Reflections: Forward: What did you bring with you to school?

This is the first of the many posts in this blog that refer specifically to chapters in the book. They will all be labeled "Reflections." Intersperced will be other postings about my own experiences, other related readings. In the right margin is a bibliography of books and articles I refer to. Some I list as I find, even though they have not yet been discussed.

Vasilia Kourtis Kazoulllis tells about her introduction to schooling in America, and about her metamorphosis from Greek child at home to American school girl, which she handled seamlessly.

I could enter an environment, immediately calculate the demands of that particular environment and act accordingly. . .I knew that each teacher had a prototype of excellence. I didn't challenge it--or try to be better than the prototype of excellence for even that was disastrous. I learned to become just that.
(Cummins, p iii)

She begins the section with an anecdote from this first experience of kindergarten. She had brought her teacher a very special koulourakia Greek cookie (see picture,) which was a sign that the family accepted her authority (and it probably was delicious.) She discovered the bag in waste basket, unopened. The teacher had kept to her own identity, but not accepted the identity of her student. As Kazoullis comments:

If I had been accepted as an individual and if individuality and not conformity had been the key to success...things would have been much easier.
(Cummins, p iii)

As she analyzes the situation, this is not a question of multicultural or intercultural education, which stress similarities and differences, but a question of individuality. It is a question of accepting each student's identity in the classroom, and making the classroom richer because of the many different flavors of identity it provides.

This is a 2-way process, of course. While the teacher should be able to recognize what makes each student individual, the student must also recognize how each classroom and each social context is individual.

Kazoullis concludes that society should derive power from collaboration, not coersion. With coercive power, someone always loses if someone wins. With collaborative power, each individual with her own identity contributes to the power of a community. This is what the favorite business term synergy is all about, or the motto United we stand, divided we fall, which doesn't mean "unified we stand" or "conforming we stand."