My insight on the paper is that us, being as educators as well as learners in our chosen profession must continue to learn not only in the context of our profession but also to the cultural diversity of the people we interact with.

Being able to understand the situation of the people we mingle with is not merely enough for us to say that we are able to empathize with them. What we should know as educators as well as learners at the same time is that we should also know on how to empower people in which we help them help themselves.

The article just showed us the thin line between being empathic and sympathetic, we should always be reminded that we should always put ourselves in the shoes of people we want to help and prevent having the status quo of inequity. We shpuld always be a learner among these culturally diversed people.

nope i didn't mean that.what i said was the complexity of things around us shapes our thinking which in one way or another affects our way of learning. Besides, our culture is not shaped based on the complexities of the phenomenon around us. Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation.

Josh wrote:

On Cristina's, do you mean as we are learning to the complexities of phenomenon around us we shape our own culture? and this culture affects our capability to learn and directly affect our method of teaching? perhaps, the reason why culture is power, it influences our being and may attract and distract others. if so, cultural mutuality and equity should be highly addressed to come up with a global curriculum design. patmarban wrote: The study emphasizes the importance of instructor awareness with regard to the socio-cultural background of his/her students in order to teach more efficiently. Cristina Mariano wrote: e. “Learning Together What We Do Not Know: The Pedagogy of Multicultural Foundations” I guess the main reason that they entitled it as such is because the situation shows that each of them have learned from the study of the underlying effect of culture to learnings of an individual. In reality all of us are unaware that learning process is how we inculcate varieties of things around us. It shapes our thinking in a way that we grow with all these things and affects our manner of learning.

I believe the key of the discussion must first focus on self awareness on the part of the educator. Before the educator can provide any effective learning on the part of the student especially if the student is of different culture, the educator must first be aware of his own culture, his own biases on another culture and must be able to develop a sense of objectivity and empathy instead of sympathy as his role is supposed to be that of a teacher and not of a social worker. A helper to assist one in learning without any feelings of counter transference. Admittedly, the challenge will be on how the educator will be able to learn the culture of the other while at the same time maintain one’s objectivity.

wow now i can use green fonts, but still not big enough though...

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Josh wrote:

Good point sir Gary. Community assessment or homevisit is a very noble attempt as a method of assessment and evaluation tool. However, i can't imagine how tedious and taxing this process to teachers specially if we put up that system here in our country. Ideally, though, if the objective is to come up with a suitable curriculum design where ehtnicity and multi-cultural society, then as teachers we should uphold the great benefit that it will bring to our students. quote="gary.orosa"]The title was named “Learning Together What We Do Not Know: The Pedagogy of Multicultural Foundations” because learning in this example goes both ways, on the educator and the student as the interns were placed in a position or in a situation were they have been able to emulate the environment of their students. Additionally, the researcher also learned from the interns, The objectives of the study were to assess the pedagogy and how it develops in interaction between students, the instructor, and the content ; and to provide an avenue through which this individual teacher educator could explore, innovate, and improve her practice. Pedagogy is the art or science of being a teacher. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction. My role in the concept is as a learner as both the educator and the students learn from each other. The strong points of the study in the community investigation of the study conducted simply shows that an educator must not simply assume a situation as being a fact nor be judgmental on another. Experience will definitely open one’s eyes and perspectives by emulating or putting one’s self in the other’s shoes. However the weak points of the community investigation are that it had changed the attitude of the interns from empathy to sympathy and had shifted the roles of a learner to a helper. It raises the awareness levels of the educator in accessing the situation of the family but it supports sympathy and compromises the objectivity of being an educator and transforms one’s role into that of a helper or charitable worker. As the prospective instructors were of diverse culture, their methods of instruction design had been influenced by their socio cultural backgrounds. The interns themselves and the experiences they bring to the course shape the pedagogy, in particular the types of conversations and analysis of socio-political contexts that can occur. The perspective of one instructor being a lesbian mom in this culture and her willingness to share her experiences with her classmates became a part of the content of the course. The assumptions of the study were that the interns in this cohort shared similar knowledge (schema) about race and racism given that the majority of the interns are white, middle-class women but their individual experiences and their ways of making sense of those experiences varied. Cultural diversity will definitely have an affect on teaching startegy as each educator as well as each student has his or her own culture. As with the learner centered approach, a thorough assessment of the learner must first be pursued but it has to go both ways in the sense that the educator must also have some self awareness on his values and beliefs. It would be significant to note that there should also be a mutual respect to each and everyone’s culture before an effective learning process may be implemented. As it is we sometimes subliminally have certain biases on another’s culture and if this is present or becomes dominant, no effective learning can be achieved.

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The way i see it, the article does not just set aside the cultural differences of both the teacher and the learner but rather it explores the differences of both parties for better understanding. Cultural differences cannot be just "set aside". it is has become part of us and how we grew up to be. However, when a disparity exists between the teacher and the learner and it impedes the goal of learning then that might be the time to set it aside.

I find it in this country that economic status sets people apart. I find it in my class. This article gives me another reason why i should not scold my students without prior investigation to what have had happened - aside from worrying about my alta presion. Scolding them outright may mean pre-judging their actions as totally unacceptable and does not take into consideration the factors behind what led to that action. Socio-economic reasons may be taken into consideration because nowadays many cannot afford the rising cost of living. Some of my students fail to comply with projects and reports (that would entail spending quite a sum of money) due to a lack of funds. Exploring this side opens an opportunity for students to reinvent themselves. As with the my saying to my students, "diskartehan mo na lang yan", i display empathy as i am open to other ways my students can meet my requirements. Resourcefulness is what i am teaching my students.

Empathy puts us in the shoes of the other person. It allows us see the situation or the predicament the other is facing. It opens new possibilities for learning despite being handicapped by low family income - which affects probably the majority of students today.

let us first define what is culture:

# Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
# Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people. (Hofstede,1997)

with this definition , we would be able to understand what is cultural diversity, in which groups of people, have different cultural views, ranging from different social class. The paper only wanted to say that as educators as well as learners we should be aware of this diversity for us not to promote inequity among others...

And with this knowledge we would be able to be better educators, and have a pedagogy with multi cultural foundations.

Even as a student, we may be an educator. How? At home when we apply our nursing knowledge to our family. Also, during peer discussions with our non-nursing friends, we sometimes take the role of an educator if they ask something health related and we answer them based on our knowledge of the sciences.

Divinia Joy Tuzon wrote:

c. Define pedagogy. What is your role in this concept? Merriam-Webster (2008) defines pedagogy as the art and science of being a teacher. My personal understanding of pedagogy based from the article is that pedagogy encompasses all the strategies or styles of instruction which an instructor educator uses in his or her practice. As a student, my role in the concept of pedagogy is to participate and interact in the learning process initiated by my instructor for it is through these interactions where pedagogy takes place.

I appreciate your comment Sir Patrick. I was only emphasizing my perceived role based from the concept of instructional triangle of students, teacher and subject matter. I do believe that students can be educators in their own ways too. The example you've given is a good one. Students no matter how inexperience they may be also have something worthwhile to share and teach to others and even to their educators. The learning process is a two-way process. Students learn from their teachers. Similarly, teachers also learn from their students.

patmarban wrote:

Even as a student, we may be an educator. How? At home when we apply our nursing knowledge to our family. Also, during peer discussions with our non-nursing friends, we sometimes take the role of an educator if they ask something health related and we answer them based on our knowledge of the sciences. Divinia Joy Tuzon wrote: c. Define pedagogy. What is your role in this concept? Merriam-Webster (2008) defines pedagogy as the art and science of being a teacher. My personal understanding of pedagogy based from the article is that pedagogy encompasses all the strategies or styles of instruction which an instructor educator uses in his or her practice. As a student, my role in the concept of pedagogy is to participate and interact in the learning process initiated by my instructor for it is through these interactions where pedagogy takes place.

Going back on our guide question, considering cultural background of the teacher and the learner is significantly important to develop a pedagogical material.

The teacher should focus on designing, implementing and later on evaluating the developed material to analyze if it assisted in facilitating learning. Reassessment must be done to improve the material for future use.

Thank you classmates for participating, I was enlightened. Peer learning is an effective method for me..

In the philippines, i don't think racial issue is a problem. The article is in an american scenario where racism is centuries old and many (african-americans, american-indians, hispanics, asians, etc.) are still struggling today. so what could cause disparity between Filipinos that it could hinder learning between Filipino teachers and their learners? I could enumerate socio-economic status and sexuality, but is that all?

Anyway, a "Reach-out" is an activity that would enable a teacher to "live" the life of a poor (student) for a day or two. That is what the author did for her interns - to be put into the shoes of their students and see their problems aside from their academic obligations. Even for a day or two, it would make a lasting impression to their minds the everyday struggles of students of these sort just to go to school.

I was also thinking sexuality might be an issue but, although this is a dominantly Christian country, i'm seeing a lot of people accepting the 3rd sex in the society. however, this could be debatable.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
- Bonnie Jean Wasmund on empathy

After reading what my classmates have to say, I must say that the topic really interests everyone. To start with, let me admit that after studying the article I can finally say that now I know and really understand the meaning of pedagogy. I believe with what Sir Gary mentioned that in order for an educator to fully understand the concept of pedagogy of multicultural foundations, he should first focus on his self-awareness. The instructor’s self-assessment on his teaching as well as his prior experiences would immensely affect his formation and utilization of his own pedagogy.

Relating the situation in the study to the situation in our country, I’ve noticed that some believe that it is prevalent and applicable while others may not think of it as relevant. By just reading the stated reasons, I can say that truly one’s beliefs and experiences affects the way he or she perceives a current situation. I personally think that multicultural does not only mean different races. It also encompasses the diversity of ethnic, social-class, and cultural groups. Banks and Banks (1995) defined multicultural education as an emerging discipline whose major aim is to create equal educational opportunities for students from diverse racial, ethnic, social-class, and cultural groups. With this, I agree with Sir Josh that the finding of this study is applicable in the Philippine setting as well. Though it may be true that Filipinos are less racist compared to other nationalities, the fact that our country is widely populated in terms of socio-economic aspect makes the concept of multicultural education imperative in the context of our education today.

The importance of learning the significance of empathizing instead of sympathizing is a good realization. I admire you Ms. Sonia for displaying empathy to your students. However just like what Sir Joel said, I think that it is not enough to merely say that by understanding what others are going through we are already empathizing with them. If every individual will try to transform first his or her own self coupled with transformation of education (including the responsibilities of both learners and educators), this could eventually lead to transformation of the entire society. The result is social change which I believe is the underlying goal of multicultural foundations of education.

Banks and Banks. (1995). Multicultural Education. Retrieved August 14, 2008 from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/presrvce/pe3lk1.htm

With what Sir Gary has to say about self-awareness, I do believe too that before trying to adapt or to know something about one person or a culture, you must first have an assessment on your own. Before trying to open up other people’s background, you must first be aware of what you have in you, on what you might share with others, and be aware also that new learnings will be molded in you.

As what Miss Tuzon said, if transformation is made to you first then leading to transformation of the society, is a result of a social change. Multicultural education can be applicable to Philippine setting as we currently cater education to foreign students. The traditional curriculum can then be revised into culturally driven curriculum, allowing a major transformation for the betterment of the society.

The primciples of introspection, which I think was authored by the Great Socrates, is really a must to practice of every individual not only by nurse educators/educators. Even in simple interactions with other people, rich or poor, have to practice self-awareness in order to gain positive interpersonal relationship. With that being said, as an apprentice in the field of nursing education, being free from prejudice, in dealing with nursing students, I found out that I can emphatize more with my students and easily relate my lived experiences with their own. However, i find it amusing, how students are very much affected with the culture that influenced our students, in the school they came from or the culture acquired from the instructors. I found it very powerful that affects a student way of learning and motivation to learn. In short, students are directly or indirectly influenced by culture of the instructors that also affects the way the instuctor molded their students. Thus, students are having culture shock, closed to new system by embracing the culture that was embedded by instructors or educational institution he/she came from. This culture shock and unopenness to new methods of teaching are two of the significant concern of this article.

Kriselda Anne Moreno wrote:

With what Sir Gary has to say about self-awareness, I do believe too that before trying to adapt or to know something about one person or a culture, you must first have an assessment on your own. Before trying to open up other people’s background, you must first be aware of what you have in you, on what you might share with others, and be aware also that new learnings will be molded in you. As what Miss Tuzon said, if transformation is made to you first then leading to transformation of the society, is a result of a social change. Multicultural education can be applicable to Philippine setting as we currently cater education to foreign students. The traditional curriculum can then be revised into culturally driven curriculum, allowing a major transformation for the betterment of the society.