African American Culture: Learn it Like you would a Foreign Language
African Americans lost their demographic status as "The Minority." Now, there are more Hispanics in the US than African Americans. But, this does not decrease the importance of teachers understanding African American culture.
Whether you have African American Children, or children of other minorities in your classroom, your role as a Master Teacher demands that you…
- Know the history and culture of African American communities
- Recognize that African American communities are rich, and diverse
- Understand that cultural communication requires experience and language sensitivity, even if the language used is English
- Analyze your language, and discover ways that you could communicate attitudes, beliefs and feelings in a more culturally aware (and supportive) way
- Synthesize understandings and communication skills so that your students perceive your caring and insight
- Evaluate your own positions, and those of your students
These higher-order cultural learning challenges are also true for knowing the status of other group with a culture of their own, i.e.,…
- Muslims
- Home-schooling Conservative Christians
- Gays and Lesbians
- Children of Incarcerated Parents
- Children in Foster Care
- "Underclass" (Economic Poverty) Children of any Race, Religion or Culture
End of "The Major Minority" Status
African Americans may not be the largest minority, but they are people, and they are important.
Ten out of 100 children in our schools are Hispanic, but eight out or 100 are African American. Teachers can find African American students in their classrooms, even in affluent suburbs.
But, just as the study of language requires learning the culture of the speakers of that language; so too does the study of ethnic groups require a study and understanding of that culture.
Teachers must speak to the hearts of all students, whatever the culture of the students, and whatever the culture of the teacher.
Knowledge, the Secret, Not!
Intellectual knowledge, the ability to recite facts, even the ability to intellectualize compassion and at-a-distance caring for a cultural group is only a small step toward sensitivity and a working relationship to a culture.
Seeing the shoes that members of that culture have walked in is different than slipping your feet into the tight-fitting, "holes in the bottom blocked with newspaper walk in their shoes" kind of "reality-understanding" that is needed.
Resources for African American Cultural Awareness
For background information, and resources that are "wide, deep and broad," check out the Smithsonian's new National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has an online exhibit.
Link to the exhibit…
Sidebar
Even better, the National Museum of African American History and Culture site uses a dynamic Mind Map similar to the one that the Visual Thesaurus uses.
For information about getting a copy of Visual Thesaurus, visit…
Visual Thesaurus Information…
The museum also is opening its first "go there and see it" physical exhibit on October 19 at the National Portrait Gallery. This exhibit tracks 150 years of photographs of scholars, abolitionists, artists and athletes who
The exhibit is entitled, Let Your Motto Be Resistance
African American culture is just as important as it always was, even if there are now more Hispanic students in our schools.
Be sensitive to all cultures, races, and ethnic groups.
Diverse perspectives enrich our own, broaden our insights, and provide additional options and choices for problem-solving and decision-making.
Cultural understanding means wider and deeper thinking than simple higher-order thinking. It is as though higher-order thinking is two dimensional, while cultural sensitivity adds another dimension. Even better, cultural thinking adds melodies, harmonies, shades, textures and colors (no pun intended, really) to our thoughts and concepts.
We are richer and our lives are better because of our positive communication, interaction and sharing with multiple cultures.
Sidebar
The best analogy that I ever encountered concerning the crossroads of ideas, and the stagnant nature of isolation came from a Public Radio program, quite a few years ago. The commentator pointed out that, "There is no concept or experience of building boats in Tibet."
The entire culture of Tibet is devoid of knowledge, integration, and need for boats, and this gap is reflected in the absence of words that relate to boats.
Make sure that your language and concepts contain the accumulated knowledge and wisdom that can be acquired by communication with other cultures, including the African American culture.
