On Music vs. Noise:
Before we can fully embrace sameness, and ultimately oneness, we must choose a sensory experience with differentness. With both hands, we must touch the walls of the unfamiliar space, walk in the tightness of the new shoes, and hear the heartbeat of another…and the music of the “other.” If we look hard enough at differentness, if we let it seep into our collective consciousness, if we identify, analyze, and understand differentness, we eventually see sameness – even if we dislike the sameness we see. Your blues don’t sound like mine — except when it does. And…sameness (and ultimately oneness) can only happen if differentness stands tall – as its authentic self – with its authentic sound. Diversity is R&B and classical and gospel and metal and hip hop and jazz and rock and country and pop and blues and punk and funk in motion, isn’t it? A beautiful improvisation that, if we are mature enough, pushes us toward critical thinking so that we can hold divergent views in our minds and still navigate the same space in harmony, possibly agreeing to disagree, but living peacefully within the paradox, nonetheless.
Watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk: The Danger of a Single Story
On Balance vs. Harmony
Isn’t this how beautiful music works? You play a note; I play a different note; somebody plays loudly; someone else plays softly; and another is at rest, counting beats until it’s time to add more sound. At rest. Silent. Without silence, music cannot exist.
Beautiful music is harmonious. Harmony is challenging. It takes differentness and sameness operating in the same space, working together, creating beauty out of chaos. Different notes. Different timings and speeds – allegro and andante. Different levels of sounds – loud and soft. And those rests. Those silent pauses that tell Differentness when to breathe, when to slow down, when to stop so that Sameness can play its notes.
Sameness is one sound. Differentness is another. The notes come together in balance. In the key of C or another. The same key on the staff. Then otherness comes. Harmony. Different notes and different chords in the same key to birth a whole new sound. Each note, being its authentic self – each note working together to find its way within the grand design to find its way to harmony, to oneness. We can make harmonious music or cacophonous noise; it’s all in the mindset; it’s all in how hard we’re willing to work for it.
On Working for Harmony in the Classroom
I teach diversity daily. Every good teacher does. We help the diverse students in our classrooms own and hone their authentic voices and help them carve out, figure out, the value in the content of their voices. We help them speak their truths, treating everyone with kindness, dignity, and respect. They learn to speak their beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and values without devaluing, marginalizing, and erasing other voices.
This is hard. Striving for harmony is hard. A zillion components go into the mix, enter the conversation about how to do it. Of the many methods, here are mine:
My Lesson Plan Food for Thought
- Give students provocative texts to “read” (include video excerpts, visuals, and audios) regarding the diversity concept you want to engage. Whatever topic is current in the news is a good choice – whatever they want to discuss is another good choice – or whatever topic needs a light shed on it because it’s invisible. I chose to focus on Racism. The Black Lives Matter Movement held up a light to the young voices in our classrooms and pointed out what was already in the news: a barrage of unarmed black men getting killed by police officers in American cities large and small. Our nation had some challenges. Our school had some challenges. Our classroom had some challenges.
- Add different voices to our Western Literary Canon. Of course Shakespeare and Steinbeck are still in the orchestra, but I added black voices, especially those of black men. We read Ta-Neshisi Coates’s Between the World and Me and Brent Staples’s Black Men in Public Space. We went to TED Talks for Stu’s ” Black Men Ski,” Tony Porter’s, “The Man Box” , James Baldwin, Dick Gregory, James Weldon Johnson, my father, brother, sons, uncles, and many, many others. It was important to hear black men play their authentic notes, speak with their authentic voices as they entered this conversation on racism.
- Teach them to discuss – not debate. In the latter, there are winners and losers. The former posits the idea that understanding the issue from multiple perspectives is the single most important purpose for the discussion. Sometimes students agree to disagree. Sometimes they see the other person’s truth as part of their own. They first recognize and understand difference – then they get to sameness – and ultimately to oneness.
- Teach them five types of listening: listening to paraphrase and summarize information; listening to learn and comprehend information, listening to analyze and evaluate information, listening to empathize and feel others’ thoughts and emotions, and listening to appreciate the truth and beauty of what someone is saying is what REAL listening is about.
- Give them discussion resources: supply them with great discussion handouts that delineate the “rules” of student-run discussions; have them develop their own discussion norms; show them videos on how to have discussions; have them make their own videos; teach them to create their own discussion questions; let them listen to audios of student-run discussions; be sure they have their discussion journals and reading logs during the discussion (for resources, see maryasgill.org)
- Give them writing situations throughout the unit: my students have “DAILY WRITE” notebooks on their computers or in composition notebooks. When they enter the room, they see a quote or question or prompt to which they respond before the discussion begins. They write before and after group discussions and whole-class discussions. They research information generated from their questions. They write reflections after the discussions. It is through the writing that they internalize their thoughts enough to have a verbal conversation – enough to add their authentic notes to the song that is America, the song that is the world.
Resources:
TeachingTolerance.org – Educating for a Diverse Democracy
Yale Center for Teaching and Learning
Know ELLs – Ning for Teaching English as a Second Language
The song that is America and the world is being created daily with many instruments that play different notes. Sameness, balance, means that if you play a B-flat and I play a B-flat, we are the same, we found balance. Understanding that we are all human beings and that there is only ONE race – the human race – is a laudable notion. Yes, we are all the same. Yes, all lives matter. Yes, we all bleed red blood.
The problem with only looking at sameness, though, is that we are too quick to get there. We are too quick to erase, or marginalize differentness. When we do this, we get to sameness, and we find balance, but we do not have harmony. If everyone in the orchestra that is America and the world plays only B-flats, we are the same, but we do not have music. We only have the warm-up for what the real music promises to be.
We must each play our authentic notes if we are to continue to create a new song. Balance lets us all know that we all matter. Harmony helps us understand why – that some notes matter more than others at certain times in the song, and that every song requires silence. Without it, there is just noise.
The goal, then, is not to emphasize only Sameness – but Differentness – and ultimately, Oneness. One song, many different notes. One world in harmony.
Drop me a line if you know of other great resources for teaching Diversity in the classroom.
…so that life is always good – no matter what.
Mary