Progressive politics do not equip educators with skills for teaching diverse students.

Evidence

When I first entered the multicultural, multiethnic classroom setting I was unprepared. I did not know how to cope effectively with so much “difference.” Despite progressive politics, and my deep engagement with the feminist movement, I had never before been compelled to work within a truly diverse setting and I lacked the necessary skills. This is the case with most educators. It is difficult for many educators in the United States to conceptualize how the classroom will look when they are confronted with the demographics which indicate that “whiteness” may cease to be the norm ethnicity in classroom settings on all levels. Hence, educators are poorly prepared when we actually con front diversity. This is why so many of us stubbornly cling to old patterns. As I worked to create teaching strategies that would make a space for multicultural learning, I found it necessary to recognize what I have called in other writing on pedagogy different “cultural codes.” To teach effectively a diverse student body, I have to learn these codes. And so do students. This act alone transforms the classroom. The sharing of ideas and information does not always progress as quickly as it may in more homogeneous settings. Often, professors and students have to learn to accept different ways of knowing, new epistemologies, in the multicultural setting. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 89

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Progressive beliefs do not translate into new teaching practices without a fierce will. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 268; Conservatism teaches professors they have nothing to learn from students. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 296; Education suffers a crisis worsened by progressives disregarding teaching (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Progressive content does not suffice; pedagogical practice itself carries conservative class values #corroborates (0.82) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 262
• Possessing a political term does not make one a practitioner of it #corroborates (0.80)
• Faculty resist naming pedagogy’s politics more than the biased teaching itself #corroborates (0.78) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 82
• Humanist education must not trade one set of slogans for another #corroborates (0.75) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 274
• Education that merely responds to racism ceases to be counter-hegemonic. #qualifies (0.74) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 15
• Progressive change is resisted when it unsettles classroom authority and safe harmony #complicates (0.73) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 73
• Political realism is an inherited skill of ruling classes, not universal knowledge #corroborates (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 621