Our Commitment to Diversity

The College of Education and Human Development is committed to creating and sustaining a caring environment that welcomes diverse learners and ideas. We strive to make continuous improvements in that environment by encouraging scholarly activity, thoughtful reflection and the courteous exchange of ideas and information leading to greater understanding of and appreciation for those things that make us different as well as alike.

To encourage this research and dialog, the College has created a library of reading and viewing materials available to students and faculty. Below, you will find a listing of useful websites containing information on a variety of topics related to diversity. These listings represent only a sampling of pertinent resources, and we intend to update these collections continuously with relevant and useful additions as they become available.

For information about student organization meeting times and officers, please contact the office of Student Organizations and Leadership Development (SOLD) located at 224 Memorial Union or visit the Wade Center for Student Leadership, 150 Memorial Union.

Internet Resources

Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
www.pflag.org
PFLAG promotes the health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, their families and friends through: support, to cope with an adverse society; education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and advocacy, to end discrimination and to secure equal civil rights. Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays provides opportunity for dialogue about sexual orientation and gender identity, and acts to create a society that is healthy and respectful of human diversity.

Southern Poverty Law Center
www.splcenter.org
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.

NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
www.naacp.org
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.

GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network)
www.glsen.org
The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.

Brigham Young University
http://education.byu.edu/diversity
This site helps educators put diversity into practice across the curriculum. It includes a number of tips about building multicultural education activities into their school day, along with links to raise awareness and foster cultural sensitivity. Other links help build lesson plans to promote critical thinking about diversity and stereotyping.

Western Washington University
http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CEP
The Center for Educational Pluralism supports the Woodring College of Education’s mission in its commitment to an education that promotes cultural understanding and social justice in a pluralistic, democratic society. The Center focuses on issues related to equity, diversity, self-exploration and identity, inter-group relations, multicultural education and democratic empowerment and civic engagement; particularly focusing on issues of retention and success for historically underrepresented populations. The mission and goals of the Center are based on the belief that all children and adults can learn and develop in a psychologically supportive and culturally affirming environment. The Center is committed to an intercultural dialogue that will lead to a vision of the kind of sustainable community we want to create with the next generation.

Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence
www.preventinghate.org
The Maine-based Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence is dedicated to preventing harassment and violence. As part of its mission, Center leaders develop programs designed to help participants understand and address prejudice or bias, and in doing so, prevent the potential escalation of these feelings to more active forms of discrimination, harassment or even violence. The Center also offers educational and training programs designed to meet the needs of a range of audiences.

Diversity Web
www.diversityWeb.org
Possibly the most comprehensive compendium of resources and campus practices about diversity in higher education. This site is designed to serve campus practitioners seeking to place diversity at the center of the academy’s educational and societal mission.

Diversity Teaching Tools

Multicultural Pavilion
www.edchange.org

Rethinking Schools
www.rethinkingschools.org

Teaching for Change
www.teachingforchange.org

Teaching Tolerance
www.tolerance.org

Community Action in Maine

PICA (Power in Community Alliances)
61 Main St. Suite 15
Bangor, ME  04401
http://www.pica.ws/
207-947-4203

LearningWorks
181 Brackett St.
Portland, ME 04102
http://www.learningworks.me/
207-775-0105

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Midcoast Maine
16 School Street, Suite 201
Rockland, ME 04841
www.bbbscmcm.org
207-593-0380

United Way of Eastern Maine
21 Springer Drive, Suite 201
Bangor, ME 04401
www.unitedwayem.org
207-941-2800

Professional Development for Faculty and Students

National Association for Multicultural Education
http://nameorg.org/

NCORE (National Conference on Race and Ethnicity)
www.ncore.ou.edu

Teach for America
www.teachforamerica.org

College of Education and Human Development Resources

Raymond H. Fogler Library – This link will take you to the University of Maine Fogler Library list of diversity and education resources: http://library.umaine.edu/social/education_diversity.htm

The following media resources are available in the Diversity Library on the first floor of Shibles Hall:

Books

Multicultural Teaching: A Handbook of Activities, Information, and Resources. Pamela L. Tiedt, Iris M. Tiedt. Allyn and Bacon, Needham Heights MA, 1995. Multicultural teaching is both exciting and painful for teachers and students, because it invites the honest exchange of views on real issues that have no single “right” answer. A commitment to multicultural teaching presupposes creating a climate in which students can dare to question, to take risks and to learn from one another. This updated volume provides the foundation for a fully inclusive multicultural curriculum that teachers can implement in K–8 classrooms.

Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society, 7th edition. Donna M. Gollnick, Philip C. Chinn. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River NJ, 2005. This book presents descriptions of seven microcultures to which students and teachers belong: class, ethnicity and race, gender, exceptionality, religion, language and age. Using these microcultures as the basis for understanding pluralism and multicultural education, the authors integrate critical pedagogy with research on effective teaching.

Educating the Global Village, Including the Young Child in the World, 2nd edition. Louise Boyle Swiniarski, Mary-Lou Breitborde. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River NJ, 2003. To help children live effectively in the global village, the authors have included learning theories, teaching practices and home/school/community partnerships that protect, promote and provide for all of the world’s children. Their feeling is that young children should be included in the discussion and decisions about their world. A major goal is to help those working with children from their earliest social interactions through their elementary school years.

New Teacher’s Performance-Based Guide to Culturally Diverse Classrooms. Timothy R. Blair. Pearson Education, Inc., Boston MA, 2003. The overriding questions this text attempts to answer are “What major understandings should every new teacher know?” and “What major teaching strategies should each new teacher be able to implement in order to perform successfully in today’s multicultural classrooms?” The book provides specific interactive strategies for students to use in implementing culturally responsive instruction.

Bridging Multiple Worlds (Case Studies of Diverse Educational Communities). Lorraine S. Taylor, Catharine R. Whittaker. Allyn and Bacon, Boston MA, 2003. The authors believe that cases taken from schools and classrooms–involving authentic teachers, students and their families–provide the most honest and effective learning experiences. Cases that present the complex, multiple worlds of children give preservice and in-service teachers the opportunity to appreciate the complexity of issues that arise and to apply a decision-making approach that ensures long-term solutions.

Achieving Gender Equity: Strategies for the Classroom. Dianne D. Horgan. Allyn and Bacon, Needham Heights MA, 1995. Research suggests that boys and girls do not get an equal education in today’s classrooms. This book faces the problem head-on and discusses practical strategies to help any teacher alter the classroom experience for his or her students. The text covers grades K–12 and uses a straightforward, practical approach. It presents case studies to illustrate actual situations, offers 13 strategies teachers can use to modify their own teaching practices, and provides tips for engaging parents in the process for positive change.

DVDs

Angry Eye, The, by Admire Productions, Inc.  (www.admireentertainment.com) – This film documents the effects of racial prejudice with startling force and emotional intensity. Taking pigmentation – in this case, eye color- as an arbitrary dividing line, Jane Elliott builds a microcosm of contemporary American society, compelling her more privileged blue-eyed participants to live in another world for the longest two and half hours of their lives.

Creating new visions for teacher education, by AACTE (www.aacte.org) – Strives to answer these questions: What kind of world will we be living in, in 2020? Who will be coming to school in 2020? What will students need to know in 2020? How can we prepare the educational community?

Race and assessment: Measurement and legal implications, by Microtraining and Multicultural Development (www.emicrotraining.com) – Racial differences in assessment processes continue to point to the questionable efficacy of such practices. Dr. Sedlacek is known for his emphasis on the use of non-cognitive variables rather than traditional standardized assessments. In this address, Dr. Sedlacek discusses findings from research involving non-cognitive variables.

Race conference 2002 Solving the mystery of racial bias in testing: How much does it cost to think about being black?, by Microtraining and Multicultural Development (www.emicrotraining.com) – Students of African and Latino descent typically score at least one standard deviation lower on standardized tests in comparison to students of EuroAmerican heritage. If this is predictable, why continue to use these tests for high school graduation, college admissions, and graduate school selection? In this address, Dr. Janet E. Helms of Boston College posits alternative approaches to assessment with students of African and Latino descent. This is a presentation that can change the way your students think about psychological assessment.

Teaching the adolescent brain, by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (www.ascd.org) – This four-part video series is designed primarily for teachers and administrators. The series looks at the changes that occur in the developing brains of healthy teens and explores what these cognitive and emotional changes might employ for classroom practices. The fourth program in the series is intended to be used with students and explains why the teen years can be so challenging.

Working with students from the culture of poverty, by The LPD Video Journal of Education and TeachStream (www.teachstream.com) – Without understanding the world of poverty that some children come from, educators will have great difficulty helping them achieve in schools that are designed on middle class values.

VHS Tapes

Blue eyed, by California Newsreel (http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0015) – Jane Elliott’s widely-known “blue eyed/brown eyed” exercise is the oldest and most celebrated anti-racism awareness program in the country. It began as a simple classroom simulation for Elliott’s all-white Iowa third grade class the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. Since then, her dramatic technique has been featured on numerous television programs and has helped put diversity training on the nation’s educational and corporate agenda.

Color of fear, The, by StirFry Seminars & Consulting (www.stirfryseminars.com) – The Color of Fear is a film about the pain and anguish that racism has caused in the lives of eight North American men of Asian, European, Latino, and African descent. Out of their confrontations and struggles to understand and trust each other emerges an emotional and insightful portrayal into the type of dialogue most of us fear, but hope will happen sometime in our lifetime.

Everybody’s ethnic: Your invisible culture, by Learning Seed (www.learningseed.com) – Culture is like eye color. Your eye color is obvious to anyone who sees you. But you cannot see the color of your own eyes without some kind of reflection. Everybody’s Ethnic helps viewers hold a mirror to their own culture.

Lost in translation: Latinos, schools, and society, by Annenberg Media – (www.shoppbs.org/sm-pbs-the-merrow-report-lost-in-
translation-latinos-schools-and-society–pi-1405199.html) – Examines the future of Latino youth, the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S.

Prejudice: The monster within, by Knowledge Unlimited, Inc. – (http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/fabfilms/1998selected.cfm) – This video weaves interviews with middle and high school students, who discuss their own experiences and attitudes about prejudice, with background information on examples of prejudice from slavery to the crisis in Bosnia. It examines the reasons that prejudices have developed, as well as ways each of us can identify prejudice in ourselves and work to overcome it.

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