Week 11 Readings

Week 11 Readings

                After reading the “Becoming Black” article, I found it very interesting how students and people in general make assumptions of how Blacks are and how they act just because of what they see in the media, especially pop culture. People have thoughts of how they are based on the music they listen to, such as hip hop and rap, as well as the style and language that they see on TV. As future educators, we cannot let our students do that. We should not encourage that kind of thinking that only allows students to think of people by having these ideas they get from pop culture. Not everyone follows that trend and Blacks can be different than that. The African American students who do follow pop culture and go along with the style, music, and the way of using the language, are doing so because it gives them an opportunity to be who they want to be. They are forming their own identities.

                Assumptions and these preconceived thoughts can make people think something without knowing for sure the truth. In “Problematizing Cultural Stereotypes in TESOL”, we see how there are also stereotypes of Asian students. These include that students from Asia are obedient to authority, they lack critical thinking skills, and they don’t participate in classroom interaction. These beliefs are most commonly held in the Western hemisphere and they might also not be true. We as educators cannot let these ideas, stereotypes, or prejudices take over and tell us how students from other countries are. We have to understand and learn on our own who they really are.  

                The first article I mentioned talks about how teachers should be familiar with what the pop culture is. If they don’t know much about it, they can have their students teach them about what it means to them. We can learn about any culture if we take the time to know our students. By knowing our students, we can be better prepared to help them.

                In “Race, Culture, and Identities in Second Language Education”, it talks about the differences of the words race, ethnicity, and culture, as well as racialization and other important concepts. It is important that we know these differences and not get them mixed up.