Reading Response 6 – Pluralism

I was totally unprepared for this chapter – I did not expect this forum of discussion based on the title, “The Changing Role of Schools.” This chapter was not only interesting to me because it was somewhat cynical in its perspectives – it appeared to me to have a kind of biting wit to it – but because Alisha, my wife, is currently in a multicultural education course at UVU and she absolutely hates it – because it is not pluralism. Of course, she did not know this term previous to my reading the chapter, but we have had discussions on the subject-matter and, as I read, I had to read to her the following passage:

The first is a veneer of tokenism in which it appears diversity is honoured – a spaghetti and polka multiculturalism – but in which nothing really changes in terms of patterns of educational outcomes.

For me, I could not help but think of her because she frequently talks about how all multiculturalism in the classroom is (according to her professor and much of her learning) exactly this idea of “spaghetti and polka multiculturalism” as it pertains to saying, “Hey look, we’ve got some Hispanics in our class…let’s talk about the ‘Day of the Dead’…” This hearkens back to the previously written idea that:

Education as a superficial kind of multiculturalism means that, at a surface level, the system recognizes, even honours, the variability of lifeworlds, but deep down, you’ve still got to make yourself over in the image of those lifeworlds closest to the culture of institutionalized learning and ‘mainstream’ power.

So, what are the implications of this thought? Pluralism, in my perspective, says that every student should be working in a kind of “self-directed study” with a learning plan specific to their lifeworld because we cannot be truly pluralist unless we actually change the form of our educational system to meet the individual, not the other way around. Again, we’re back to the “portfolio person.” Now, I could be misinterpreting this.

The final question of the text talks about “productive relationality” – essentially connecting with, entering in, and learning from (in a productive manner) other lifeworlds not our own. I got interested. They pointed to articles within the text (which is nice) that would inform us regarding the “how” of pluralism – and then I noticed that they all seem to do with learning a different language or collaboration. So, in essence, we have to do some kind of expatriate activity that gets us involved in the language of and collaboration with other lifeworlds…and all this within our schools? I love the idea of pluralism but its implementation kind of exceeds my abilities to perceive – perhaps it is too ideal even for me?