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Dignity of Diversity

How can we create understanding and promote respectful communication in our virtual classroom? In this module we will explore language, attitudes, and knowledge that will encourage risk-taking in our discussions, and promote linguistic and intellectual growth.

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Questions

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Active Listening

What does it mean to be a good listener?

What techniques can we use to be active listeners?

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Perspective

What influences our perspective?
How are we shaped by our identities?

Diversity

Defining diversity
Where do we see diversity?
Is diversity important?

The Other

What is Implicit bias? How does it affect us?
What are negative and positive stereotypes?

Attitude and Language

Diverse ideas and opinions create opportunities for growth. We may discover we need more evidence to support our viewpoint, or we may even reconsider a firmly held belief. 

Language is key! And so having these conversations in a non-native language is challenging.

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Peanut Butter and Jelly? What does that have to do with Implicit Bias?

This short video helps us to understand implicit bias

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Week 1 Quick Survey

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Module 1 - Week 2

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The Lunch Date

This Oscar-winning short film created in 1989 offers an insight into class differences, race, perceptions, and misperceptions. While viewing the film, consider the setting, the music, and the time period.

Module 1: Video

The Lunch Date

Questions for Discussion

  1. Think: A train station is a place of intersections. How?

  2. How would you describe the woman's interaction with the African-American man who bumps into her and causes her purse to fall to the ground? What is her reaction?

  3. It is not clear what happens when the woman drops her purse and the Black man offers to help. Why do you think the filmmakers made this choice?

  4. Why does the woman start eating the salad that the  man is eating in the booth?

  5. How would you describe the relationship between the woman and the man eating the salad?

  6. What does the woman think has happened to her bags when she comes back to the booth? Why does she think this?

  7. How do you think the woman feels upon making the second train?

  8. What are the reactions of different characters in the film to each interaction?

  9. What are the signifiers of status seen in the film?

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Active Listening

Journal Response

"We have inherited a large house, a great 'world house' in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu—a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace." 
The World House, From: Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967

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Confirmation Bias

What is the message of this cartoon?

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3 Ways to Speak English

Watch this video when you have a chance. Language is complicated; it can define you, exclude you, and within every language is a complicated history.

Module 1: Video
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