Weblog VII: Education in a Multicultural Society: Our Future’s Greatest Challenge

After reading “Education in a Multicultural Society: Our Future’s Greatest Challenge,” I decided that a good way to organize my thoughts would be to highlight and comment on some of the quotes made throughout the article.

“The question is not necessarily how to create the perfect ‘culturally matched’ learning situation for each ethnic group, but rather how to recognize when there is a problem for a particular child and how to seek its cause in the most broadly conceived fashion.”
I think that this is one of the most important ideas in multicultural education. We raise children in such a way that stays with them throughout their lives and impacts the future generations. It is a continuous cycle, and if we as a society raise children to accept individual differences and focus on each individual child when there is a situation that needs to be addressed, soon our future generations will learn how to better deal with different cultures and characteristics then we have.

“When a significant difference exists between the students’ culture and the school’s culture, teachers can easily misread students’ aptitudes, intents, or abilities as a result of the differences in styles of language use and interactional patterns.”
This is an important point that all teachers need to address in their classrooms. Cultural differences may affect a student’s behavior and teachers often read that as inappropriate when in fact it is simply how the student is raised. One of the best ways to deal with this situation is taking a step back and considering the student’s behavior before judging or punishing them.

“Even with well-intentioned educators, not only our children’s legacies but our children themselves can become invisible.”
This paragraph really made a great point, especially bringing in the book White Teacher, which I read last semester. Some teachers think that they should completely ignore cultural and racial differences and that will make them go away, but all it does is hide the problem. Every culture is beautiful in its own way and they should all be recognized and appreciated instead of overlooked. This sends the same message to the children that their culture may still be good or bad because it is or is not acknowledged.

Weblog 6: Crossing Over to Canaan (Ch. 3-5)

I believe that today the world is accepting so many more differences in individuals than in the past. Classrooms are filled with male and female children of numerous races, religions, economic statuses, social statuses, etc. Teachers should focus more on individuals instead of grouping them together by their gender, race, etc. Every child is different and has different needs, and I think it’s very important for teachers to accept and reach out to each student.
All students deserve an equal chance to achieve. Sometimes the people in our society can be so unwilling to change that it affects the future for our young generation. In the past, blacks were not expected to rise to the top. The working class families are have been expected to not attend college since they don’t have money. Stereotypes still poison the children in our society and it is hard for them to break through it. Teachers need to assess students on their own individual basis and have the same guidelines for each student. I believe that by doing this, children will learn to accept everyone for who they are and continue to a higher achievement.
As for cultural competence, I believe that a major part of this lies on the teacher. The teacher needs to be aware of all the cultural differences in his/her classroom. I think that a teacher should educate him/herself on each of the student’s backgrounds (even if this must be done outside the classroom) so that there is a comfortable and understanding environment created. A teacher should also encourage students to teach others about their backgrounds.
Sociopolitical consciousness is also important in the classroom. In order to teach children, I think that a teacher needs to be aware of the world around them first. A teacher must indulge themselves in be knowledgeable about social justice and public good so that they can then educate their students.