Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of "We Can't Teach What We Don't Know" is titled White Dominance and the Weight of the West. This chapter goes into the specifics of what white dominance looks like in societies around the world and what dominance looks like in general. The chapter starts off with a teacher talking about all of her students coming in "with all of the same stuff" but in the upcoming years the white students continuing to achieve while the minority students fall behind. The author is really appalled by this teacher's statement and the fact that she believed that all students come in at the same level. The author goes on to investigate dominance not only in education but in multiple areas of life. He also finds out that humans naturally form in-groups and out-groups in our societies in almost anything that we do, it is a natural phenomenon. Dominance is based on this theory, that we always are making groups and assigning dominance and subordination to these groups. In his writing, Howard also writes about the fact that many white people do not realize that they are in a dominant position in culture, instead it is almost like a "fish discovering water for the first time". White people grow up in a dominant position and do not realize the benefits they are receiving or the privileges they receive just because they are white. Then they pass down these traits and continue living basically in a sphere of privilege that they don't really think about.

Howard also goes deeper into Social Dominance Theory. There are 4 principles in this theory.
1) Human social systems form social hierarchies naturally
2) These groups tend to be disproportionally male at the top
3) Forms of social oppression (racism, sexism etc.) can be viewed as manifestations of group-based social hierarchies
4) Social hierarchy is a survival strategy that is used by humans and also by some animals
After going over this definition, Howard also takes into account the experiences of indigenous populations around the world and how these populations were destroyed or maimed by white dominance in the ages of exploration and even up to the present day. He also goes into detail how this dominance happened and what the methodologies behind this dominance of the indigenous populations was.

After reading this chapter I think that I agreed with some things the author had to say and disagreed with others. First, I agree that the teacher was wrong about her students all coming in with the "same stuff". As teachers we need to be aware of our students' differences and what their backgrounds look like as they come into the classroom. All students come in to school with a different cultural background, different knowledge, language skills, and a myriad of other factors. If a teacher comes into the classroom thinking that all students come in with the same set of all of these attributes they will not be prepared to teach in the most effective manner. Because of this, teachers need to get to know families and students and also be knowledgeable about other cultures and customs and how to be respectful and accepting of different cultural practices.

This being said, I don't think that the amount of impact that the teacher puts on white dominance is true in the classroom. I agree that naturally humans place themselves in groups with dominance being placed in some groups over others. Just witness any group project or team thats put together and this can be observed, it happens in all settings. Yet, the author seems to believe that basically all of the problems in the world and in the classroom are because of race dominance. I disagree with this. Instead of placing the blame on a large group of people, instead effort should be put into the acceptance of other cultures and the collaborations between cultures. Each culture is different from the next, but that doesn't mean that they can't exist together. Each culture also does not have to always be thinking back to past wrongs and events that happened in order to think about how interact in the present. Yes, white people were wrongly dominant in the past and imposed themselves on many other cultures. I agree that that was wrong and destroyed many innocent lives and peoples. Yet, in the classroom and the world today we do not need to be thinking about this and remembering this in our daily interactions with people of other cultures. Instead, we need to treat all equally, not impose privileges on ourselves or others because of their background or culture. We need to see other's differences and embrace and enjoy these differences and then move on from these differences.