Scott Martin-Discussion Questions

Scott Martin – Discussion Questions:

In what ways have you examined fundamental beliefs about diverse

learners with respect to learning and teaching?

Regardless of what I have known or thought I was, I am now starting to see a thought process and understand my own pre-established beliefs. Understanding them, is the current station I am at… putting them into practice will come later. I am in a struggle… a sort of crossroads when it comes to what I thought I knew and what I need to know in order to understand the “diverse learners” and myself I will have in my classroom. I was living my life viewing myself as a liberal, understanding and accepting white male who held no prejudices against anyone. After this reading I now understand that the things that were so called, “status quo” were in fact complacency on my part as a white man. I must fully examine on a daily basis the systems that are in place in America that afford me the opportunity to think the way I have and then learn from this experience.

How or in what ways have you reframed your perspectives on diversity with the intent to inform future practice?

As referenced before, I am now taking every interaction that I face on a daily basis with a “grain of salt”. I am actually pausing for a moment to see things from the other angles, which include many facets. I don’t exactly know how I am going to process and implement my own thought process as of yet, other than raising my own questions to foster discussion with the situations that I am in. I understand that from the centuries of the privilege I have benefited from as a white male, I have a position of power, whether warranted or not. The issue and task at hand now is to take this position of power I have been given and make it work for the good of everyone, white, black, yellow, red and purple. The hardest part with having power is knowing how to use it.