Multicultural Education

My own experiences in school would lead me to believe that there was no such thing as multicultural education. As I reflect back over my childhood education, my initial personal reaction is that everything I learned was based on white American Historical views. My textbooks in History were geared toward the views of the majority. There is one glimmer of hope from my past that reflects a spot of multicultural education. I had one History teacher in high school who would always have an activity after each major lesson that where he placed us into groups from different ethnicities's views. That is the only remembrance I have of any multicultural education in all of my years of elementary, middle, and high school. I received my multicultural experiences at home because my family has many ethnicities in it.

My initial reaction to this was that it was sad that I wasn't taught to see all viewpoints in school. Thankfully this was something I learned at home. My personal reaction is that I feel as an educator that it is my duty to reach all students and teach all viewpoints. There are several right and wrong ways to go about this of course. Reflecting back over the articles I have read allows me to understand what multicultural education rally is and what implications it has.

The policies, structure, and curricula at my old high school were used a means of social control. The structure was very hierarchical. We had major leaders who controlled what happened at our school. The policies were set in place to have the students sent to the leaders for any problems. The curricula was designed to make the students accountable. These things controlled our social aspect because oddly enough the students followed the adults and set up, unknowingly, our own form that modeled the schools amongst us students!

I agreed with Hirsch's statement on multicultural education, "Most of us would agree that children in early grades should begin to acquire respect for each other. And we would probably agree that respect can in part be fostered by a curriculum that includes the study of diverse people and cultures." ( Hirsch 1992) The way we can do this as educators is by showing all viewpoints. I liked the idea from the Multiculturalism in School Curriculum article that we do not have to deviate from the curricula or even from the one sided textbooks to be able to show all viewpoints in activities as teachers! "teachers must include all cultures that make up our history, but we must not do so in a way that we are forced to pull out each culture and teach it as a separate entity." (Waxler) What are your views on how to effectively incorporate multicultural education?

References

Hirsch, E.D. (1992) Toward a Centrist Curriculum: Two Kinds of Multiculturalism in Elementary Schools. Core Knowledge Foundation. Retrieved June 22, 2010, from http://www.coreknowledge.org/mimik/mimik_uploads/documents/4/CentCurr.pdf

Waxler, A. Multiculturalism in School Curriculum. ESL Teachers Board. Retrieved June 22, 2010, from http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/articles/index.pl?noframes;page=3;read=1621