Multicultural Statement

MULTICULTURAL STATEMENT: Steve McNutt The majority of this statement will revolve around how the ideas central to multiculturalism connect to my teaching, and how my background and personal experience informs that connection. However, I feel it necessary to begin with the decision to choose an M.F.A. then a Ph.D. program at a state university in one of the least diverse states in the country with a reputation for cultural homogeneity. I did so based on the reputation of the writing programs and the relative affordability of a small Midwestern college town but despite the fact that as a white male I might look the part, I wondered how well my life experiences and values would mesh with the students I’d teach. Upon arriving from Washington, D.C., I soon learned I was not alone in my hesitation—virtually every person I met who moved as an adult from outside the Midwest to Iowa did so steeped in “flyover” stereotypes and the region’s reputation for insularity. The university’s racial homogeneity, with a student body that is 90% white, has been critical to motivating my interest in promoting multicultural, inclusive classroom spaces, but it’s not the sole influence. Over the years, I’ve taught students from a wide range of racial and socio-economic backgrounds. I’ve taught first-generation students, students of exceptional privilege, international students, queer students and adult-learners, among others. When I look back on those classrooms, they fall into two categories; the first having a strong connection to the dominant campus culture, the second being the most diverse and most multicultural possible within a group of undergraduates and, by extension, including many students who felt excluded. The first group was closer to my expectations for the type of students I’d encounter when I moved to Iowa. I had not anticipated a palpable desire to avoid confrontation even though I now see that response as an expression of resistance to anything challenging white middle class value systems. Religious, and tradition-based arguments were not necessarily in the majority, but the students who promoted them could use their classmates’ desire to “get along” as a platform for dominating discussion. Most of the students were from either Iowa or Illinois with the white Illinois students tending to be wealthier and sometimes viewing the Iowa students as less sophisticated. These two groups of white students coalesced into one when it came to non-white students. They did what large majorities are often able to do, tending to ignore the presence of students of color, regardless of state, including international students, many of whom were from China due to aggressive recruiting by the university. Chinese national students entered Iowa classrooms with a vastly different cultural background that affected their writing, reading and participation. In terms of their writing, they’d been taught a different way of organizing their writing than is typical in the United States with the thesis statement often coming at the end. Their understanding of what constituted copying or plagiarism was also vastly different; heavy reliance on copying or quoting entire passages was not viewed as cheating but as deference to expertise. There were interesting points of commonality as many of the students were accustomed to top-down teaching styles and wanted someone to tell and show them what to do. Open-ended questions and assignments frustrated many of them. I took it upon myself to cheerfully insist on their acceptance of a higher degree of agency when approaching their academic work and I did so because I see a teacher’s role as more guide and emancipator than commander-in-chief. Early in a class, I seek to find ways that allow an entry point for a student’s home culture. I have them write and talk about their high schools and general ideas on what it means to be educated. We then tried to unpack where these ideas come from and explore the legitimacies and benefits to each perspective. Often, I find the need to align myself with non-dominant cultures and any argument or reading too quickly dismissed, which has tended to be anything conflicting with typical, white, heteronormative, middle-class U.S. values. Doing so can be tricky since I look like a member

of that culture, but my position can also be useful if a student assumes a primary or overt identity is the driving force behind any argument. It is an ironic, unfortunate and at times exhausting reality of privilege that certain students find it easier to dismiss, for instance, a feminist perspective from a woman than hearing the same argument from a man. Recently, I experienced a different challenge, teaching in a classroom with students from ten different countries and a wide range of economic backgrounds. I saw my job as being that of someone hired not only to work with them as writers but to invite them to put their cultural identities in the context of their educational histories toward the purpose of bolstering their identities as writers and students. I also saw it as my role to work as an intermediary and advocate on their behalf with the program administration. I’ll close with a quick sketch of an interaction with Tracy, a former student, as an example of ways in which I try to encourage an inclusive learning environment. Tracy is a Ugandan immigrant to the United States who was raised in an environment where being a good student meant being quiet and listening. She was the sort of student who could easily get lost in the mix of more assertive voices. In writing, she revealed herself to be one of the most thoughtful students in the class and a voice I knew her classmates needed to hear. When she proved resistant to participating in class, we talked outside of class about ways to help her prepare to speak in all of her classes. I also talked to her advisors so they’d understand her potential and understand that one reason she had likely been identified as at-risk was due to subtle differences between the English she’d learned in Uganda compared to the Standard Written English used in testing, which would have hurt the test scores used by the university as a key part of the admission’s process. My academic training allowed me the vocabulary to help administrators understand why her language was not “broken,” and to help her understand how others might mishear her. When it came to reading materials, I also got lucky, having included an excerpt from Americanah by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie and her Ted talk, “The Danger of a Single Story” in the course-pack. I’d included both in preparation for a research assignment into a local subculture. The novel excerpt illustrated how common seemingly normal life in the United States appeared to an immigrant and the Ted talk was an invitation to set aside the assumptions and stories students might be familiar with in regards to their subject matter and see what other stories they could find. Early in the semester, sensing Tracy was feeling a bit out of place, I asked if she’d noticed Americanah in the course-pack and what she thought of it. She read it long before it was assigned, pronounced it very funny, bought the book and seemed to feel more comfortable in the class going forward. What I wish to communicate with this anecdote is a desire to view students as whole people who bring their own histories and cultures, which inform their learning styles, into the classroom. It sounds simple, but at the core of my teaching philosophy is a simple acknowledgment of this fact and a desire to learn from them as part of learning what they need, and take a step toward them, while encouraging them to do the same. On a macro level, I have tried to elevate the notion that an understanding of multiple cultures is not just the right or polite thing to do, but something that comes with direct benefits when it comes to education. Identifying ways in which a person belongs to a different culture or subculture means that person understands what it’s like to be on the outside looking in, and having even a passing familiarity with the position of an outsider helps a person understand that culture is a creative act, that knowledge is an expression of culture and therefore also a creative act, and something we make, actively, not something that just exists, and if it’s invented then it’s both imperfect and in flux, which makes it harder to value over another culture. Maybe more importantly for a student, is if they can tap into what it means to stand outside of any culture then they can apply that critical eye to any situation, which is something they have to be able to do in order to be both successful students and active citizens.