Danny Rosas-Salas

EDU 1010

Professor McLeran

December 8, 2022

A Professor's Orchestra

Teaching is a difficult thing to summarize and compare to a single idea or thing because

there are a lot of things that are involved and considered with teaching. Through this semester I

learned about a great metaphor that illustrates teaching which is creating music. In a song or in a

concert there is a lot of things that a person has to consider like the different sounds that an

instrument or beat has, how could those sounds work together, where do you include them, or is

it even the right environment for a song to play with the variety of sounds that you are going to

have. With the complexities of creating music some of those aspects are involved with teaching.

Teachers need to build a diverse consciousness of their own students, parents, coworkers, and the

community. They have to recognize and engage all of them in their class and with the school.

Teachers need to know how they could incorporate multicultural education in their lesson plans.

Finally, see if students are provided the right resources and services to learn and be involved with

your class. I think teaching is like creating music because of how much is taken into account in

both worlds, and it can be difficult and amazing when you try to create the final result.

At the beginning of the semester I had no idea how teaching was compared to one single

idea, for when we were asked that same question my group and I said that a teacher is like a

Barbie Doll. Where Barbie has to wear different outfits like how a teacher has to wear a different

outfit through their profession. Sometimes they have to be a counselor, an advisor, a janitor, and
so much more. Then I read one of the chapters for our course readings, and one of them was

written by Chung and Miller (2011) where it had a variety of different metaphors for teaching

like creating a cake, having a fruit basket, but they used music and that one stood out for me:

“In every song there is a combination of many notes put together. Each and every note

plays a crucial role in the production of a song…When all notes are combined together, a

beautiful song is composed. Diversity is just like [the] notes of a song. Each and every person

and all cultures play a certain key role in the world. In order for the world to exist and to be a

successful growing place, we need to have everyone’s input and ideas,” (p. 44).

When I read that part of the chapter I knew what my metaphor was comparing teaching to

creating music, so the first part of creating music that Chung and Miller describe is that all of the

notes play an important role in a song. Before a teacher is able to recognize all of the notes they

first have to develop a diverse consciousness that allows them to acknowledge and be aware of

every person involved in the education experience. Where another reading by Bucher (2010)

expresses the importance of diverse consciousness:

“At school, diversity consciousness allows you to relate more effectively to a wide

variety of instructors with diverse teaching skills. It enables you to learn more from other

students. Additionally, the skills you develop as you become more conscious of diversity

increase your value at work. Your assets will include your flexibility, creativity, and ability to

communicate and work with all kinds of people,” (p. 39).

What Bucher is describing is not only does diverse consciousness involve awareness

towards different cultures and ethnicities but it also includes awareness of different ideas and

personalities of people. Where teachers should recognize that each student is not going to learn
the same way, or have the same attributes and characteristics. Where you can’t force a saxophone

to sound like a flute, or have a piano sound like a drum. What you can do is include all those

instruments into the song. As a teacher, having a diverse consciousness helps you to understand

and accommodate to the differences of your students. Including students with special needs,

students that are developing English learners, and students that are dealing with poverty. Then,

you are able to create a trusted relationship, and have them be a part of your class.

Another big aspect that I learned from this semester is the importance of involving

parents and the community into the schools. Berger (2008) mentions this in the courses chapter

reading by saying:

“Parent-school cooperation brings the strengths of the home and the expertise of the

center or school into a working partnership. Every issue, concern, and educational goal involves

the family of the child,” (p. 214)

Throughout the rest of the chapter Berger mentions how much support and services the

community and parents can bring into a school. The schools that involved the community and

parents were able to provide tutoring, workshops, after school sessions, and even cell phone and

email response teams. That was really impressive because if we’re able to build a strong

home-school-community relationship then we are able to solve and deal with most of the issues

and concerns that students face in their education. Instead of calling parents when there is an

academic or behavioral problem with a student, they can also be part of the learning process for

that same student. This relates to what Chung and Miller said to include every single note in the

song because they all play a major role in a song, and the chapter reading from Berger proves
that every community member of a school plays a major role in the school and makes a

difference.

Lastly, when a person is going to create a song they have to see how they can incorporate

every sound. That is related to teachers trying to include multicultural education in their class.

Nieto and Bode (2008) have mentioned how not including multicultural education negatively

impacts students who are minorities.

(Nieto & Bode, 2008) “Children who are not in the dominant group have a hard time

finding themselves or their communities in the curriculum. If they do “see” themselves, it is

often through the distorted lens of others,” (p. 108)

It is important to include their stories and ideas too because they want to learn more about

their own culture and history. Related to the theme of this paper, those stories and ideas play a

major role in the world. Then, there is another problem that occurs when we include

multicultural education because negative responses could develop from other students feeling

guilty or that they are blamed for the current problems and issues that people of color are facing.

Joel Spring (2022) mentions these responses in the course textbook:

“Part of the problem, she argues, is that seeing oneself as the oppressor creates a

negative self-image, which results in withdrawal from a discussion of the problem. What needs

to be done, she maintains, is to counter the guilt by giving White students a positive self-image

of White fighting against racism. In other words, she wants to create a self-image among Whites

of being allies with people of color against racism,” (p. 147).

The person who was speaking was Beverly Tatum, who is an educator and African

American activist, and she expressed how she would feel tension in her classes between her
students. Fortunately, she was able to find a solution towards this problem by trying to involve

white students into multicultural education because she found it important for both of her

students of color and white students to learn about racism, and how everybody involved can fight

against the problems and issues that it has created. Nieto and Brode also mention the benefits of

having multicultural education in a student’s education.

“Unfortunately, however, these issues do not simply vanish because they are excluded

from the curriculum. On the contrary, quashing them reinforces students’ feelings that school life

is unrelated to real life. In spite of teachers’ reluctance to broach issues such as racism, slavery,

inequality, genocide, and so on, a number of studies suggest that discussing them can be

tremendously beneficial to students if they were approached with sensitivity and care,” (p. 109)

It is important for teachers to consider and incorporate multicultural education because

students are able to learn and embrace their own culture and identity, but they are also able to

engage with your classroom more. It also provides an opportunity for students to learn and

understand about other people's ideas, values, and traditions. No pun intended, I’m going to

sound like a broken record saying that having multicultural education encourages the idea that

every note in a song plays a key role in the song because everybody’s cultures play a major role

in the world. When teachers are able to teach the serious and important topics and events with a

lot of caution and thought then students are able to understand the struggles and issues that have

impacted many people in our society, and how we were able to fix those broken structures.

Overall, music has been a big part of my life just by listening to it, but now that I’m more

interested in becoming a teacher I have to create my own music through education. Where I have

to create a song that is able to recognize all of my students' differences, and involve every single
one of them including their communities. I want to become a teacher because I want to be able to

educate and encourage students to grow and be the change, and help them work towards what

they want to accomplish in their lives. Metaphorically as a teacher I want to create a song that

can influence a large group of people to be motivated towards their goals and creating changes,

and also help them grow in their education and as a person.

Citations

Berger, E. H. (2008). Parents as Partners in Education, Families and Schools Working

Together.

Bucher, R. D. (2010). Diversity Consciousness: Opening Our Minds to People, Cultures,

and Opportunities. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Chung, M., & Miller, J. (2011). Do We Live in a Box of Crayons? Looking at

Multicultural Metaphors Written by Teachers.

Nieto, S., & Bode, P. (2008). Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of

Multicultural Education. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Spring, J. H. (2022). American Education. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis

Group.