Editors’ Comments: Lighting Multicultural Candles through Lifelong Learning

Festus E. Obiakor; Bob Algozzine

doi:10.1515/mlt-2015-0021

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Editors’ Comments: Lighting Multicultural Candles through Lifelong Learning

Festus E. Obiakor and Bob Algozzine

Published/Copyright: February 12, 2016

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From the journal Multicultural Learning and Teaching Volume 11 Issue 1

Keywords: multicultural learning; multicultural education; lifelong learning

As co-founding and co-executive editors of Multicultural Learning and Teaching (MLT), we are lifelong learners who like others, continue to learn from positive and negative experiences and challenges. Without new learning, our lives, institutions, communities, nation, and world will be static. According to John Dewey (1958) many years ago, learning and education go hand-in-glove; and without experiences and experimentations, our society will not progress at a reasonable pace. For example, not long ago, many of us resisted learning and using new technologies; but today, they are a part of our lives (Obi, Obiakor, Drennon-Gala, & Magee, 2013). It is not uncommon for all of us to feel empty, lost, and terrible, without our telephones, computers, and new gadgets, to mention a few. To be good educators, scholars, and leaders, we must see learning as an important lifelong process that is mutually inclusive and multicultural. In fact, in all our human activities, learning is intertwined with our sacred existence – we cannot reasonably divorce ourselves from it since “everything has everything to do with everything” and it does not catch up with you until it catches up with you (Obiakor & Algozzine, 2015, p.1).

Lifelong learning opens epistemological and multicultural doors since those who engage in it are visionary people who challenge the status quo and step outside the box and their comfort zones to move themselves and their lives forward. Lifelong learners are usually inquisitive “work horses” and not “thoroughbreds” – they search for truths that are unending and strive for perfection in their chosen crafts, even with their imperfections (Obiakor, 2015). Interestingly, as educators, scholars, and leaders, they strive for perfection in their chosen professions in an imperfect world. They continue to learn and grow while recognizing their deficiencies. In addition, they understand that when they fail to engage in life-long learning, they become less innovative, less creative, less productive, and fail to leave their comfort zones. As a consequence, they become cemented, enveloped, and entrenched in traditional retrogressive values that lead to meaningless living (Obiakor & Algozzine, 2014). Furthermore, they fail to see beyond their eyes, limit themselves on what they can do, live within their narrow confines, and view change as a dangerous encounter, especially in valuing human differences, strengths, and energies (Obiakor, 2001b, 2014). In the end, lifelong learners are risk takers and change agents who develop internal locus of control and take responsibility for success, downfall, or failure in relation to the world in which they live (see Obiakor & Algozzine, 2014). In addition, they are forward thinkers, critical thinkers, and divergent thinkers who view “thinking” as an integral part of our human existence. Failure does not scare them and they derive some joy in knowing that they are a part of something uniquely different from the “norm.”

As we noted earlier, learning is a part of life; and everyone has the potential to be a lifelong learner. People who continue to learn become great lifelong learners and change agents (Obiakor, 2008, 2015). These individuals are usually action-oriented and go beyond knowledge and comprehension to value the application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of events (see Obiakor, 2001b). Additionally, these individuals are like renowned Olympic athletes who prepare and train thoroughly and consistently to personally extend and better themselves. Logically, as top athletes, they are not mentally static; and they believe in personal growth and change to win. In other words, without consistency in preparation and learning, real change never occurs. A few years ago, this idea was put forth by Chittister (1999) in her book, There Is a Season, when she wrote:

The thought of constant change colors our sense of the future. We wear it like a logo as we race from place to place, and now, in our time, from idea to idea, from concept to concept, from social revolution to social revolution – change, after all, is not a given. Change follows in the wake of something that preceded it, quiet as a shift in the wind. It does not just happen; it is not a timed process. “If we’re just patient; if we just wait long enough it has to come,” we say when we do not want to be responsible ourselves for the change. But, change does not just come; change is brought somehow. (p. 53)

Lighting multicultural candles

We all take different journeys in our lives. In some ways, these journeys give us strengths when they are rewarding or wear us down when they are disgusting. The fact remains that when they are useless and not connected to learning, they become fruitless, meaningless, and failures in lighting our multicultural candles. We cannot downplay these journeys of life. While lifelong learning is important, there should be some prudence in framing what we consider as “learning.” Learning should involve a shift in paradigm and a journey of the “heart” that inspires us to find what Parker Palmer (2000) called our “sacred center.” In the words of Palmer (2000),

Most of us arrive at a sense of self and vocation only after a long journey through alien lands. But this journey bears no resemblance to the trouble-free “travel packages” by the tourism industry. It is more akin to the ancient tradition of “pilgrimage” – “a transformative journey to a sacred center” of hardships, darkness, and peril … In the tradition of pilgrimage, those hardships are seen not as accidentals but as integral to the journey itself. Treacherous terrain, bad weather, taking a fall, getting lost – challenges of that sort, largely beyond our control, can strip the ego of the illusion that it is in charge and make space for true self to emerge. If that happens, the pilgrim has a better chance to find the sacred center he or she seeks. Disabused of our illusions by much travel and travail, we awaken one day to find that the sacred center is here and now – in every moment of the journey, everywhere in the world around us, and deep within our own hearts. (pp. 17–18)

Finding our “sacred center” means more than theory. It involves transformational actions that can help ameliorate current and future problems. Put another way, lifelong learning involves the active participation of educators and related professionals, researchers and scholars, and leaders and change agents.

Role of educators and related professionals

In life, we need people who believe in lifelong learning. Our experiences have convinced us that educators and related professionals who are lifelong learners enhance change, light unending multicultural candles that benefit our society and our world, understand that everything has everything to do with everything, and believe change does not just come. In other words, lifelong learners believe learning has to occur for change to occur. Educators and related professionals who cherish lifelong learning frequently (a) know who they are, (b) learn the facts when they are in doubt, (c) change their thinking, (d) use resource persons, (e) build self-concepts, (f) teach with divergent techniques, (g) make the right choices, and (h) continue to learn (Obiakor, 2008). Additionally, we believe lifelong learners are educators and related professionals who use divergent programs and tools to teach and prepare their students for life (Obiakor, 2012). For example, in general and special education, lifelong learners become perennial students who continue to learn new ways to:

Identify their students.
Assess their students.
Label and categorize their students.
Place their students.
Teach their students.
Work with parents of their students.
Collaborate, consult, and cooperate with colleagues in designing and implementing their students’ Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).
Intervene equitably when their students have problems (e.g., Functional Behavior Assessment, Behavior Intervention Plan, and Response-to Intervention).
Reach their young children without categorizing them.
Work with adolescent and adult learners, as needed.
Address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners
Meet the needs of children and youth from vulnerable backgrounds without thinking that “poor” students have “poor” brains.
Provide services for students who are at risk of dropping out of school and becoming societal problems.
Narrow achievement gaps of students by any necessary means.

Role of researchers and scholars

In research and scholarly arenas, we believe lifelong learners are those who are abreast of the times and not bogged down by irrelevant and unnecessary debates on quantitative and qualitative research methods. It is an illusion to think that the more numbers we have in a study, the more reliable or valid the study is. For example, in general and special education, it should be right to ask why disproportionality exists in special education placements of CLD students. It is also important to know why we continue to use intelligent quotient (IQ) scores to label, categorize, and place ALL students. Clearly, lifelong learners try to know why standardized tests are culturally, racially, linguistically, and socio-economically biased (Obiakor, 2001b). Furthermore, they use creative research methods (e.g., case studies and personal narratives) that have pedagogical implications. Though lifelong learners understand the weaknesses of different research approaches, they also understand that people cannot be defined based on units of measure that may not be good or accurate predictor variables. In the end, they disseminate their innovative ideas through writing for publication (Obiakor, Algozzine, & Spooner, 2010). It is important to note that lifelong learners are educators and professionals who improve their scholarly journeys by:

Choosing their areas of research interests.
Telling their own stories and allowing people to tell their stories.
Mentoring new and growing scholars when they think they have arrived.
Reducing the noise regarding quantitative and qualitative research studies.
Teaching people to write.
Networking with other scholars.
Knowing the impact of their works in their respective professions.
Engaging in works that advance humanity.

Role of leaders and change agents

It is critical to know that lifelong learners become leaders who are made but not born. As leaders, they learn to create healthy environments that grow new leaders and nurture new thinkers, risk takers, and change agents (Beachum & McCray, 2011; Beachum, 2011; Obiakor, 2001a, 2001b). In addition, they are problem-solvers and creative planners who make goal-directed decisions. They frequently think outside-the-box in ways that are not prejudicial, provincial, and timid. And, they value ALL voices, even when they seem heretical. Since our world is changing at a startling pace with technology at every nook and corner, lifelong learners become lifelong change agents who endeavor to:

Be good followers.
Learn and grow.
Understand the world that they live in.
Shift their paradigm.
Go beyond their comfort zones.
Collaborate, consult, and cooperate with others.
Be prudent and exhibit common sense.
Make the world a better place.
Think ahead of the times.
Continue to learn.

Summation

We believe educators, scholars, and leaders must be lifelong learners who look for innovative and creative ways to prepare and improve themselves and others even in the face of all odds. We are convinced that when they learn, they light multicultural candles that shine beyond all narrow confines as they take risks, shift their paradigms, and try their very best to maximize their potential. To a large extent, we believe lifelong learners are unafraid to make mistakes as they work towards achieving their goals. As a result, to advance our society, we must encourage life-long learning – it is a way to disengage ourselves from retrogressive thinking, eradicate achievement gaps in education in our respective communities, and solve our world’s problems. We need lifelong learners who believe in serious paradigm shifts in reeducating themselves and their respective communities; and we need learners who will rethink the traditional policies, decisions, and approaches that have created separate and inequitable educational systems in our world. Finally, we must resist the tendency to tolerate educators, scholars, and leaders who are not lifelong learners. And, we must divorce ourselves from those laggards who engage in myopic deficit-thinking that is based on the morally corrupt and repugnant perspective that sees fellow humans as intellectually, culturally, linguistically, and racially deficient.

This issue of MLT

This issue of MLT presents multidimensional articles that focus on multicultural education and diversity issues. In this issue, Hen, Kraus, and Goroshit investigate the differences in attitudes toward multiculturalism and the level of ethnic identification among Arab and Jewish students in Israel; Martinez, Unterreiner, Aragon, and Kellerman discuss how to demystify mythologies about Latina/o students; Henderson, Horton, Saito, and Shorter-Gooden develop a new tool for assessing multicultural and international competency in faculty teaching through vignette scenarios of university classroom critical incidents across disciplines of clinical and forensics psychology, business, and education; Wang and Zuo explore sources of the self-efficacy development of Chinese doctoral students’ use of English as a second language in a southeastern university in the United States; Jenkins presents theoretical foundations, structure, and knowledge acquisition and outcomes of a cultural leadership course; and Akin and Vesely explore research, issues, and perspectives on the implementation of service learning programs to improve student achievement in at-risk student populations.

This issue would not have been possible without the tremendous collaborative works of the executive associate editors, associate editors, and editorial board members. We want to specifically thank Tachelle Banks, the executive managing editor who continues to do exemplary work for MLT. In addition, we want to express our gratitude to our DeGruyter Press partners who have steadfastly maintained the quality of the journal. To our readership, we thank you for appreciating the quality of articles in our journal – your positive comments have consistently energized our commitment to making sure that MLT continues to light multicultural candles and make a difference in the fields general and special education. We encourage researchers, scholars, educators, practitioners, clinicians, and students to continue to use MLT as a valuable resource in their lifelong learning journeys.

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Published Online: 2016-2-12

Published in Print: 2016-3-1

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/mlt-2015-0021

Keywords for this article

multicultural learning; multicultural education; lifelong learning