My Thesis Problem Statement

This is the "problem statement" for my thesis - an introduction of sorts.  Would love to hear thoughts on it, questions about it.  Two more months til my MA!

One of my burning questions as a history teacher is how to help students think about prejudice.  Although the United States has made vast improvements over the years, prejudice is still clearly a dire problem: the achievement gap remains pervasive, people of color continue to report widespread discrimination, rising anti-immigration sentiments alienate and demonize Latinos, women continue to be oppressed by everything from objectifying media imagery to the glass ceiling, Asian’s continue to be lumped into a homogenized whole in which important cultural differences are made invisible, Muslims continue to be stereotyped as terrorists and have trouble finding places to build new mosques, and LGBT children continue to suffer from bullying, homelessness, and even suicide.  

These are merely examples of prejudices reported on by major news channels.  Anyone listening to pundits from Rush Limbaugh to Rachel Maddow on a regular basis will have heard these topics covered (for better or worse). Some prejudices are talked about often, such as sexism, racism, and homophobia.  Other prejudices are hardly talked about: for example, prejudices against elders, youth, or differently-abled people.  Many prejudices remain virtually invisible, such as those against people who have been incarcerated.  Meanwhile, prejudice itself is widely misunderstood, and the psychology of prejudice, so fundamental to understanding its pervasiveness, remains discussed almost entirely by specialists.  

The alleviation of prejudice, in its many varieties, depends on our society gaining a wider and deeper understanding of how prejudice works.  Citizens who have not given serious thought to how prejudice functions may be condemned to repeat it, or at the very least, misunderstand it – unconsciously – and thus allow for its continuation.   If prejudice was always explicit, if it was easy to see and understand, perhaps it would not require consistent, concerted serious thought to overcome.  However, because prejudice is complex and subtle, it must be thought about seriously on a society-wide level. 

Major questions our society should be asking include “what would a serious analysis of prejudice look like, and how could we create a country where many citizens have engaged in such analysis”?  One long-run plan for reducing prejudice in this country would be for schools to develop ways to help students think seriously about prejudice.  If prejudice was seriously analyzed in schools across the country, and if students gained a complex and subtle understanding of prejudice, that could go far in alleviating the problem. 

As a history teacher, I’ve been considering what a serious analysis of prejudice would look like in a history class.  There are many ways to analyze prejudice through history, some of which work better than others.  I am especially interested in how the critical and historical thinking skill of contextualization can help students better understand prejudice.  I have a hunch that if students can learn to analyze how a given social context facilitates the rise and maintenance of a certain prejudice in history, that they could transfer this type of analysis to other periods of history and to the contemporary world.  Perhaps students that learn to contextualize prejudice will develop a more sophisticated understanding of it – an understanding that goes beyond simple judgments of good and evil, and instead towards the details of how prejudice arises, is maintained, and diminishes.    

At the time of this writing, I am not a full time teacher, but am volunteering in a sixth grade world civilizations class.  Due to the context that I find myself in, I have been considering not only contextualization, but how to help students think about prejudice in the context of ancient civilizations.  I have been wondering if understanding how prejudices functioned in ancient civilizations can help students better understand prejudice in general, i.e. help students understand prejudice as part of the human condition, and thus help them understand prejudice in contemporary settings.

I think that examining prejudices in the context of ancient civilizations may have major benefits, and may even help prepare students to think about prejudice in American history.  In an American history class, students examine prejudices that have taken place in the history of their own society.  Because contemporary prejudices can be traced back to historical ones, an analysis of these prejudices can also be emotionally loaded.  In an emotionally loaded context, judgments come easily, making analysis difficult to practice.  In an ancient civilizations class, the subject of prejudice may carry less of an emotional charge, potentially making the subject easier to explore and analyze.   Practicing the analysis of prejudice in ancient civilizations could lay the groundwork for doing so in American history classes.  Additionally, in an American history class, students have the opportunity to watch how prejudices evolve.  In ancient civilizations classes, rather than analyzing the evolution of prejudices, students have the unique chance to compare a variety of prejudices and the contexts from which they sprung and were maintained.  This would also lay important groundwork for future examinations of the subject.    

Comparisons of prejudice in ancient civilizations, when contextualized, would also expose students to prejudice as part of the human condition, rather than as something only certain societies have had or only bad people have had.  By widening their understanding of what prejudice looks like and preparing students to see prejudice in many contexts, these comparisons may help students perceive prejudices in their own society that receive less attention.  Finally, it is under-acknowledged that we live in a globalized society in which prejudices from all around the world exist.  Learning to contextualize a variety of prejudices from around the world may help students learn to navigate prejudices in their communities that remain invisible in the common discourses on prejudice in this society.

Given these thoughts, the question I want to explore is how do middle school students understandings of prejudice develop as they learn to historically contextualize prejudice in the context of a sixth grade ancient civilizations class?

Situating my thesis within the social justice tradition: part 1

Note - this post is more judgmental of the term "social justice" than I would like it to be.  Please consider this writing to be a mode of processing for the author - as always, the thoughts here will evolve.  

As I've been writing this thesis, I've increasingly been wanting to define my stance as an educator: why do I feel compelled to write this thesis, specifically?  In a nutshell, my teaching profession is a spiritual path for me, and the subject of understanding and alleviating prejudice is a spiritual subject - a subject that allows us to more fully see and understand and support other human beings, a subject that allows us, via witnessing the web of human imperfection, to see deeper into the richness and complexity of humanity.  Understanding prejudice is primarily, for me, an act of care: and it is not as simple as caring both for those who suffer because they hold prejudices and those who suffer because they are oppressed by them; many people are in both positions, including myself.  

While I express this in my spiritual community, I have chosen to not express it in my professional community, despite the fact that my spirituality is at the core of my professional identity and is what inspires me to teach well.  I am sometimes concerned that expressing my spiritual perspective on education will alienate some of my colleagues, and I am also concerned that some of my colleagues may view me skeptically.  However, my spiritual path is what gives me clarity and insight - not only into myself and other people, but into pedagogy.  Increasingly, I feel the obligation to communicate it clearly when the situation is appropriate.  Perhaps people are skeptical of spirituality because it suffers from being communicated poorly.      

I've also increasingly been realizing that people situate me within the social justice tradition of education; to me, the social justice tradition only finds its power when it taps into spiritual realization.  Although clearly everything I do is for the sake of social justice, I don't feel a personal connection either to the term or to the social justice community as I have seen it.  The spirituality - the striving to understand the depth of humanity and of being, and the striving to be ever more supportive and compassionate - is missing from both the term and the community, (in my experience).  

The term has felt polemical to me.  Even the word "justice" just doesn't ring right - the tone of the word is one that is meant to rile the crowd, it serves to motivate, but through anger rather than through understanding, fixing, healing.  As such the term strikes me as unmindful and un-insightful.  I associate the term with the Left, with the raised fist, with a Howard Zinn type of clear-cut, black and white, good and evil presentation of human beings and society that strips away depth, complexity, and thus the ability to understand how human beings and societies actually function.  (I'm not alone in this judgment of Zinn - Zinn is like the Joseph Campbell of leftist history, adored by the public but not taken with any seriousness by scholars.  But these popular figures, much like historical movies, are where we get our popular notions of history!) 

Perhaps this is an unfair judgment of the term "social justice".  The judgment is based on a few conferences attended and a few dozen papers read, both popular and academic... conferences I walked out on and papers I didn't finish.  I didn't walk out because I experienced anger in my own heart, but because I encountered an amateurish and immature polemics of anger and judgement that my time is too precious to waste on, considering there are plenty of means to gain real insight into how injustice functions and how to rectify that. 

I tend to associate anger as coming from an ungrounded place - an angry tone automatically causes me to doubt the wisdom of the speaker or author.  I realize that many people disagree with me on this.  I know that many people working with inequity become rightfully angry (including myself), and know that just because they are angry does not mean they do not see things clearly.  I realize that a tone of anger can even be a tactic to emotionally engage people in the cause for social justice.  Or it can simply be part of how a social milieu speaks.  However, while anger may be legitimate and facilitate engagement and action, it doesn't facilitate clarity, which should be the ground for engagement and action that we strive for.  Even if an angry speaker does see things clearly, anger makes it hard for the audience to understand things clearly.  Politicians use anger all the time for this reason: it is a tool for obfuscation; anger makes it easy to take sides, to form judgments, in other words, it works against clear insight.  

Encountering anger and agitation in social justice and activist contexts doesn't make me upset, but untrusting. Being present to anger is, for me, a beautiful spiritual practice: if I wanted to avoid anger, I wouldn't have entered into social work.  As a spiritual man, when I'm around anger and agitation, I feel that my task is to be fully present with it: can I see the anger clearly?  Where is it coming from?  How can I care for the one who has anger?  How can I care for myself as I receive the anger?  I consider this a mature way to process anger, and when it comes to scholarly work, I feel it should display the same emotional maturity - if it does not, I feel I have good reason to be skeptical.

Despite all this, my work is without a doubt for the sake of social justice.  I want to help my students become insightful, resourceful, caring people.  I believe that history can provide them with insights into what it is to be human, and to how this society functions.  My work right now is about helping students understand prejudice, which is for me, about helping students more fully understand what it is to be human.  Understanding prejudice does not mean, for me, to judge those with the prejudices.  It has nothing to do with good and bad.  It has to do, simply, with understanding how human beings work.  While helping students gain an understanding of prejudice is certainly a political act and a contribution to social justice, it is also a spiritual act, an act which helps students simultaneously understand issues of justice and the complexities of humanity. 

How I describe my thesis...

Every other day, someone asks me what my thesis is about, and I've begun taking this approach to describing it:

"Well, it's about helping adolescents understand prejudice".  To which they reply something like, "Oh wow, that's really cool".  And then I say, "It's about how history teachers can help adolescents understand prejudice".

And finally, "It's about how history teachers, using the tool of historical contextualization, can help students understand prejudice in the context of ancient civilizations".

Going step-by-step seems to make this less of a mouthful.  But contextualization - and why ancient civilizations? - requires some explanation.

 "I think that contextualization is important for understanding prejudice, because that it how we understand why people think and feel the way they do.  What is it about a persons environment that creates the conditions for certain prejudices to take root?  That's what I want to help students figure out.  And I think its really cool to do this in an ancient civilizations class, because that gives students the opportunity to examine and compare many forms of prejudice.  Because students can't trace prejudices in the contemporary world back to the prejudices of ancient civilizations, its an emotionally safe way to explore the topic, and gives them time to practice exploring prejudice before jumping into American history.  And if students get to contextualize a few different prejudices, that way of looking at prejudice may sink in and transfer not only to other history classes but to their own world: hopefully I can help them get into the habit of contextualization - not only asking why people do what they do, which students tend to think of as an individuals responsibility, but what is it about the persons environment that allows for a prejudice to make sense.  I think that without this contextualization, its easy to judge people and hold anger, and difficult to come up with solutions that will alleviate the problem of prejudice".