McIntosh and Decuir and Dixon

McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Race, class, and gender in the United States, 6, 188-192.
DeCuir, J. T., & Dixson, A. D. (2004). "So when it comes out, they aren't that surprised that it is there": Using critical race theory as a tool of analysis of race and racism in education. Educational Researcher, 33(5), 26-31.

​After reading the McIntosh article about white privilege, I started thinking about how this relates to music education. I realized the music that i've been exposed to in my own education has been very limited to Western classical. I was never really able to explore other areas of music. As a teacher  I want to be able to allow students to explore other forms of music. In addition, I want to create an environment where all students feel like they're on the same level. When they walk into my classroom, no one gets special privileges or treatment. I think that the way Music education now we can see exactly what is said in the McIntosh article. You can compare several different programs, whether that is general music or a band classroom. You'll see that schools have more money, more supplies, and the arts are given more attention. Because of this these students get more out of their music education. This article opened my mind up to several problems that we don't talk about enough when it comes to education. 

The second article uses examples to example what CRT (Critical Race theory) is. One of the biggest aspects of this is addressing racism in schools. Often times we just ignore racism that is there. When the issue is brought up, we aren't surprised because we know it happens all around us. Another portion of this theory is counter story telling. This involves allowing students to look into other people's shoes. If we put ourselves in other people's shoes, and imagine what they might be experience, we can truly start to understand other view points. Overall, this article allowed several different prospectives and examples of how prevalent racism still is in all school systems. As a teacher, I believe it is my job to try to address issues of racism in my classroom, lead discussions about it and allow students to think about ways we can make all students feel included. 
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