Tina Smith is an Associate Professor at Anne Arundel Community College and spoke at the Lilly Conference Online 2022 on “Respectful Discourse: Inclusion in Culturally Diverse Classrooms.” Smith shared their identities as military, parent, and student… and has worked nearly thirty years in education. Single parent and worked while being a student. Smith disclosed where they grew up: a small town. All this was to emphasize that we all bring something to the classroom. Smith spoke about their approaches to religion and death… they used the analogy of an onion for culture with so many different layers. Smith also explained that cultural diversity is beyond race: norms, standards, habits, ways of thinking, values, worldviews, and ways of communicating/interacting are part of cultural diversity. As Smith explains, communication has linguistic and non-linguistic factors, and external conditions, skills, and personality influence the effectiveness of communication. Smith talked about phrases that some may find offensive. I thought the examples were really interesting as Smith described the history and why the phrases were offensive. In 2016 & 2020, Smith developed a model: D.E.E.P.E.R. learning Model for Inclusive Communication:
- Develop appropriate language use
- Encourage open and honest dialogue
- Empower sharing without ridicule
- Process information in meaningful ways
- Enrich equitable practices
- Refine social-emotional skills
Smith uses this approach in their syllabus and with other courses, including first-year experiences. Then, Smith explored some strategies for D.E.E.P.E.R. For D, develop appropriate language use, they stated “avoid idioms, slang, jargon.” For E, encourage open and honest dialogue, they suggested soliciting feedback and considering cultures with different values about questioning authority figures. For E empower sharing without ridicule the suggestion was to use technology tools for private sharing. For P, process information in meaningful ways, Smith suggested seeking support from coworkers when you lack understanding and to consider interrupting students who get off-topic. Smith jots down information about each person in the class to “honor their individual uniqueness.” How cool! For E, enrich equitable practices, they suggested stretching beyond comfort and to be willing to be wrong. For R, refine social-emotional skills, Smith explained the benefit of demonstrating desirable attributes and suggested listening accurately and think ahead. This session was packed with great suggestions and examples. I love DEEPERand want to bring it into the BIT 295 course.
