Race, class, gender topics of course by Speech & Cultural Communications

North Lake Learning Community is a group of linked courses with common themes, content and material that are taught together with innovative assignments and activities. There are three Learning Communities offered for Fall 2005: Computer/Video Game Development, Speech/Cultural Communications and Psychology of Politics. This is the second of a three-part series that highlights these Learning Communities.

What was once widely considered a taboo, unflinching discussion about race, class and gender has now taken center stage, with Speech/Cultural Communications at North Lake College. This new Learning Community looks at ways of understanding complex relationships among race, class and gender in the United States.

To illustrate the sensitive nature of the issue, the recent screening of the movie Crash for the class left the students with mixed feelings. While the movie may be an overdramatic version of racial and class relations in contemporary America, it is thought-provoking and captures the essence of real social and cultural issues in America.

“Culture is often the root of our communication challenges. By looking at race, class and gender, it allows us to see how we are different and to have a voice about them,” said humanities instructor Sherry Boyd, who conceived the program.

Offered for the first time in fall 2005, the Speech/Cultural Communications blends cultural studies with speech communication courses. This Learning Community uses cultural studies to heighten the students‘ consciousness on the issues of race, class and gender that most people rarely want to discuss or admit exists.

“When we don’t talk about the issue, we think it will go away but it will be buried deeper,” said Boyd, who teaches the cultural studies course. “The lack of conversation about it is not going to make it go away. It’s just hidden.”

Speech communication reinforces the cultural studies by providing ways to integrate this consciousness into the students’ lives, said Mark Perkins, who teaches the speech communication portion of the Learning Community. He added that in reality, wherever we work or live we always encounter people from different groups.

“In the world today, many people hear the word and respect diversity. I think we may have the consciousness but don’t know what to do with it,” Perkins said.

To Boyd’s and Perkins’s surprise, the class is incredibly diverse. The class profile features nearly every major race group in America, and both genders are equally represented. Much like in the movie Crash, the class atmosphere provides an ideal environment for learning opportunities not only for the students but for the instructors as well.

“It opens up the most candid and revealing reactions from the students,” Perkins said. “It’s a profound learning lesson to me as I listen to their reactions.”

The Speech/Cultural Communications goes beyond the unique choice of subject matters and class diversity. It also employs a new learning strategy based on Eric Jensen’s brain-based learning using fun activities and group projects.

“They use think-pair-share, small groups and bigger groups as they learn to work together. They also learn to make group rules,” said Boyd.

By bringing out into the open the often-taboo topic of race, class and gender among the ethnically diverse groups, the instructors hope that the students will develop new sensitivities and skill sets as they interface with other people different from themselves.

In the movie Crash, a flashing tagline across the screen says that moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other. After the movie ends, the students may feel both entertained and enlightened, but after the completion of this Learning Community, perhaps they will also be ready to avoid that very collision.

Next month: Psychology of Politics