An enthusiastic group of educators, advocates and students gathered in Kildee Hall on Saturday to take a serious look at underlying social inequalities in America’s schools.

Sonia Nieto, nationally renowned educator, writer and speaker, gave a keynote presentation elaborating on the conference’s central theme of “Critical Multicultural Education in Iowa: Moving Beyond Fun, Food and Festivals.”

The conference also included 13 concurrent sessions, which examined various topics such as incorporating music into the classroom to teach multiculturalism, to racism and diversity issues in rural communities.

While Nieto and other presenters throughout the day stressed the need for a serious, “critical” approach to multicultural issues, moments of lightheartedness occurred as well.

Before Nieto’s speech, for instance, a man sat for several minutes in the front of the room, thumping rhythms with his hands on a wooden box.

Carlie Tartakov, professor emeritus in curriculum and instruction and president of the Iowa chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education, the organization that put on the conference, nodded her head and moved to the rhythm as she waited for the right moment to introduce the keynote speaker.

After a thunderous applause, Tartakov walked up to the podium and explained that the practice of playing drum rhythms on something as simple as a box came from enslaved Africans, who were forbidden to play on drums but used common objects to preserve the rhythms of their culture.

The audience applauded him once again when he said he did this in order to demonstrate how simply teachers can incorporate music in their classrooms in order to teach multiculturalism.

On that note, Tartakov and IA-NAME Vice President Lenola Allen-Somerville, contract associate of curriculum and instruction, introduced Nieto, calling on the lively audience at different moments to shout out their excitement on being at the conference.

Nieto began her presentation by reminding listeners that May 17 was the anniversary of the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in public schools.

Multicultural education, she said, “is not a new thing”-she alluded to the fact that she took courses on the topic in the ’70s-however, “there’s still a disconnect between its theory and its practice.”

Nieto discussed multicultural issues through the framework of the fifth edition of her book “Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education,” which was released a month ago.

One of the basic underlying assumptions of her book, she said, is that “identity, difference and power are all connected.”

“Identity influences how one experiences the world, but it doesn’t determine how one experiences the world,” Nieto said, talking about how people of the same cultural background can grow up and become completely different individuals.

Diversity, Nieto said, extends in her mind beyond ethnic differences to differences in religion, ability and sexuality. However, the three “lenses” through which she examines social dynamics related to diversity in her book are race, ethnicity and language.

Differences in culture and identity are not the only issues educators need to address in light of a country whose population is growing daily in diversity, Nieto said.

“In the final analysis, it needs to address not only issues of difference, but also issues of power and privilege,” she said.

Throughout her speech, Nieto talked about the importance of a “critical approach” to multicultural education, meaning that negative aspects of educators’ own cultures, as well as negative aspects of other cultures, need to be addressed along with celebrating the positives.

Nieto said teachers are “not the villains” in issues of social inequality and negligence related to multiculturalism – while they do have an enormous amount of power and responsibility, they are also at the mercy of larger systems, and decisions made by people far-removed from the classroom.

Teachers must be aware of those larger systems, Nieto said, and take a critical look at multiculturalism from a sociopolitical context – meaning ideological and institutional frameworks need to be examined and often confronted.

Ultimately, it is these larger “macroeconomic policies” that determine the outcome of many students’ lives, depending on where they fall in society’s inequalities, Nieto said.

So while many aspects of social justice may be out of teachers’ hands, they can still do their best to “provide all students with material and emotional resources so they can learn and grow to their full potential,” Nieto said.

However, it is still important to be aware of the larger economic and political realities that shape the educational system.

“Beyond focusing in their own classroom, [teachers] have to learn to collaborate with others – colleagues, family members and the community – to struggle for the changes that will create opportunities for all children,” Nieto said.

Allen-Somerville said she was very pleased with the keynote presentation, as well as the caliber of the other presenters and the content of their speeches.

As to Nieto’s speech, she said, it provided herself and the other people at the conference with “something to plan for, and something to implement.”

“We leave here with a charge,” said Allen-Somerville, one she said she is excited about.

Genya Coffey, senior in elementary education, came to the conference because her multicultural education professor invited his students to attend.

“A lot of things we’ve been learning in class have been repeated here,” Coffey said.

Coffey said it was encouraging to see the diverse group of people at the conference who are committed to the issues she is passionate about.

“I’ve noticed among other students a lot of resistance to some of the issues we brought up in class,” Coffey said.

Many other education students, she said, will say they plan to teach in Iowa and will therefore not encounter much diversity – something she said is not really accurate, even if it may be on the racial level. Diversity is much more complex than race. she said.

“Just to say I’m going to teach in Iowa and all the kids are going to be white is not to address the problem at all,” Coffey said.

Coffey said she was glad to meet Nieto, whose work she recently read in class.

“You don’t often get to meet someone you just read an article about,” she said.

Nieto said all students, not only those pursuing degrees in education, need to be concerned about social justice in the educational system.

“Public education is everybody’s business,” Nieto said. “If we want to put flesh on the ‘American dream,’ we have to believe in public education – [we have to] pass bond issues, support teachers, and be involved in schools.”

Related article:

Get to know keynote speaker Dr. Sonia Nieto

Related article: Multicultural Education Conference to take place at Iowa State Saturday.

Posted 5/19/07 @ 10:56 PM CST