I am grading papers, one of my least favourite tasks in teaching, and one that always pushes me towards procrastination and reflection.
Today’s fleeting reflection started out with “how can I stop all the Asian-Australian students/Asian international students sitting near each other and only quoting Asian-Australian friends as sources in their stories?” when I realised this construction is enormously problematic. Equally good question: How can I stop all the Anglo and European-Australian kids sitting near each other and only quoting Anglo and European sources in their stories?
So, here we are again with the ghetto mentality, on all sides. It just reflects what’s going on in society, I guess. I have a couple of times in class asked for the ‘quiet ones’ to participate more and have held the brash ones back which has allowed for more balance in class between the ethnic contributions (stereotype or no, it’s what happens) and I try to make sure that in small group work, there are mixed groups, and especially not groups with one Asian international student guy and a couple of Asian international student girls because they will always defer to him, whereas in a group of just girls, they will participate brilliantly.
Meanwhile, I have two Asian-Australian students who are complete geek girls into manga and SF and have to stop myself from seeming to favour them and ostracising the rest of the class.
I think, if I’m ever the one actually running a course again rather than just tutoring for someone like this is, I’ll set the second assignment as one where they must write or commission a story from outside your own culture so they get that real learning/sourcing/interviewing experience instead of the quote-a-friend trend.