What do you think about this situation?

Question

I am having a problem with one of the courses I am taking and the instructor. The class deals with the child, families and the community. I feel that the instructor is doing the class wrong in more ways than one.
First of all, I want to say I am a Christian. I love the lord and believe he died for our sins however I understand why our founding fathers made church and state separate. I have found that a majority of the professors are also Protestant Christians and the only reason I know this is because they mention it in class. One even said that he liked to see the Ten Commandments hung up in a school. The instructor of the course even went on in class about reading her Daily Devotional. She said that she was not "preaching" but still I could see how such conversation could make one uncomfortable. The reason this is an issue is because I understand that not all students and their parents are Protestant Christians. I know several families that are Hindu, Jehovah's Witness, or Buddhist. But these religions have not been addressed in class. The instructor says that this is because of the location that we live in. She believes that there is no reason to cover such information because we will not be teaching children that have these beliefs. How can she possibly know this?

We are also supposed to create a multicultural unit. This is a project in which we have to create lesson plans for a week. We are supposed to address cultural characteristics of the students in our fictional class. The only problem is that we are limited to what ethnicities we can address. I do not understand this. The professor said that she would prefer that we focus on African Americans, Hispanics, or Japanese cultures since this will most likely be the minorities that we will be coming in to contact with. Again, how can she possibly know this? I know several people from the high school I graduated from that were of East Indian decent. Why can I not do my multicultural unit on this group?

We also discussed the various types of families but we only discussed nuclear families and single parent families. The topic of children who have parents who are homosexuals was not even discussed even though it was in the chapter we were discussing. It was skipped over. I assume this was either because the professor found the subject an uncomfortable one or she assumed that we would not have to deal with this problem because of the location in which we live. I find this to be very sad. I believe that my fellow future instructional leaders are being deprived of a decent education and that this lack of diversity in the classroom is hurting them. I don't want to imagine how it will affect their students in the future.

Answer 1

I have to agree with the above answer. It sounds as if your instructor is blatantly disregarding anything which makes her uncomfortable and yes it is a disservice to you. You're obviosly taking this class to learn to deal with multicultural issues in education yet are handcuffed and only being shown what one person feels is relevant. As previously stated I would approach her on this (as well as the reading of her daily devotional) and tell her excatly how you feel and give it a week or two to see if she adapts. (I'm assuming you attend this calss 2 or 3 times per week). If no effort has been made I would go to the department chair and upward if necessary. This is you education and you're money paying to take this class and you deserve to get the best possible service. As for limiting the scope of your project it may again be a comfort issue for her or possibly that she's just too lazy to take the time to grade submissions regarding a wide scope of cultures out there. Sad to say it but I think you got a stinker of an instructor and I would definitely try to address the situation lest anyone in the future gets stuck in her narrow scope of teaching.

Answer 2

That situation sounds very odd. I'd make an appointment to discuss your concerns with her outside of class. If she still teaches her 'multi-culturism' with an exclusive air, I'd make an appointment to speak with her boss. I once taught an Ethiopian child in an afterschool program in DC, so who knows who will be our students.