We will vote for the recipient of the Metaphoric Mutt Award.
History: As I teach this class week after week, month after month, year after year I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about HOW we will solve the tribal conflict we currently struggle with as teachers in our public schools. At one point, I thought the only solution was to breed the tribalism out of our culture. Once we were all octobreeds - would the fear and hatred dissipate? However, I have mixed culture students so embedded in their own world view as truth that we fail to budge them an a micro-inch and I have 100 percent Norwegians who are able to transcend their limited one religion, one culture upbringing to genuinely embrace the concept of their world view as only one valid truth. Please honor the class mate who has exhibited the strongest willingness to consider multiple worldviews as truth and COLLECT THE DATA EVERY TIME with your vote. Send your vote to the TA identified. The Awardee will be expected to give us a short 2-3 minute presentation on how to be a Metaphoric Mutt.
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Fall 2015
“By now I’m sure you’ve all realized my question wasn’t specifically for a project for the community center. I had asked all of you to give me one or two words to describe your feelings about human relations as a topic, and you delivered. I thank you for that. This semester has been one of the most challenging and draining semesters in terms of growth and my own development as a human being. I will never forget the strong feelings posted on the discussion board and the many points of view that exist even in such a small group. At the beginning of the semester I had used the word ‘wrong’ in the discussion board and I was told by Dr. Bridges to strike the word from my lexicon. At the time, I had no idea what a lexicon was, but a Google search and a bit of reflection changed my entire point of view for the semester. All of your posts throughout the semester have allowed me to grow as a person and see the world in a different light. This was all you. You voted me as your metaphoric mutt, but it was all you. I couldn’t thank any of you enough for that, but thank you anyway. I hope you all had a similar experience as me. There are good words and bad words in the photo I’ve created regarding your reflective words. These words are a reflection of how powerful this class can be, which I hope all future students of this class can experience. This is the reality we live in, and we now know how to better understand it for the future sake of our students.”
~Jacob Southmayd Southmayd_MetaMutt.jpg
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From: Christopher Tou FasTrack
Now’s your chance to try on some new ideas! Your own ideas might be dear to you - they’ve done a good job helping you navigate through life so far - but everyone else’s ideas are just as dear and important to them. So you might as well LISTEN and ASK and see what they are (and forget about keeping score!) That way, you can better help students live together. Don’t worry - in the end you’ll still be yourself. Who else could you be?
-Chris
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Summer 2015
I think it is VERY important to note that your elected Metaphoric Mutt, Marcos Holzner, was also the top responder in your class. Interesting how that trend seems to emerge in most of the HR classes.
From Marcos:
I thank you for the honor. I truly did not expect it, since so many of you did a great job in the class. As the Mutt, I want to re-emphasize the importance of data collection. Right now, I'm in the Black Hills for the third time with my family. We have always enjoyed coming here for the dramatic beauty of the area. As a result of data gathering thought this class, though, my understanding of the Black Hills, its history, its people is much fuller than it was before. It is sadder than before, but I can now come here with open eyes, recognizing the injustices done to the Lakota. Not only that, I am educating myself more and beginning the process of positive, intergenerational change. I am teaching my own kids first, and then can take this to the classroom.
My point? Gathering the data is both challenging an enriching. It helps us understand ourselves, our students, our communities. It's the first step to treating others with respect and making constructive change.
Thank you for helping me on this journey.
Marcos Holzner
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Summer 2014 Kyle Rielend
Metaphoric Mutt Award Presentation.ppsx
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Prayer Flag Activity led by MM Mara and completed by Cohort U 2014
Mara Dahlber, Spring 2014
This has certainly proved to be an interesting journey through consciousness and, I expect, an eye-opening experience for many of us. We each came into this class with preconceptions of certainty and reality that we had been constructing our whole lives, only to be asked to tear them apart and reconsider their validity as truth. We have all had Dr. B. as an instructor before so, I believe had some idea of what we were getting ourselves into, if only that we were certain to be challenged and to be asked to think outside the box.
The topics that we were confronted with exploring, the discussion questions we were asked to contemplate, and the lessons that we were required to create all aided us in the development toward a genuine shift in our frame-of-mind. It is no small task to design lesson plans aimed at elementary age students with the objective to reduce the marginalization of a group of people who have long suffered intolerance and bigotry on the scale of which we have learned of. This great undertaking was met brilliantly by many of our classmates. I hope that everyone took the time to read through and save some of these wonderful lessons for use in our future classrooms. For this was the point of their creation, to be used.
This class has given us the tools to serve a diverse student population with an open heart and open mind. To see clearly the challenges that our students face and to find a way to help them overcome the obstacles set in place by their marginalization. If we were to go into teaching with rose-colored glasses on, never accepting the realities of discrimination, staying immune to the hate and the violence, the inequality in opportunity and access to resources, the debilitating effects of the culture of poverty, if we were to go into teaching without any consciousness to see clearly the disproportionate number of challenges faced by so many minorities or marginalized people we would be doing our students a great disservice.
Our learning in this class has helped us to take the first steps toward acquiring a more holistic perspective of the people in our world. It has nudged us in the direction of opening ourselves up to acceptance of alternative truths. We have learned that there is compelling data out there that supports all of these other views and ideas and that absolute truth as we knew it was only a comforting illusion and no way to live a considered existence. I say that this class was a first step because it is not the end of our exploration but only the beginning. It is now up to us to move past tolerating and toward respecting, accepting and adopting of some of these new ways of thinking and of being. It is not enough to acknowledge that others have a different set of life experiences than we do, it’s time to immerse ourselves in new and uncomfortable situations, to learn by doing and by being a part of worlds that we did not previously know existed.
We now know the importance of collecting data but that is not enough, we must act on it, use it to create change and do good. I challenge you to not just collect data to support your own previously held ideals, as this is always readily available and all too justifying, but to actively seek out data that is in direct opposition to your truth. I implore you to open yourselves up to difference, to move past the single-stories and obtain as many angles as you can, for that is the only way to get a clear view.
With genuineness of mind and intention,
We Can make a difference.
With clarity of thought and knowledge,
We Can teach in ways that create much needed change.
By using the tools we have been given,
We Can deviate from the path and forge a new and better way of being for ourselves and our students.
Dustin Sluzewicz <Dustin.Sluzewicz@live.bemidjistate.edu>
I am very humbled in receiving this award from my classmates. Many of us have challenged ourselves, our beliefs, our own values, and our own bias throughout the semester. In doing so I should not receive this award alone.
In my opinion, we have made great strides in not just realizing other perspectives than our own, but respecting them. That being said, I challenge all of us to continue this practice because of the increasing diversity in our schools and the ongoing demographic changes across the nation. We must come to a realization that we are entering a selfless profession…A profession that involves human beings. Every day we will be put at a higher standard, a standard requiring culturally responsible behavior.
Culture is central to learning. Culture is significant not only in communicating and receiving information but shaping our students thinking process of others, as individuals. Culturally responsive teaching is the pedagogy that acknowledges, responds to, and celebrates fundamental cultures offering full, equal access to education for students regardless of background and world views. The importance of including students’ cultural references in all aspects of learning is critical (Our heroes may not be your heroes – single storied lessons and history – These practices cannot and will not shape our youth into bettering our future).
For future members in this course and my fellow peers, I wish to leave you with not only an idea but a truth, “Students from minority cultures may feel pressured to disavow themselves of their cultural beliefs and norms in order to assimilate into the majority culture. This however, can interfere with their emotional and cognitive development and result in school failure (Sheets, 1999) and perhaps, even, their death (Bridges, 2013).” “Time and time again, we see caregivers and teachers look the other way until students who are bullied, disenfranchised, and marginalized, hurt themselves, and sometimes others...it is a toxic environment for everyone, and that is the true threat to society (Nei, 2013).”
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Book and Pages created by MMs Michelle and Josh
The Fall 2013 Metaphoric Mutt, Michelle Pfeiffer
Click Here to learn how to become a metaphoric mutt
Human Relations
Metamorphic Mutt
Never judge a book by its cover. We have all heard this expression but have you actually deconstructed it in such a manner as to understand why? The sculpture I created was inspired by this metaphor and my hope was to show that the students we will come in contact with will come from all walks of life, with all sorts of backgrounds, with all kinds of questions. It is our responsibility to answer our students in such a manner as to promote critical thinking and challenge our students to think outside the box.
As I started this semester, I was excited to learn about all the groups of people that Dr Bridges had selected for our discussions. As we began deconstructing texts, I found that I was challenged on every level of humanness to see beyond myself and see people for who they are and not for what the cover of their persons are. I was challenged by my classmates to defend what I knew to be true while at the same time, humble myself and accept when another point of view was just as valid as my own. This is what it means to be a metaphoric mutt; take what you know and allow yourself to be transformed by opposition and learn from it. Our students will have questions that we can’t even imagine right now; we need to be aware of our world and how we as teachers can expand our students thinking and apply their new knowledge to a world that is eagerly waiting for them.
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Metaphoric Mutt Award Speech by Sue Cook December 4, 2011
I’d like to start with a little metaphor about how I view people.
I think that people are like grains of sand on a beach. We are all individual, of many colors and composition. From a distance we look solid and unified.
As a group we can conform to different situations like filling in around the driftwood of diversity, sticks of racism, rocks of religion, and seashells of politics.
We can be fairly easily manipulated into a container, like being poured into the bottle of state or federal laws or filling a bucket of racial profiling.
We might be stuck in the same crevice for a long period of time or we might move around by waves of change and settle in unfamiliar places.
We mix together but don’t really become a part of each other; we maintain our individual characteristics and traits.
However, just like grains of sand, we should be accepting of the granules next to us- rub edges with them and recognize the simple fact that no matter where we might end up, variation and variety will surround us.
Now, a little about my personal beliefs.
I know everyone has to walk their own path, so I don’t presume to tell you what to do, this is just my reality.
I think the best way to be willing to consider multiple world views as TRUTH is to recognize the fact that there is – absolutely - NO “good or bad”.*
Deciding if something is good or bad is based on each person’s personal perspective and experiences (how you were raised, church affiliations, media influence, political views and so on). The degree to which something is good or bad can be argued on both sides of anyissue.
From there, I believe people tend to make value judgments based on personal likes or dislikes; instead of making comparisons based on facts. Making value judgments can block your ability to consider alternate opinions. I think value judgments are nothing more than labeling a person, idea or situation as “good or bad.”
That doesn’t mean you have to abandon or change your moral beliefs; you are entitled to believe what works for you. But I think that when you begin to perceive that one person’s bad could be another person’s good, you will find yourself open to entertaining new ideas about what truth is. That’s what works for me.
Thank you.
*Based on a philosophy set forth in the book series, Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh.