Friday, April 13, 2007
USI Multicultural Education Seminar features civil rights attorney, educational theorist
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The second annual Multicultural Education Seminar sponsored by the University of Southern Indiana Department of Teacher Education will feature a nationally known civil rights attorney and a leading educational theorist who studies how conservative movements affect education policies. This year’s conference from 7:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. April 21 at Evansville’s C.K. Newsome Community Center is titled “Deconstructing Epistemological Regimes: The Role of Race, Class, and Gender in the Educational Process.” Thomas Todd, Esq., former president of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Chicago Chapter, will speak at the noon luncheon. Todd was the first full-time African-American law professor at Northwestern University, where he taught from 1970-74. He served as a lawyer in the U.S. Army before joining the staff of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago in 1967. In 1969, he established the first Civil Rights Office in a local U.S. Attorney’s Office. Todd speaks frequently on the topics of civil rights and education. Dr. Michael Apple, a critical educational theorist, will deliver the keynote speech at 3:30 p.m. He is the John Bascom professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research and writing focus on the relationship between culture and power in education. The second edition of his book Educating the “Right” Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality was published in January 2006. In the revised edition, the publisher says Apple reflects on how many conservative policies and reforms have come to the forefront of education debates since the first edition was published in 2001. These include No Child Left Behind, the increase in home schooling, and debates on anti-evolutionism. Among Apple’s other books are Ideology and Curriculum, The State and Politics of Education, and Official Knowledge: Democratic Knowledge in a Conservative Age. Dr. Omowale Akintunde, associate professor of education, said the annual multicultural seminar is designed to provide USI teacher education students and faculty, area teachers, and the general Evansville community “with an unparalleled opportunity to engage in a conversation about the role that race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, and white privilege play in the education process and in our lives in general.” The seminar also will include a number of workshops. Akintunde will present a session titled “Appreciating ‘Others’: Deconstructing Epistemological Bias in American Curricula.” His presentation centers on how to implement multicultural approaches in American classrooms. Dr. Paul Parkison, USI assistant professor of education, will present a session titled “The Political Economy of No Child Left Behind.” He will discuss how the creation of a standardized commodity in the educational setting has silenced conversation about what is meaningful to learn and why. A USI student who plans a career in secondary education also will lead a workshop. Charles Barker of Eldorado, Illinois, will present a video he prepared for an assignment in a course on multicultural education. His video is an amalgamation of original and previously produced clips that help the viewer understand how racism and white privilege function in American society. In addition to Akintunde and Parkison, USI faculty members who have participated in planning the seminar include Dr. Jane E. Meyer, associate professor of education, and Dr. Nancy J. Aguinaga, assistant professor of teacher education. Along with the USI Bower-Suhrheinrich College of Education and Human Services, sponsors of the conference are Community Action Program of Evansville (CAPE), Carver Community Organization, C.K. Newsome Center, and the City of Evansville Human Rights Commission. The conference is free and open to the public. For more information contact the Bower-Suhrheinrich College of Education and Human Services, Department of Teacher Education, at 812/465-7024. |
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