Blog Post # 5: True Education Needed to Overcome Racism

            Racism is a social ill that stings society. To get rid of it, social thinkers have agreed to give a prescription: it is education they prescribe. It is true education that can save people from being racialized.

            Housee (2012) argues that Islamophobia is a sort of racism that views the Muslims as terrorist. This phobia stems from the West that sees Islam as "inferior, primitive, violent, irrational, oppressive, and undemocratic" (Housee, 2012, p.106). This irrational fear engenders tension between the Muslims and the non-Muslims. To reduce this tension, interaction, discussion, and mutual understanding are needed, and education can serve as a catalyst in this respect. Conversation needs to take place between students with an inclusion of their parents. Colleagues, friends, and family members need to come forward to address the issue. Kerri Ullucci (2011) stresses education that can help to reduce the degree of racism and marginalization. To exemplify, being berated and marginalized by his math teacher, Peter determined that he “would never, ever want that for a kid" (Ullucci, 2011, p. 571). The author presents a story of three teachers who prove to be successful anti-racists to their students. That education can eradicate the racial prejudice finds an eloquent expression in the article of Steinberg and Bar-on (2009) who stresses mutual understanding that can remove racism between two groups of people hostile to each other. The authors in this article present an outstanding contribution of some Israeli and Palestinian teachers who develop history textbook dual narratives of the same events side by side. This book helps students of both countries to know and understand each other. This mutual knowing must reduce long existing prejudice against each other. Steinberg and Bar-on (2009) viewed the textbook as an attempt to "attenuate the level of hostility among the participants and contribute to mutual acceptance and recognition" (p. 106). The study of S. Hooks and Miskovic (2011) also reflects on the mutual understanding between students and teachers. To be successful in teaching, teachers are to know what and how students need, which Buber (2002) views as transposition. This teachers' transposition to students' situation protects students from being marginalized. Thus, a teacher can learn students' cultures by talking with them, by going to students' sports and supporting their varied cultural events. Deeply studying students and their needs, a teacher needs to design a plan to resist marginalization. Thus, a mutual understanding develops between teachers and students. Teachers need to recognize students' " intellectual capacities through high academic expectations, and demonstrate compassion and care for their emotional well-being" (S. Hooks and Miskovic, 2011, p. 205). To conclude, true education or schooling can contribute a lot to reducing racism and marginalization.

References

Buber, Martin (2002). In Between Man and Man. New York: Routledge.

Hooks, D. S., & Miskovic, M. (2011). Race and racial ideology in classrooms through  teachers’ and               students’ voices.  Race Ethnicity and Education  14(2). 191-207. 

Housee, S. (2012). What’s the point? Anti-racism and students’ voices against Islamophobia.

            Race, Ethnicity and ,Education 15(1). 101–120.

 Steinberg, S., & Bar-on, D. (2009). The other side of the story: Israeli and Palestinian teachers                       write a history textbook together. Harvard Educational Review 79(1).104- 112. 

Ullucci, K. (2011). Learning to see: The development of race and class consciousness in

            white teachers.  Race Ethnicity and Education 14( 4). 561-577.