Codperatlve learning In the Seattle School District. EST COAST CITIES ARE TRADITIONALLY VERY DIVERSE ETHNICALLY. BECAUSE PREJUDICE HAS DEEP ROOTS, GROUNDED IN THEORY THAT TRACES BACK TO l8TH CENTURY GERMANY, CHANGING ATTITUDES, EVEN AMONG SCHOOLCHILDREN, IS A MAJOR TASK. BOTH SEATTLE AND PORTLAND, PUSHED BY THEIR NON-EUROPEAN CONSTITUENCIES, HAVE BEEN WORKING TO SHIFT EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS THAT CONTINUE TO LEAVE CHILDREN OF CERTAIN ETHNIC GROUPS ALIENATED AND DISPROPORTIONATELY LIKELY TO DROP OUT. The Seattle School District is one of the most ethnically diverse districts in the country. More than 50 percent is nonEuropean: 24.3 percent Afro-American, 19.5 percent Asian, 5 percent Latino and 2.9 percent Native-American. Traditionally, the curriculum has been from a European cultural perspective, and attempts at multi-cultural education have been in the form of add-ons—Chicano Day, Black History month, and Japanese Girls’ Day. Many teachers and administrators in the district are realizing that a diverse population can provide a very enriching cultural experience, if diversity is viewed as an asset. Crossroads Seattle, a program which began three years ago, has been moving toward an entirely new curriculum for the district. The first focus of Crossroads Seattle was to develop a new world history curriculum for grades nine and ten. About two- thirds of those units are complete and will be available for use by high school teachers this fall. Jim Grob, Crossroads Seattle Project Manager, has been advocating changes from kindergarten through the 12th grade (K-12). He told teachers and administrators who attended the Northwest Black Studies Conference, March 3-5, “It’s time to close the door to add-on curriculum and demand of school districts that they either develop a process to infuse the appropriate content into the total curriculum, all subject areas in K-12, or get out. CROSSROADS BY MELISSA LAIRD PHOTOS BY C. L. FERINGER AND EDDIE KELLMAN “What is needed is a way of burrowing into the central mainline curriculum." Grob criticized add-on multi-cultural education as being “like a circus side show on the way to the three-ring tent.” The world history curriculum was revised, according to Grob, using a process called infusion—putting multi-cultural and international content into basic concepts of the existing curriculum. The infusion process was designed largely by Dr. Wayne Williams, recently with the University of Washington’s Department of Linguistics and now with the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. “It’s going to be on-going for several years before we will be able to say multi-cultural education is in place in Seattle,” Williams said. “There’s always some resistance by teachers to deviate from their normal curriculum. What we have is a pilot group of teachers who are finding out how to incorporate new material. They’re finding it to be a really energizing and enriching experience.” “Teachers who attend infusion workshops then return to their buildings and hopefully pass this information on to other teachers,” said Barbara Nielsen, facilitator for Crossroads and consultant for CAMPI pre-school. A matrix for each unit includes ten cultural components and six thinking processes, with at least three cultures in each unit. While the infusion process began with the reading series used by most teachers, it incorporates other subject areas such as science or math, said Nielsen. “Any study of electricity should include Lewis Latimer, [a black man] who worked with Edison and was never given credit. Some of the content is less obvious. There is a wealth of information in early African civilization, for example, regarding math and science.” Another model for teaching multicultural education was presented at the Black Studies Conference by Barja Nazaretiz, a history teacher at Nathan Hale High School. Nazaretiz uses exercises which teach students how to perceive and think about historical events and ideas from many points of view. For example, if you described the Vietnam War from the standpoint of Southeast Asians, French, Americans and Chinese, you would have different concepts. In panel sessions, students learn to assign plus, minus and interesting to different ideas, to be able to expand their own assumptions and judgments. The Seattle School District is one of the most ethnically diverse districts in the country. More than 50 percent is nonEuropean: 24.3 percent Afro-American, 19-5 percent Asian, 5 percent Latino and 2.9 percent Native-American. The model presented by Nazaretiz and that of Crossroads Seattle underscore the significance of teaching methods. Part of the Crossroads program has been in the area of Staff Development, where teachers learn to become more aware of their own behavior toward students. “To be successful, the curriculum must be delivered in an equitable fashJim Grob describes Crossroads Seattle. ion,” said May Sasaki, Director of Staff Development. Research showed that many teachers used different behavior patterns toward white males. “We are not saying that teachers are racist or sexist to be malicious. We’re trying to even up the patterns of behavior between teacher and student,” Sasaki added. Using a coding process called G.E.E.S.A. (Gender and Ethnic Expectations of Student Achievement), teachers are evaluated on how they respond to different students, what kinds of wait time, interaction and proximity they provide. Cooperative learning is another technique teachers are being trained in when they go through the infusion process. In the current system, Sasaki pointed out, individual and competitive styles are more frequent. “Teachers are learning a step-by-step process to teach children to cooperate and be interdependent in heterogeneous groups. They receive a shared grade. A high achiever learns as much or more as another child in how to get along with people. “The opportunity for Crossroads came when the Rockefeller Foundation provided funding to address the issue of disproportionality: that is, some of our students are not achieving and they happen to be in specific ethnic groups. We know there’s room for improvement in terms of teaching strategies and curriculum.” The Rockefeller grant which funded Crossroads Seattle is scheduled to expire this spring. The Seattle School District has allocated money to buy materials for participating schools. The school board may approve $120,000 to enhance multi-cultural materials such as video tapes and other audio-visual materials. “Crossroads Seattle is not jeopardized as a concept,” said Doug Danner, District Director for Basic Educational Services and Jim Grob’s supervisor. “One of the major goals of the superintendent is to have a multi-cultural curriculum.” However, funding for Grob’s position will run out this August, Danner admits. “The beauty of a district of this size is that programs are not tied to individual personalities.” D avid Milh olla n d C.L. F er in g e r E d die K el lm an Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 35
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