The female student from the story, who was perhaps the only one who heard him, came crying to the front of the room and shared with the class that it was her story. The student who made the comment spent the rest of the quarter trying to apologize to both the student and me, and I hope will spend the rest of his life rethinking his racism. All I m trying to do is to get students to really think about things. It is not enough, but it is the best that I can do when I can t take them outside the college classroom. Reflection is a powerful tool.
Students begin to realize that they have to be reflective educators.
This means reflecting on themselves as people with their own ethnic identities, backgrounds, and ways of interacting with people from different communities and different backgrounds. Another aspect of reflection relates to the reasons why people choose teaching as a career. The service aspect is important. It is useful for students to identify some of these concepts early on in their teacher training. If they can identify the parts of themselves that drew them to the field, it will help them integrate diversity training with those aspects.