Briana's Response #14

I really loved this reading. Racism is something that I really think is interesting to look at more closely and begin to understand why. I especially like the application of racism and teaching and how we address those issues we may have inherently built into our up-bringing. One quote I thought was awesome was "The teacher must create a new community with the stduents drawing from the student culture." I saw this as being what we try to do in our classrooms. When is comes to racism, we don't want that to be a part of our everyday classroom. We must create an environment where all are safe and welcome and feel equal to one another. This comes about by making a new community or culture together, with bits and pieces of everyone included, not just what the teacher is comfortable with in the first place. When finding culture literacies to teach in a theatre classroom, I think it can begin with culture itself. Theatre is different from culture to culture and we can build the literacy of our students by introducing them to the differnt cultures of theatre. Theatre history is one thing, but the culture is another. A textbook can obviously explain how theatre is practiced in a different culture, but acting on that and practicing and experiencing theatre in a different culture can broaden their likes and dislikes of theatre and help them better understand the practice of theatre in the broad term. Students of other cultures in the classroom could give presentations and explain how their culture incorporates theatre. That is how we learn, from others.