anthro notes

a newsletter for teachers

vol. 4 no. 1

winter 1982

TEACHERS AT AAA

Over 100 teachers, educators, and anthropologists attended an all-day workshop on Multicultural Education held at the American Anthropological Association meetings in Los Angeles on Saturday, December 5.

The day's activities began with a paper session organized by the Council on Anthropology and Education's Committee 3 (Teaching Anthropology) on “Innovative Teaching in Anthropology: New Approaches for New Students”. Peter Tirrell of the University of Oklahoma's Stovall Museum described several archaeology programs for pre-college students designed by the museum's education staff in cooperation with archeologists and teachers. Patricia Bacot, representing the team of Bacot, Sylvia Flores, and Dolores Reed-Sanders, explained how they had incorporated anthropological content and inquiry methods into their NSF Teacher Development Project on Multiculturalism for teachers in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas. Suzanne Spina talked about the rationale, development and results of the Smithtown (New York) High School Ethnography project and called for the establishment of a national network of teachers and classes involved in the ethnographic study of student culture. Finally, Diane Kagan described her use of ethnographic research projects for non-traditional students at Santa Rosa (California) Community College.

Discussant Carol Mukhopadhyay, former secondary teacher and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at California State University, identified several themes linking the paper presentations: the value of collaboration between teachers, college-based anthropologists, and museum personnel; the value of experiences involving students directly in anthropology; the value of ethnographic and archeological research for deepening understanding of different groups and for undermining student stereotypes; the importance of public contacts beyond the school; and an emphasis on the use and teaching of scientific inquiry.

The second discussant, Courtney Cazden of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and President of the Council on Anthropology and Education (1980-81), focused upon the relationship of the papers presented to the overall topic of the workshop, Multicultural Education. “If we take the term ‘culture’ in multicultural education seriously,” Cazden said, “we must then give more consideration to the topics and concepts covered in the papers. If we, as educators, want the scientific method to be used in thinking about human life, then we must use anthropological materials and inquiry processes.” Anthropologists, she urged, must become more involved in teacher training and in helping teachers use these materials and processes in multicultural classrooms.

Following the paper session, the workshop continued with several sessions providing materials and specific suggestions for integrating an anthropological perspective into a variety of classroom contexts. Dr. Valesta Jenkins of Berkeley described ways to utilize cultural concepts from Africa, South America, and the Middle East into mathematics programs. Dr. Richard Jacobs took participants through a discussion of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism to help them introduce these same concepts to students.

In the afternoon, Ms. Jo Bonita Perez, Educational Consultant for the Los Angeles County Schools, presented a workshop entitled “Cross-Cultural Perspectives in the Development of Language Arts and Science Programs.” Ms. Perez shared several modules and a science program she had developed for the L.A. school system. A final session, “The Use of Media in Multicultural Education”, was led by Dr. Denise Lawrence, Director of the Center for the Study of Visual Anthropology at the University of Southern California, and Ms. Pat Seeley, Consultant, Los Angeles County Schools. Dr. Lawrence showed a videotape on religious home shrines in Mexican American culture, explaining ways the videotape could be integrated into social studies or ethnic studies programs. Ms. Seeley showed a videotape on Africa based on an out-dated film which she uses to develop critical viewing skills in students who analyze the film's stereotypes and ethnocentrism.

Plans are presently underway to make the papers and workshop materials available for wider distribution; details will be announced in a future issue of Anthro·Notes.

Dr. Patricia Higgins,

S.U.N.Y. -Plattsburgh

(Organizer, paper session)

Dr. Yolanda J. Moses,

California State Polytechnic University

(Organizer, workshop session)