16
International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180 Learning through listening: applying an action learning model to a cross-cultural field study experience in Native America $ Robert Thompson*, Kurt Peters, Dwaine Plaza Department of Ethnic Studies, Oregon state university, 230 strand Ag Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 2222, USA Abstract We discuss our experience using an action-learning model to teach an interdisciplinary field course about the complex cross-cultural issues Native American populations face in Oregon today. This approach took students out of the traditional post-secondary classroom setting for 1 week and emphasized learning through active listening and the creation of partnerships between students, the teaching team, and community stakeholders. Our hybridized teaching model is based on Freire’s (Pedagogy of the oppressed, Contimurm, New York, 1970) problem-posing approach and combines a number of pedagogical techniques including experiential learning, collaborative models of group learning, the use of field experience and the use of the Internet. Within this unique pedagogical environment, students were empowered to take charge of their own learning and explore the myriad of ways in which systemic and institutionalized discrimination affects Native American people in a small rural town in Oregon. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Action-learning; Cross-cultural; Issues in Native America 1. Introduction In this paper, we discuss our experience of merging content and process in a 1 week, action learning, spring break, field research course that examined the complex ARTICLE IN PRESS $ An earlier version of this paper was presented at the People of Color In Predominately White Institutions: Recruitment and Retention of Students, faculty, and Staff of Color conference, November 6– 7 2002, Lincoln, Nebraska. *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-541-737-5742; fax: +1-541-737-5660. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Thompson). 0147-1767/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2004.03.001

Learning through listening: applying an action learning model to a cross-cultural field study experience in Native America

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

International Journal of Intercultural Relations

28 (2004) 165–180

Learning through listening: applying an actionlearning model to a cross-cultural field study

experience in Native America$

Robert Thompson*, Kurt Peters, Dwaine Plaza

Department of Ethnic Studies, Oregon state university, 230 strand Ag Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 2222, USA

Abstract

We discuss our experience using an action-learning model to teach an interdisciplinary field

course about the complex cross-cultural issues Native American populations face in Oregon

today. This approach took students out of the traditional post-secondary classroom setting for

1 week and emphasized learning through active listening and the creation of partnerships

between students, the teaching team, and community stakeholders. Our hybridized teaching

model is based on Freire’s (Pedagogy of the oppressed, Contimurm, New York, 1970)

problem-posing approach and combines a number of pedagogical techniques including

experiential learning, collaborative models of group learning, the use of field experience and

the use of the Internet. Within this unique pedagogical environment, students were empowered

to take charge of their own learning and explore the myriad of ways in which systemic and

institutionalized discrimination affects Native American people in a small rural town in

Oregon.

r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Action-learning; Cross-cultural; Issues in Native America

1. Introduction

In this paper, we discuss our experience of merging content and process in a 1week, action learning, spring break, field research course that examined the complex

ARTICLE IN PRESS

$An earlier version of this paper was presented at the People of Color In Predominately White

Institutions: Recruitment and Retention of Students, faculty, and Staff of Color conference, November 6–

7 2002, Lincoln, Nebraska.

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-541-737-5742; fax: +1-541-737-5660.

E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Thompson).

0147-1767/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2004.03.001

cross-cultural issues that face Native American populations in Oregon. Throughlistening, analysis and collaboration with different local community stakeholders inBurns Oregon our students developed a better understanding of the ways, systemicand institutional discrimination continue to affect Native Americans in Oregon. Thecourse embodied a non–traditional approach to learning that blurred the boundariesbetween teacher, student, the community, and researchers. Group processing of theinformation obtained through intense listening experiences contributed to thestudent’s understanding of issues presented from different social positions andperspectives. By the end of the week our students better understood the connectionsbetween their own lives and this seemingly distant place.Many of the historical legacies of colonialism are unfamiliar and largely invisible

to the typical middle class White Euro-American university student in Oregon. Intraditional lecture format classes, institutionalized and systemic discrimination oftenappear to students as issues which occurred in the past, and so therefore have littlebearing on current circumstances. Students can have difficulty in understanding howthese phenomenons relate to their own lives particularly in terms of the privilege theyenjoy. Students are also often resistant to the social, economic, political, and culturalevidence presented to them about the negative effects of the exploitive relationshipbetween the colonized and them as benefactors of colonizers.If students are to truly grasp the importance of understanding how systemic and

institutional discrimination functions in their own lives and in the world aroundthem, it is imperative that we, as teachers, move from the traditional ‘‘banking’’model of education to a ‘‘problem-posing’’1 approach (Freire [1970] 1993). Whenstudents are treated as mere receptacles for the expert knowledge of their professors,education becomes lifeless and stultifying.2 Students need to be given an opportunityto develop their own understanding about certain phenomenon which privilegedsome groups in the United States while at the same time disadvantaging others.Freire argues that problem-posing requires the resolution of the teacher–student

contradiction, ‘‘breaking with the vertical pattern characteristic of the bankingmodel of education,’’ so that both are simultaneously teachers and students wholearn together in a partnership where ‘‘they become jointly responsible for a processin which all grow [and] no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught ([1970]1993: p. 61).’’Having undergone a lifetime of educational socialization that emphasizes passive

conformity and grades as an end product, students are often socialized to believethat experiencing, action learning or listening to untrained non-academic sources isnot valid knowledge. Consequently, most education received at universities tends tobe bounded by the classroom and by that which is presented and required within a

ARTICLE IN PRESS

1A critical aspect of ‘‘problem-posing’’ is what Freire calls ConscientizaB*ao, which ‘‘refers to learning toperceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements

of reality’’ (Freire, 1993, p. 17).2 ‘‘The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or

he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to ‘fill’ the

students with the contents of his narration—contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from

the totality that engendered them and could give them significance’’ (Freire, 1993, p. 52).

R. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180166

standardized and formalized structure. If teachers adopt the position that learningalso takes place through experience; where students gather live data, test theirassumptions (through raising questions), frame and re-frame their thinking on thebasis of past knowledge and new knowledge gained, and go back to test further theirnew understandings, then this becomes a much better form of pedagogy. Whilestudents are often bored and resentful of the passive role to which they have beenassigned, for most it is a comfortable role that can be hard to relinquish. One of ourkey tasks, then, was to structure our action learning class in such a way that studentswould be propelled into a new mode of learning.

2. The action learning model applied

In designing and implementing this action learning field experience class, we triedto bring together the pedagogical lessons that have been shown to transition studentsinto becoming active learners.3 This includes the importance of experiential learning(Johnson, 1993; Meyers & Jones, 1993), the value of collaborative learning (Boyer,1990; Brufee, 1993), the use of field trips (Boyle, 1995), the use of guest speakers inthe classroom (Mooney, 1998), the incorporation of video and films as supplementsto the lecture format (Papason, 1988; Valdez & Halley, 1999), and more recently, therecommended use of the Internet (Southard, 1997; King, 1997; Schneider, 1998;Wildman, 1998). Each of these pedagogical methods has its own strengths andweaknesses. What we tried to do in our course was to create a hybridized version ofinstruction which extracted the most important elements from each and produced aunique model which was action based, collaborative, experiential and taking place ina community setting. This style of instruction closely matched the ideals ofMcKeachie’s (1994) ‘‘making students think beyond the four walls of a classroom,’’Kolb’s (1984) ‘‘using experiential learning to make the critical linkages between theclassroom and the real world,’’ and Friere’s (1970) ‘‘problem-posing approach’’.In the early stages of planning this new model we were cognizant of the dangers of

trying to create a model that was either too process or too content oriented and,thereby, losing the benefits of group collaborative learning (Misra, 1997). We werealso aware that if we structured the course so that only one aspect of the learningprocess was emphasized—experiential, collaborative, action, or observation, wewould create conditions where ‘‘free riders’’ could flourish (Olson, 1965). Free ridersare students who tend to emerge in learning situations where they feel anonymous ordo not have a sense of community or ownership of their learning. For example, if wehad designed a course which took students on field trips alone without building in agroup processing stage which included solid briefings, debriefing and writtenreflections for each activity, we would have undoubtedly run the risk of some

ARTICLE IN PRESS

3Freire states, ‘‘Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by

reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students’’ (Freire

1993, p. 53).

R. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180 167

students becoming disengaged free riders who would have become anonymousmembers of the class.Similarly, a course using only visual images (documentary films or videos) to get

students engaged in a topic also runs the risk of free riders in the learning process.Films produced in Hollywood have recently become popular in Sociology andEthnic Studies classrooms. ‘‘Hoop Dreams,’’ ‘‘Schindler’s List,’’ or ‘‘Do the RightThing’’ are among some of the feature films shown in classrooms as examples ofsocial mobility, genocide, race and ethnic relations, or stereotyping (Fails, 1987,1988; Triebwasser, 1994; Dowd, 1999). The problem with using these ‘‘mainstream’’films is that many were produced by the entertainment industry for non-academicpurposes. Students are often unable to decode the content of a Hollywood producedfilm, particularly in terms of its Sociological meanings verses its entertainmentthemes.Most recently, there has been a push by administrators to encourage faculty

members to adopt the Internet and World Wide Web as the newest instructionalinnovation for student learning (Jaffee, 1997; Ward & Newlands, 1998). Instructorsare being encouraged to embrace distance learning as the way to teach entire courses.The Internet is currently revered as the medium through which our students cantraverse the globe and gain ‘‘real’’ life experiences. In the process of learning solelythrough this cyber environment, however, there is a danger of students becomingmerely passive surfers who are exposed to a mediated abstract portrayal of societyand social issues. The web in its current configuration is not an entity thatencourages the average student to actively participate; rather the web has become aresource for learners to passively use by downloading materials. The Internet givesstudents a false sense of active learning because an individual can sit in their dormroom and through a few keystrokes find themselves in a library just across campus orelsewhere around the world. The information, they bring back is often alreadymanipulated and then presented back to the instructor in a form devoid of muchthought, creativity or pride. Knowing how to do this manipulation is certainly a skillin today’s marketplace, but when one thinks about the process it really involves moremechanical manipulations than the development of actual analytic or critical skills.The danger of moving towards dependence on the Web as our principal pedagogicaltool for this course was that our students might have been left in an artificial cyberworld, devoid of a feeling for the ‘‘real world’’ or for other human beings. TheInternet has no way of providing ‘‘real world’’ human experience and threatens totake that privilege away from students by giving them an ‘‘easy way’’ to avoidhuman interaction.Employing the lessons from past research on education and our own teaching

experience, we went about trying to design a course on cross-cultural issues in NativeAmerica, based on a synthesis of a number of pedagogical methods. We also reliedon the past experiences of one of the course directors who had used thismethodology to organize similar field courses focused on migrant workers, on theeducation system, and on the social impacts of globalization in various communitiesin Oregon (Stanley & Plaza, 2002). Our engaged approach to understanding NativeAmerican issues placed students in a new set of learning activities and role

ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180168

relationships. The methodologies emphasized the interconnectedness of activelearning, active listening, group dynamics, process, and group problem solving.

3. Selecting the population to study

The Burns Paiute community in Oregon was selected as the case study group forthis course because, historically, most mainstream-academic researchers haveignored or marginalized the Paiute peoples of southeast Oregon. There are fewexisting histories about the struggles of the Paiute to retain a living space and subsistin Oregon. The Burns Paiute Tribe are descended from the Wada Tika band ofpeoples living in the high-desert country. The Wada Tika territory includedapproximately 5250 square miles between the Cascade Mountain Range in centralOregon and the Payette Valley north of Boise, Idaho, and extended from thesouthern parts of the Blue Mountains, near the headwaters of the Powder Rivernorth of John Day, to the desert south of Steens Mountain. Once federally confinedto over a million acres of land in the Malhuer area, during the late-1800s, thesePaiute natives were later driven completely from their homeland. Followingcongressional restoration of a small parcel of land in the late 20th century, about35% of the 285 members of the Burns Paiute Tribe today reside permanently on afederal reservation in the town of Burns.Although their community is small, and marginalized, the issues faced by the

Burns Paiute for the last 300 years are common to those of other Native Americangroups in Oregon. These issues include: land use struggles regarding cattle ranching;water access and quality; schooling issues such as high drop out rates; teenaltercations with authorities; drug and alcohol abuse; health and human servicesissues such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity; and cultural preservation issuesinvolving the encroachment on tribal land by cattle ranchers, developers and mininginterests. Finally, the Burns Paiute Tribe faces important economic diversificationissues, including the introduction of casinos and gaming on the reservation. To studysome of these issues in a compressed amount of time the course directors needed toselect a group of stakeholders who could represent the various social positions of themajor issues in the community. This included representatives selected from amongcattle ranchers, school officials, human health and service providers, casino andgaming officials, extension services personnel, and tribal leaders.4

4. Organization of the course

Stakeholders were contacted through a gate keeping process involving theteaching team’s knowledge and social networks. One member of the teaching teamwas a Native American who had been working with tribes in the Pacific Northwest

ARTICLE IN PRESS

4The order of the stakeholders was about the schedule of the individuals. The stakeholders decided the

meeting times and places during the week the course ran.

R. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180 169

for the last 6 years. Through his contacts within the Paiute tribal council we wereable to pinpoint key community stakeholders, both tribal and non-tribal members.These first contacts then put us in touch with others in their communities who theyfelt had an interesting perspective to add to the conversation about institutionalizedand systemic discrimination of the tribe in Burns, Oregon. These stakeholders tribaland non-tribal were considered by the Paiute Tribal Council to be people who heldvaluable knowledge about the tribe, and who would also treat with respect thetraditions and history of the Paiutes.After speaking to each potential stakeholder on the telephone, and then making an

initial site visit, we arranged a schedule of encounters for the students during the 1-week that we would be in Burns, Oregon. All the community stakeholders generallywelcomed the chance to meet college students and share their own concerns withthem.We also needed to find appropriate meeting spaces in Burns. Our main

requirement was that the space be open and flexible so that we could move tablesand chairs into a circular formation to facilitate group discussions. We werefortunate in this, the tribe allowed us to use their community center as our mainmeeting space. We were also able to use the university’s local extension services officeboardroom as a secondary meeting space. Finally, we used some meeting spacesprovided by the stakeholders themselves.Class transportation to Burns and for the rest of the week was in two 14-passenger

vans owned and insured by the university. At night the students retired to one large,open bunk room located 45min west of the city of Burns on a site owned by theUniversity’s Extension Services. The students were responsible for their owncooking, cleaning and the general upkeep of their accommodation. They usedsleeping bags and occupied the space for the entire week. The time spent in the vans,cooking, cleaning and generally living together contributed to group camaraderie.This closeness also provided an ideal opportunity for students to get to know oneanother better and to share their thoughts about the interviews and how the classwas going. Living in these close quarters and playing the roles of van drivers,domestic assistants and course directors, we had a better sense of how the studentswere faring and what needed to be done to keep the course focused.

5. Students actively learning to learn

The students spent the early part of each day interacting with communitystakeholders. The afternoons were spent in the extension office board room or backat our dormitory in debriefing sessions where students discussed the compiledinformation, evaluated the interview process, and formulated new questions andprocedures for the next day’s stakeholder interviews.At the end of the week, the stakeholders, the local press, and other guests attended

a dinner during which the students presented what they had learned. At the publicpresentation, stakeholders were encouraged to provide comments, clarification, andfeedback to the students. This helped to ensure that the students correctly

ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180170

understood the stakeholders’ positions; it also allowed students to facilitate a largerpublic discussion on the long-term influence of systemic and institutionaldiscrimination.Following the 5 day compressed, intensive, 13–15 h per day classes, students,

working in teams, were given 2 weeks to create individual or group web-pagesreflecting their course work. Students could get help to construct their web-pages, ifneeded, from the O.S.U. computer services and the instructors. Each team had atheme from the course, which they were interested in (education, health issues, landclaims, etc.). Additionally, students were required to complete a reflection journaland a book review in which they explored the themes, which had emergedthroughout the course. The requirements, both in terms of participation and workproduct, were commensurate with other three-credit courses.In previous courses5 that we have taught like this 1, we began the class with a full

one-day, overnight retreat at a nearby state park with cabins and meeting facilities(Stanley & Plaza, 2002). The retreat normally is an important symbolic break fromthe educational system with which students are familiar and provides anenvironment where they can begin to bond as a learning team. A similar retreatwas not feasible for this class because of the 6-h journey required to get from ouruniversity to Burns, Oregon. We did, however, create a number of exercises thatstarted the bonding process for the students prior to the course getting underway andwhich continued throughout the first few days. One week prior to our departure, wescheduled an informal pre-course session at the university. This meeting allowed usto meet our students, discuss the syllabus, find out dietary restrictions, perform anintroductory bonding exercise, and distribute the reading kit.During the pre-course session, the students came together in one of the

classrooms, and they were led through a number of ice breaking exercises. Theseactivities included an assignment where each of them had to interview anotherstudent in the van while on the way to Burns. The students were paired by a randomdrawing of their nametags and partnered up with someone they did not alreadyknow. Each student was given a series of questions to uncover their partner’s lifeexperiences, likes and dislikes. This activity had two purposes; first it helped withintroductions and got people talking on the long journey.Second, it provided an opportunity for the group to actively discuss on the bus

interviewing techniques and to determine ethnical principles to be used when meetingand listening to stakeholders.Half-way to Burns we stopped in Bend Oregon to eat lunch and meet with our first

stakeholder. The first stakeholder was carefully selected as a ‘‘guinea-pig’’ to slowlybreak the students into their coming roles as interviewers. The individual they metwas a semi-retired university professor who had worked for many years as a socialworker with the Paiute peoples in Burns by providing drug, alcohol and suicidecounseling. In the vans prior to the students meeting this stakeholder, they discussed

ARTICLE IN PRESS

5Cross-Cultural Issues in Education in Oregon: Learning Through Listening. Spring Break Field

Course, March 19–24, 2000. Cross-Cultural Issues in Migrant Labor: Learning Through Listening. Spring

Break field Course, March 17–23, 1999.

R. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180 171

questions they might want to ask him during their 1-h interaction. This firstinterview was important because it allowed the students some experience working asa team to develop materials for critiquing their group interviewing skills.The reading kit was assembled from academic sources, newspapers, and

magazines. The articles were chosen to provide students with some historical,current event, and cultural background about the area they would be living in and tosensitize them to the issues they would likely be hearing about from stakeholders.Students were asked to read the relevant articles prior to preparing for eachinterview. We felt that keeping the reading kit short and the articles succinct was away to get the students interested in the stakeholder issue so that they couldformulate sensible questions. In addition to the reading kit, the students wererequired to read the novel, ‘‘Life Among the Pauites,’’ written by Sarah WinnemuccaHopkins. This novel was written as a social history of the Paiute in Oregon circa1890. Sara Winnemuccca Hopkins is regarded as having been the first NativeAmerican female to write a novel in North America. We specifically selected thisbook because it was well written and captured the main issues of systemic andinstitutional discrimination (exploitation and expropriation of land) that Nativepeople faced in the 19th century. Many of the issues challenging the Paiute in thepast are the same ones existing today in Oregon. We also liked the fact that the bookwas written by a Native American woman; we felt this helped to erode some of thenegative stereotypes often associated with native people as being illiterate anduncivilized.Students in the class were, thus, introduced to the issues of Native Americans in

Oregon in a number of ways. Our goal was to present students with some basicbackground material and theory but, more importantly, to help them begin to see theconnections between their own lives and the lives of a colonized, subordinated peopleliving in their midst in Oregon. By beginning to comprehend these ties at a personallevel, we believed students would be better able to ask intelligent questions abouthow this phenomenon continues to disadvantage Native people today in the UnitedStates.

6. Process of learning

As we continually reiterated to our students, the class was as much about theprocess of learning as it was about the specific topic of Native American cross-cultural issues. We had a number of general goals regarding the process of ‘‘learningto learn’’ including: promoting active learning, helping students to developinterviewing skills, and teaching them to work together as a co-operative learningteam. In the early days of the course we stressed that this was not a lecture courseand that it would be up to the students, as a team, to determine what kinds ofinformation about the Burns Paiute Tribe they needed and what each of thestakeholders might be able to contribute to their overall understanding of the issues.In the first 2 days, we led the class through brainstorming exercises to develop

interview questions and outlined the roles of facilitators, note-takers, and what roles

ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180172

each of them would be required to assume, at various times, during the interviews.We informed the students the roles were all subject to change based on the learningteam’s critique of each interview session. As the course progressed, the roles thatstudents played did change. The group decided that for each stakeholder they wouldchoose two facilitators and two note-takers, while the rest of the class would play therole of active listeners. It would be up to the two student facilitators to lead the classin brainstorming sessions to prepare for each interview, and they would beresponsible for asking the group’s questions, open the floor to additional questionsand manage the interactions with stakeholders. Once back in the classroom6 at thedebriefing session, the facilitators for each interview would lead the group throughwhat was said and what pieces of the puzzle were answered. The students themselvessuggested that only two class members take notes during the interviews. Theyargued, with justification, that it would be distracting and off-putting to thestakeholders if they were all scribbling notes frantically. This meant that they wouldhave to place their trust in the two designated note-takers who would, in turn, haveto rely on the rest of the class to fill in any blanks during the debriefing session.All of the students during the course were given an opportunity to be facilitators

and note-takers.The most pronounced evidence of their teamwork materializedduring the debriefing sessions.As they synthesized the day’s information, students evaluated both the content

and the process of the interviews. One important discovery for them was the extentto which process and content were intertwined. When summarizing the content ofthe interviews they were often confronted with unanswered questions, leadinginevitably to the question, ‘‘Where did things go wrong during the interview?’’ At thesame time, when evaluating the process, students repeatedly came back to queries of,‘‘What did we learn about the cross cultural issues faced by Native Americans?’’ and,‘‘Is the way we are conducting the interviews giving us all the information we need?’’Critiquing themselves and the group was difficult and unsettling for the students.

Initially, students were almost too respectful of one another’s feelings and werereluctant to discuss problems. Students’ initial reluctance to be critical of oneanother required intervention by the teaching team to ‘‘get-the-ball-rolling’’ withsome rather blunt assessments of early interviews. Students were, at first, all toowilling to believe and declare publicly that everything had gone perfectly. Eventually,if only to spare themselves the teachers’ more candid appraisals, the students didlearn to offer and receive criticism in a positive and constructive way and to worktogether as a learning team toward common goals.

7. Classroom relations

Early into the week the group had to deal with the issue of taking ownership ofbeing ‘‘racist’’. This is an issue, which has come up in all the other versions of this

ARTICLE IN PRESS

6OSU Extension Services for eastern Oregon allowed us to use the classroom for five days. With keys to

the classroom we had 24 h access to the room.

R. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180 173

type of course primarily because the data being collected (first hand) fromstakeholders is so highly charged with issues of personal accounts of discriminationand oppression particularly aimed at White Euro-Americans. Unlike traditionalclasses where questions of ‘‘race’’ and ethnic relations are treated like distant issueswhich are taking place in historic readings or on a video, students in this class areunable, because of the intense week, to turn off these issues and continue on withtheir ‘‘normal’’ lives after a 1-h class is done. In our weeklong intensive course WhiteEuro-American students were forced to hold up a mirror to themselves aspects of thehistorically based and institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation andoppression of indigenous peoples. Hearing this reality over and over again canhave some divisive consequences within a group of students, particularly since this isa class where we spent long hours debriefing and continually discussing the contentof the interviews. Another influence on the dynamics of the class was the ethnic makeup of the students, which was unlike a typical classroom on our predominately whitecampus.Our class consisted of 15 White Euro-American students and eight non-white

students. The non-white students were made up of four Latinos/as, two African-Americans, one Asian-American and two Native-Americans. The students werefurther stratified by age, with five adult learners over the age of 30. Two of theseolder students were already in graduate school. Within this mix was the fact that thethree course directors were persons of color. One course director was Native-American, while the other was of mixed ethnicity, and the facilitator was an African-American. This mixture made for some interesting dynamics in terms of the way thestudents came to understand and experience the stakeholders’ sentiments aboutinstitutional and systemic discrimination. In the main, the process of learning cross-cultural relations, in this course, was going on at two different levels—between thestudents in the classroom and between the students and the community stakeholdersin Burns, Oregon.In the first 2 days some of the White Euro-Americans found themselves feeling like

they were being picked out and made to feel blame for what their perceived ancestorsdid to the native population. The students of color, on the other hand seemed to feela sense of affirmation about their lived experiences of institutionalized racism. Formany students of color their issues around growing up in White Euro-Americanenvironments where they were subjected to social, political, economic and culturalexclusion because of their ‘‘race’’ had rarely been discussed or acknowledged. Thus,being in a new environment where legitimate ‘‘stakeholders’’ were telling about theirlifetimes of oppression had a dramatic influence on the students of color who nowfound themselves legitimated and affirmed, particularly among their Whitecolleagues.In turn, some of the white students came to feel a sense of guilt and cognitive

dissonance because of the history they had inherited. This resulted in some earlygroup tensions and the making of public statements by the white students that ‘‘I amnot a racist’’ or that ‘‘I feel like I am being blamed here for everything that’s goingon’’. This sense of guilt and cognitive dissonance on the part of some of the students,coupled with long hours, manifested itself in students becoming short with each

ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180174

other and inferring to each other that one was more ‘‘racist’’ than the other. Thesesentiments needed to be dealt with as a teachable moment for the group.We used this moment to discuss how everyone in the United States is a racist

because we are all socialized in a culture that has at its very foundation a historywhere sexism, racism, homophobia and classism existed. So to believe that anyonecan be immune from these ideas would be preposterous. Using the sentiment that wewere all in this together and that we all had some degree of a ‘‘racist’’ tendency basedon our socialization, allowed for some space within the group in which to formpartnership and to become a better learning-team.Had we not dealt with this ‘‘elephant in the room’’ and only legitimized the

students of color’s experiences, it is very likely that the class would not have coalescedas one equal learning team, but rather we might have ended up with factions (whiteverses students of color), both struggling against each other for legitimacy. In pastversions with this type of class we certainly had this in that the White-Euro-Americanstudents socialized after class only with each other as a way to soothe their woundsand to form a coalition amongst them to feel better about themselves.

8. Other course activities

8.1. Student journals

Throughout the week the students were required to keep a journal. The journalinvolved the student in thinking about and applying sociological concepts,principles, and theories to their experiences in the course. The journal was intendedto be a place where the students could reflect on their own experiences orobservations, yet be more than a repository of feelings about the class. The journalentries often began as questions or notions about which the students had notpreviously thought much. They could be about, observations on the stakeholders’perspectives on education that made the student wonder. The journal was used as aspace to try out new ideas, to pick up on some aspect of a stakeholders concern, or torecord class discussion that we did not get to fully air. It was also the place wherestudents recorded their reactions to the readings in the course kit, either agreeing ordisagreeing with the readings. (Journals with other course work were turned in at theend of two weeks. All course work was graded by the instructors.)

8.2. Writing-to-learn

At various points throughout the week, students were asked by the teaching teamto use their journals to make an entry based on something that was happening. Thisoften occurred as a reflection on a stakeholder interview. We conducted severalwrite-and-pass7 or micro-themes exercises as a way to engage the students into being

ARTICLE IN PRESS

7Topics are given to students to think about, which are linked to an experience they had during the day.

The students are given 5min to write their thoughts and then pass their comments to a student next to

R. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180 175

active thinkers about what was transpiring in the class. Many scholars haveadvocated writing-to-learn as a sound pedagogical tool for improving the under-standing of complicated issues (Dolejs & Grant, 2000). The short writing to learnassignments and write and pass exercises that were given to the students provided anopportunity for the students to reflect, reorganize and reshape concepts and ideasthey may have heard from the stakeholder interviewees or read from the reading kit.The process of writing was important, we feel, because it allowed the students totranslate their ideas, gut feelings and intuitions into written form and that oftenhelped them and their peers to more clearly and systematically understand thematerials.

8.3. Cemetery assignment

As a class we visited the main public cemetery in Burns. We used this opportunityto conduct unobtrusive research.8 The cemetery became a site to study the history,demography, and social structure of Harney County in which Burns is located (Ca.1800 to the present). Through an organized and systematic process of fieldwork, datacollection, and theorizing the students were able to better understand the social,cultural and historical origins of the area by determining who was buried in thecemetery, who was not, and where certain ethnic/religious groups were located.Working in teams of two the students went about systematically recordinginformation from each grave stone in a designated area. The students wrote downsuch information as the deceased person’s name, date of birth, date of death, place ofbirth, cause of death, marital status, number of children, occupation, and religiousaffiliation. After completing this task the students were then able to make a linkagebetween history and the current day treatment of the Native American population.The students were also able to see unobtrusive patterns based on the tombstone

records which included the occupations of the men compared to the women, themajor causes of death in the 19th and 20th centuries, the average number of childrenwomen had; the rate of marriage; the most practiced religion; the rate of migrationtaking place into the area; the average life expectancy of women compared to men;and to what social class most people in Burns belong at the time of their death.

8.4. Museum assignment

The class spent one afternoon at the Harney County Historical Museum. TheMuseum contained a wealth of historical artifacts, records, photographs, and an art

ARTICLE IN PRESS

(footnote continued)

them—who in turn will add to their comments to what has already been written or to add something

different that exposes another facet to the original thought. This collaborative learning exercise is done for

two or three iterations.8By studying the text on the gravestones we could discern social processes that had taken/are taking

place in society. While not considered a primary source of historical information, gravestones are an

excellent source for sociological speculation and theorizing. The tomb-stones can provide evidence of

occupation, military service, membership in a fraternal organization and religious affiliation.

R. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180176

collection. While at the museum, the students were asked to assess how the history ofNative American peoples and their culture(s) have been represented compared to theWhite Euro-American pioneer population in Harney County. In answering thisquestion, the students were asked to pay particular attention to the use of languagein the descriptions used in the exhibits or as captions to photographs. Students werealso asked to pay particular attention to the way the museum curator chose todescribe the living arrangements, family structures, and cultures of each group. Byparticipating in this activity the students were better able to see how systemic andinstitutionalized discrimination continued to influence the treatment of Burns PaiuteTribe in Oregon.

8.5. Group facilitator

Throughout the week, a course facilitator (a graduate student) led many of theclass exercises and debriefing sessions. This individual was the third member of theteaching team. The facilitator was in a unique position because he acted as a bridgebetween the students and the course directors. The teaching skills required of thefacilitator were not the same as those for the course directors. The facilitator’s mainjob was to engage the learners in coming to terms with the concepts and takingownership of them in their own way. The facilitator acted almost like a weaver. Bythis we mean that he tried to help the student learning-team to understand how thediscussion was flowing and to relate what was happening presently with what hadgone on before. To accomplish this, our facilitator used his own observations of thegroup’s dynamics to relate back earlier discussions to clarify confused positions, tohave the group stick to the process, or to identify themes for the group to keep trackof. Such ‘‘weaving’’ by our facilitator helped to draw the various strands of thecourse together for the learning team. In moments of disconnectedness the facilitatorwas the lynch pin that drew the whole group to a new starting point so that the nextround of discussion could take place. We found that having a three-member teachingteam conceptualize, plan, and implement this course was the best option for both thestudents and the efficient running of the course. One person could not havecompleted this course alone, as there are too many details that need to be satisfied.Sharing the teaching responsibilities was also very important during the long hoursrequired in the course. It was helpful to have someone else to shift to when onesenergy level was waning. Given the interactive nature of the course, it was alsocrucial that there were multiple teachers who could share observations and make thenecessary changes to keep students on track and headed in the right direction. Someof these observations by the teachers were shared throughout each day’s activities.We also found that the evening debriefing sessions held by the course directors andfacilitator were critical to the successful direction of the course.

8.6. What we learned as teachers

Having successfully completed this course, we learned a number of importantlessons from our experience. First, we found that this type of learning allowed us to

ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180 177

not always have to regard ourselves as the experts. We did not always have to be incontrol, and, in fact, the structure of the course required us to relinquish a certainamount of control to the students. This is an aspect of the course that can be a bitfrightening for those of us trained in more traditional pedagogical methods. The riskof students not realizing what we believe is important is definitely worth the rewardof seeing students jarred from their more typical passivity. As we discovered, ourstudents were equal to the challenge.Second, this course also taught us about exposing the students to too many

stakeholders. Having the students meet with 20 stakeholders over the course of 1week was far too many interactions, resulting in the students suffering from a lack ofprocessing time. Since this course was mainly content oriented, having manystakeholders did provide the students with exposure to a wide array of positions,however.Third, we learned from this experience that we must take a longer time modeling

the action learning process with the students before allowing them to take control ofthe process. This might help to alleviate bad habits and the shortcuts, (e.g. by notarriving at a consensus during classroom debriefings and selecting a leader to putforth a majority view) being taken by the students in their eagerness to be done forthe day. These shortcuts were detrimental to the learning process but were somethingstudents had engaged in their more traditionally taught classes.Fourth, we felt that the creation of a class web site to which everyone contributed

was an excellent way of creating a sense of community among the students. It alsoprovided a nice record of the students’ learning throughout the course. This web-site(http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/soc204/plazad/native2/index.htm) was then accessi-ble to others outside, as well as inside, the university who might be interested in thetype of learning that took place. It also provided a permanent visual record of thestudent’s accomplishments for the course, thus making the students’ accountable fortheir overall contributions to the class and the community.The course also had some unplanned outcomes that seem to be fairly consistent

across the five previous courses. That is the forming of enduring friendships amongthe class members. We seem to consistently witness students remaining very closefriends even after the course is finished. Being with someone for a week of intensivestudy and research may be one key to long-term relationship on campus; this is quiteunlike what happens in most traditionally styled lecture courses. In action learningcourses students learn to work as a team, which is characterized by respect andfriendship. All the above will hopefully be skills and attitudes they take with theminto future endeavors.

9. Conclusion

This course was about learning in teams and how to work together to reach aspecific goal for the better understanding of an issue in a very short period of time.An integral part of our course design was to encourage the students to developcritical thinking skills and emphasize collaborative learning between students.

ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180178

Having the opportunity to experience the issues as presented from different socialpositions and perspectives, the students were better able, by the end of the week, tounderstand how the legacies of systemic and institutionalized discrimination faced byNative Americans continue to have long-term effects on tribal peoples today.Interaction among students was the key element in building critical thinking skills,

and by setting up an action-based learning focus, these skills were developed evenmore effectively. Collaborative learning allowed our students to work together andbuild a sense of community. Through effective collaborative learning our studentswere better able to learn the substance of the material. In addition, by buildingcommunity, we helped our students create relationships with other students, thusmaking college a less lonely place. Collaborative action learning invests authority inthe students and exposes them to new ways of thinking and learning about society.For students of color this class was structured in such a way so that they did not

have to put themselves on the line in terms of telling their own stories about feelingthe pains of racial marginalization while growing up. This is an unusualcircumstance for students of color on a predominately white campus, where theyare often called on by faculty members to give personal reports about what it waslike in this or that circumstance while growing up. Being part of a learning team,whose charge it was to discover what the conditions were like was a new role formany of our students of color. We found that a disproportionate number of ourstudents of color rose up from within the group to take over leadership roles atcritical moments of debriefing or when they were trying to devise a unique way topresent the group findings at the final dinner. This, we speculate, was an outcome ofthe structure of the course which blurred the traditional boundaries of power andcontrol which are often assumed to be the domain of white Euro-American students.In the collaborative learning community we created, our students learned more

from one another than from the course reading kit or from the interjections by theteaching team. What they learned was not so much a product of the stakeholderinterviews as of the process, in particular, the creative cognitive process of offeringup ideas, having ideas criticized or expanded on, and reshaping or abandoning ideasin the light of peer discussion. In addition to our students learning important lessonsin a collaborative learning environment, the stakeholders found themselves moreinvolved in the University. After the course was over the stakeholders were invited toa dinner on the final day of class to hear the students give their group presentations.During the presentations stakeholders were invited to makes adjustments to theircomments made during their interviews in Burns, Oregon. The learning became,thereby, not merely a superficial activity but rather a connected-to-interactiveprocess reality. The students always had other students and teachers from whomthey could get an individual response to or clarification of their queries. In return,they were able likewise to contribute to their colleagues’ learning and learn in theprocess.We all found it rewarding as teachers to create an alternative non-traditional

learning environment for students. It reminded us of what we search for inteaching—getting to know students, witnessing their struggles and triumphs firsthand, and seeing them take charge of their own learning. This is something difficult

ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180 179

to experience in large lecture classes with a top–down authority structure. Byblurring the boundaries between teachers, students, and stakeholders a moreeffective and long-lasting learning model was created.

References

Boyer, E. (1990). Campus life: In search of community. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the

Advancement of Teaching.

Boyle, C. (1995). Seeing gender in everyday life: A field trip to the mall. Teaching Sociology, 25, 150–154.

Brufee, K. (1993). Collaborative learning: Higher education, interdependence, and the authority of

knowledge. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins.

Dolejs, A., & Grant, D. (2000). Deep breaths on paper: Teaching writing in the social work classroom.

Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 20(3–4), 19–40.

Freire, Paulo. [1970]1993. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Jafee, D. (1997). Asynchronous learning: Technology and pedagogical strategy in a distance learning

course. Teaching Sociology, 25, 262–277.

Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood

Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

King, M. (1997). Opening the bottleneck: Using computer mediated learning to increase success and

productivity. Community College Journal, 68(1), 18–22.

McKeachie, W. (1994). Teaching tips: Strategies and research for college and university teachers. Lexington,

MA: D.C. Health.

Meyer, C., & Jones, T. (1993). Promoting active learning strategies for the college classroom. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

Misra, J. (1997). Teaching stratification: Stimulating interest and critical thinking through research

projects. Teaching Sociology, 25(4), 278–291.

Mooney, L. A. (1998). Pitching the profession: Faculty guest speakers in the classroom. Teaching

Sociology, 26(3), 157–165.

Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

Papson, S. (1988). An assessment of the impact of video on teaching sociology. Humanity-and-Society,

12(1), 105–113.

Schneider, A. (1998). Sociology: The internet as an extended classroom. Social Science Computer Review,

16(1), 53–57.

Stanley, K., & Plaza, D. (2002). No passport required: An action learning approach to teaching about

globalization. The Journal of Teaching Sociology, 30(1), 110–130.

Valdez, A., & Halley, J. (1999). Teaching Mexican American experience through film: Private issues and

public problems. Teaching Sociology, 27(3), 286–295.

Ward, M., & Newlands, D. (1998). Use of the web in undergraduate teaching. Computers and Education,

31, 171–184.

Wildman, P. (1998). Futures Praxis: Consulting and teaching futures students through the world wide web.

The American Behavioral Scientist, 42(3), 505–513.

ARTICLE IN PRESSR. Thompson et al. / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 28 (2004) 165–180180