important as ours. I think its interesting that as I skimmed down this blog I only saw things related to Black Americans. Isn't this supposed to be a diversity blog? Wheres the diversity?

# re: Conversation Starters

Friday, February 12, 2010 11:21 AM by atappy
I think this is a great topic to have in class! what better place to discuss matters than in a multiracial classroom. I do feel like there are problems in schools with students not respecting teachers of different races. It was evident in my high school. Students are way too quick to pull the race card. Black and white students should be subject to the same rules without exception, regardless of what race of teacher is enforcing them.

# re: Conversation Starters

Thursday, February 25, 2010 1:39 PM by ttucker
atappy, i feel like i was in the same boat as you in high school. the white majority is just as much discriminated against as any other ethinicity, and i think it is actually more of a problem in schools and communities that lack diversity
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