Ethnic Studies: The Requirement and How We Got Here

This will be the last podcast for the foreseeable future.  I need to engage the work of ethnic studies in my work, at my college, and in my community.  It has truly been a blessing to serve you and I look forward to the next iteration of (Re)Teach!

Ethnic studies, at its heart, must be about intersectionality, tying current events to multiple disciplines for analysis, and making a positive social change.  If your class is not doing this, then it is not an ethnic studies class.  One of those changes is how classes are taught and that will be the focus of the last episode in this series.

I cover 2 of the 5 core competencies in this episode.  It is not enough to talk about culture or history to be considered an ethnic studies class.  You must focus your class on power and how people liberate themselves from oppressive structures, e.g. racism, colonialism, etc. 

Ethnic Studies is in high demand in California.  The California State University system has made it a requirement and this directly affects the community college system.  Ethnic Studies is even being offered at the high school level.  This episode will give a brief examination of what Ethnic Studies is and what social factors have brought us to this place in history.

What I talked about in this episode:
1) Research some textbooks to get a feel for patterns
2) Start with what you are good at
3) Put your best stuff in the book!
4) Keep equity at the center

I talk about my personal journey on pricing my textbook and how I went from zero cost to charging, back to zero cost.  I then talk about the pluses and minuses of using iBook author to create my textbook.  I finish by talking about how creating a textbook helped me rethink my teaching and how I use multiple-choice questions.  I will give you part two next time :)

Embracing being awkward means fighting against systematic racism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativism.  However, we are not fighting against the center to become the center.  We are fighting to establish a world that accepts our authentic selves as central to who we are but resists creating new norms for authenticity.

Will you accept my late work?  Many of us do not take late work from students, but will you accept mine?   In this episode, I reflect on all of the emotions that I am going through right now in my life and how they have led me to forget about doing this recording on time.   I hope you accept my late work.

Some very real reasons to write you own textbook:
1) You will never think more about your teaching
2) Imagine being in sync with your textbook
3) Focuses on what you like
4) It will be organized the way you like it
5) You can put equity at the center!

Three things helped me to understand that I was in the beginning phase of writing a textbook:
1) I found out that textbooks matter
2) I was spending a LOT of time developing my own examples because I did not like my textbook
3) I was developing handouts to go with the reader for the class