The Sensitivity Jazz Chant
April 18, 2008 by thomasgault
THE SENSITIVITY JAZZ CHANT
by Thomas Gault
with apologies to Carolyn Graham
Be more sensitive!
Be more sensitive!
How?
How?
Be more sensitive!
Be more sensitive!
How?
How?
They’re different! Don’t you understand?
They’re different! Don’t you understand?
How?
How are they different?
You should know that!
Yes you should!
How?
How can I know?
How can you ask that?
You should know!
I want to know!
How can I learn?
By being more sensitive!
By being more sensitive!
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Does this little ditty make you wince with pain? I don’t know about you, but I’ve sat through countless seminars, lectures, and classes on culture and sensitivity that did not give me anything concrete to work with, except that I needed to be more sensitive.
As I prepared a recent lecture on culture for my CSUF TESL class, I came up with 12 difficulties in discussing culture. I’d like to share them here.
13 DIFFICULTIES IN DISCUSSING CULTURE
1. Trivialization – some talk only about food, clothing, punctuality, etc.
2. Academic abstraction – some use lots of big phrases like “the marginalization-acculturation continuum,” and don’t give teachers anything real.
3. Lack of application – some of us advocate being “more sensitive,” but don’t say or know how to do that
4. Political correctness – some focus solely on the semantics and limit real discussion
5. Liberalism and niceness – some just want everybody to get along, and we pity those poor people who haven’t had the advantages that we have had.
6. Judgementalism – some are outraged that “those people” have broken immigration law, don’t work hard enough, don’t live like us, etc.
7. Conservatism – some of us aren’t harsh, we just think that “those people” should take care of themselves, and not ask for special treatment.
8. Generalizing from society to classroom – something may be true for society at large, but not be true for students in my classroom.
9. Generalizing from elite to masses or from educated to uneducated – something may be true for a culture’s elite scholars and thinkers, and not be true for my students
10. Seeing only those who have emigrated – we get a false picture of a culture if we only look at the people who have left it.
11. Generalizing from society to the individual – a student may be a member of a society and still be a unique individual.
12. Making assumptions about which culture and or subcultures another person is a member of – a student may look Korean and be Brazilian, or Kyrgyzstani, or Dutch. Or vice versa.
13. The need to deal with so many difficulties!
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Hi Thomas - I like lists, and this one is I hope a close echo of yours.
Loosely titled “Trying to get real!” and not a chant!
a. Depth of discussion (requires time and wisdom and risk) -vs- 1. Trivialization
b. Lived experience with “Others” (first hand working and living knowledge with ~) -vs- 2. Abstraction
c. Social mistakes; knowledge of what is at stake through process of taking risks, very likely errors - vs - 3. Missing applications
d. Humor, skepticism, tempered with sense of self; centeredness -vs- 4. Correctness
e. Realism -vs- 5. Undue liberalism
f. Honesty -vs- 6. Snap-judgements
g. Sense of inquiry about, among other things, the future -vs- 7. Undue-conservatism
h. Needs assessment -vs- 8. False classroom model
i. Objectivity -vs- 9. False thinking
j. Spaces for story telling (ps. I wonder if, as ESL teachers, we handle this one fairly well) -vs- 10. Narrow vision
k. Thoughtfulness -vs- 11. False individual model
l. Questions, hearing answers, thinking about our ways of seeing -vs- 12. Ignorance
m. Patience, support from / renewal with allies -vs- 13. Many difficulties!
I expect this could boil this down further, no? Another time. Thanks for your post.
I am very impressed by these lists. I also love lists. Did you come up with these just now, or have you been working on this for a while? What does false individual and classroom model mean?
It might not be a bad idea to share lists like these with our students, so that they can see some of the barriers/pathways that are involved in becoming acculturated. Many of our students would make mindful decisions to navigate through this process more gracefully if they were equip with the knowhow.
You two might want to hook up and do a flex workshop about this. You could gear it towards teaching students about the choices they make and how it effects their acquisition of culture.
Of course, some of the things enumerated on the list have more to do with character and personality than willful choice, but I do believe that people can change, especially if they are motivated by goals.
Hi culture considers, This topic sparked a cord with me. Stew Case is always making comment about cultural dosconnect but not exactly supplying specifics or ways to solve a very deep and serious problem. As if just identifyying it is enough. Malena commented
” Many of our students would make mindful decisions to navigate through this process (accuolturation) more gracefully if they were equip with the knowhow”
I think our students have made a very conscious commitment to navigate the process of acculturation. That is why they are here. They have made brave and couageous decisions and they get up every day and act with their feet to navigate this acculturation process. Although I agree with you we all need words to talk about this process on both of our behalfs. A group discussion would be helpful, so we all know how hard it is to do what we are doing. We don’t want a process that looks like Serbia and Bosnia. Mary Polychrome
True. That made me chuckle. We definitely don’t want a process that ends in genocide!
Our students do act with their feet. They are on their way to acculturation through education. I like to rhyme
But as we know, some of our students seem to have an easier time easing into an American or hyphenated American life-style, and others find this transition to be more difficult and take longer to transition. This happens for many reasons. Some are environmental and others genetic. Regardless, addressing the stages we go through as we adapt to a new culture, talking about the choices that can be made to facilitate this process, and addressing important differences can be helpful to the students.
We talk about these things often in Citizenship classes. We discuss the positive and negative attributes of American culture. I allow everyone to state their opinions, and then help explain misunderstandings. I also talk about choices they can make to learn faster, adapt faster, and help them come to terms with their identities. I want them to understand how they can keep their own culture while incorporating new social patterns into their lives. I always emphasize all the best things about American culture and encourage them to explore new areas of our culture as often as possible.