"To commit ourselves to the work of transforming the academy so that it will be a place where cultural diversity informs every aspect of our learning, we must embrace struggle and sacrifice" (Hooks, 7). Bell Brooks has some really insightful commentary towards the topic if integrating cultural diversity into the everyday classroom. Her words were very powerful and inspiring because I feel that so many teachers and pre-service can become discouraged when attempting to incorporate cultural diversity into the classroom. Sometimes they may feel as though they try and try to bring cultural diversity with little to no success.
I believe we can all take something away from Hooks chapter 2: A revolution of values. Within this chapter, she compares the struggles and difficulties one may face when trying to create a culturally diverse environment in the classroom to the civil rights movement and even to feminism. Advocates for civil rights and women's rights did not just give up when things seemed difficult or almost impossible. Instead, they embraced the fight because they knew that in the end, the fight was completely worth it. In the end, we would all be better people and we would all have so much to learn. We would all learn something along the way as well as after the change had occurred. Now, as we fight and commit ourselves to transforming school systems by including cultural diversity into the many different aspects of education, we need to brace ourselves for the struggles that lie ahead, and find the strength and endurance to push through these times. Although we may have a goal set in our minds, the final outcome can be even greater than we can even imagine. This change will not occur over night. It will take time, but when it does happen, the future generations will benefit that much more.
I like your thoughts about the importance of including cultural diversity into the many different aspects of education because it will eventually benefit future generations. This blog post made think of our class discussion last Wednesday about teaching about homosexuality in the classroom. I felt as though the topic was a sensitive subject for some of our classmates. Some were totally for teaching about it while others thought it should not be a part of the curriculum. I think that seeing/hearing people's point of view on the issue of homosexuality better helps me understand that there is an actually debate of teaching cultural diversity in schools. In our field of education, almost everyone if for it so we rarely hear the negative side or opposing side. However, hearing the opposing side of teaching about homosexuality in school reminds me that not everyone in he world is like us foreign language and TESOL teachers that love and embrace diversity.
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