Hair raising worries

So, what's with the video?  It came to be when Joey Mazzarino, a head writer and puppeteer at Sesame Street adopted an little Ethiopian girl.  He and his wife are both white.  As they watched her grow, they noticed a change in her when she started to play with dolls, Barbies in particular.  She would look at the dolls and really want the long, blond hair.  She soon began saying negative things about herself and her hair.

I chose it for a couple of reasons.  First, because the story behind it gives us a great example of the problem we will be facing as educators of multicultural classrooms: that everyday of their lives our kids are unknowingly subjected to white ideology in this country.  On a subconscious level white becomes the norm and non-white kids begin to dislike themselves for who and what they are, rather than celebrating in themselves as they should.  This certainly drags itself into the classroom with the kids and affects how they learn.

Secondly, I felt this week’s reading on race didn’t really give many concrete examples on how to combat the specific issues we will surely face as white teachers educating in an increasingly culturally diverse system.  “Understanding the cultures of your students” and “continued self-evaluation” are fabulous ideas and I wholly embrace them, but they are all thought and little action.  The advice given all seemed so....ethereal and very Jedi (understand yourself and the cultures of your students, you must).  I guess I just wanted to know some actual ideas on how to grapple with an area that is of concern to me; how do I deal with blatant issues of racism in the classroom.  The readings left me somehow wanting.  So I posted the video, which is the best example of countering harmful ideology and celebrating one's differences that I have seen to date.  I think it is an excellent example of the type of teaching tools we should be using.

If anyone gained more insight from the articles, I would love to know.  Or if you know of some more hard examples of things we can do, I would love to hear of them, read them, see them, or get the links to them.

UPDATE:  Next time I will wait until our class discussion on a topic before posting.  Last night we had a wonderfully presented, lively conversation that covered most of my concerns and included a handy reference sheet to find more information and tips.  Race is a topic I am very passionate about.  Looking forward to continuing the discussion.