Letters from the Future: Linking Students and Teaching with the Diversity of Everyday Life

If, fundamentally, education is about change and transformation, this is all the more true where teaching and learning about diversity is concerned. Yet teachers rarely know what influence their instruction has had on the lives of their students. Given the social importance of this enterprise, there is a compelling need to evaluate diversity education and student outcomes. This edited volume provides insights into the teaching and learning experiences of diversity educators and their students. College-level teachers from such disciplines as biology, social work, sex education, communication, political science, English literature, and criminology share their general philosophy of teaching and how teaching diversity offers insights and challenges in the classroom. This book uniquely integrates revealing letters from former students within each teacher’s chapter. These letters offer observations and reflections upon key lessons learned or ideas that were challenged in the teacher’s classroom and how these lessons are connected to or disconnected from their professional and/or personal lives. We also see how the teachers in turn have modified their practice in the light of their students’ feedback. The editors revisit the chapters to find the emergent Best Practices as take-aways for the reader. This book will be useful to college teachers who currently teach courses with a diversity-focused content, and to instructors who plan to incorporate diversity content within an existing course. Directors of teaching and learning centers, coordinators of doctoral programs, and TA centers will also find helpful information and insights about pedagogy, process, and learning outcomes.