EDU 330 Topic 6 A Class Divided and the Invisible Knapsack Review
Imagine that your principal has come to you and stated that the district is interested in hosting a professional development workshop for educators to help them broaden their cultural competence, improve their family-teacher relationships, and enhance educational experiences for all students. The district is proposing using the materials from “A Class Divided” and “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” for the workshop. Both of these resources are dated, but are often used in schools to introduce faculty to social justice issues that affect educators.
Your principal has asked you to submit a 500-750 word persuasive essay either in support of or against the use of the material in these resources. In your essay, include specific examples that discuss whether the materials could be used to help individuals broaden their cultural competence, build stronger relationships, and create more relevant educational experiences. If you argue that the materials should not be used, offer reputable alternatives for your principal to consider. Be sure to include links and descriptions of the alternative resources.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
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Sample Answer
Our school has been recently proposed by the district to host a professional development workshop. The purpose of the workshop is to assist our educators broadening their cultural competence. I have been tasked to provide a response that either supports or opposes two specific materials that would be utilized in the workshop. These resources would provide purposeful learning and the promotion of social justice in our classrooms. It has been recommended by the district to use the following: “A Class Divided” and “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. As a response to the districts request, I fully support the use of both materials in the workshop for the following reasons.
To summarize, in the video “A Class Divided”, as a response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr in 1968, third grade teacher Jane Elliot conducted a two-day social experiment with her students. The experiment involved dividing her class based on their eye color; blue and brown. On day one, she began the experiment by granting the blue-eyed students with many unearned privileges in the classroom, while the brown-eyed students were treated unfairly by the teacher and the rest of the students. Elliot then proceeded to reverse the student’s roles on the second day of the experiment.
During this exercise, all the students had hands on fully experienced the epitome of discrimination. They each got a taste of what it feels like to have another group of people make them feel inferior to them simply based on a what they look like. This experience mirrors what people of color go through daily. Sometimes when push comes to shove, the best way for someone to learn the difference between right and wrong is to be placed in those people’s shoes and experience both sides of the spectrum. Sometimes people must learn the hard way in order to truly understand the message and to allow change to happen genuinely. With regards to racism, no one can truly understand what it feels like to be discriminated unless it happens to them.
Racism is one of todays most violent forms of discrimination; but it is also a learned behavior. No one is born with such learned behaviors or a sense of having discrimination towards others. Racism needs to be unlearned and reversed. I believe the only way we can either prevent this type of conditioning that may already exists among teachers and students or to reverse it is to introduce videos like this. I would even advocate for our own school to implement a similar experiment to promote social justice in our classrooms and to properly eradicate any potentials that oppose against it.
Moving forward to Peggy McIntosh’s’ essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” from 1989, McIntosh explores a multitude of unearned assets, privileges and advantages that are predominantly granted towards white Americans. Her essay showcases a list of over 50 examples of privileges that not only benefits white American but highlights the embodiment of what White Privilege truly is. Peggy’s essay served as an inspiration for colored people, but it also served as a form of social injustice and condemnation of white people to the viewing public.
I also fully support the use of this essay in our school’s cultural competence workshop. I believe if all the educators in our school were to explore and discuss this essay together, it would breakdown any potential culturally drawn barriers among the teachers. It would also aid our students seeing their diverse educators using these materials together as it would set an example that even thought this teacher is white, or that teacher is black, or any other race, that it doesn’t effect their jobs as educators. This would also help us learn to be more culturally sensitive and mindful of our diverse students as well. Whatever faded forms of prejudices, discriminating or oppression that may be taking place in our schools, essays like this can help us combat it.
