The Curriculum And The Classroom Of The Classrooms Of U.s. Schools

The author argues that American education needs to start focusing more on teaching students all cultures and

A multicultural classroom needs to provide a safe and accepting environment for successful learning, prevents prejudices and discriminations from the class, and have a strong cultural consciousness. (E.K. Garcia, 2016) To accomplish this, teachers should be integrating a diverse list of reading materials, introduce

Culturally Responsive Teaching is an emerging field that focuses on student cultural backgrounds and experiences in the development of pedagogy. According to Kea (2013) cultural difference is the single largest difference in U.S. schools and also the most neglected. The goal of Culturally Responsive Teaching is to provide an equal opportunity for all students to learn in school, regardless of their gender, social class, ethnic, racial or cultural characteristics (Banks 2005). Ladson-Billings (1994) suggest that the historic failings of educators in educating non-white students is that educators attempt to insert culture into education rather than insert education into the culture. In other words, educators are not providing an equal multi-culturally relevant education by bringing tokens of culture such as food, national flags, or maps from around the world into the classroom alone. Although these actions promote a sense of multiculturalism, an education that is relative to a diversity of cultures is not necessarily being provided. Culturally Responsive Teaching attempts to bring the various experiences of the student’s cultural home life into the classroom. Schmidt (2005) identifies seven characteristics that must be incorporated into curriculum in order to provide culturally responsive instruction. These characteristics are high expectations,

As mentioned in previous chapters the need to teach multiculturalism among young children. There are many misconceptions about multicultural teaching. For example, Bill Howe presents misconceptions about this theme and there were a few that were interesting such as, tour and detour approaches as appropriate in multicultural education. For example, Black history month is when many schools celebrate the accomplishments of African Americans. It is great to celebrate the accomplishments of the diverse population in the United States, but why celebrate it one a year. Maya Angelou once remarked that she will be glad when Black History Month is no longer necessary. When all Americans are sufficiently a part of our courses of study and daily instruction,

As we debated the impact of cultural diversity in education, the question arose of whether or not English Teachers are truly prepared to effectively teach culturally diverse students. As I examined my own classroom interactions with culturally different students over the years, I realized that I had started out teaching almost completely unprepared. While I had a reasonable grasp of English grammar and vocabulary, as a recent college graduate my primary concern was simply to find viable employment. I had deliberately sought to live a life of adventure by working overseas. Aside from an attempt to remain open minded, I had inadequately prepared myself to engage culturally different students. I learned through immersion in a foreign culture, which included many unnecessary

Teachers must learn about their student’s cultures if they want to educate them to the best of their ability. Many of the students in culturally diverse classrooms will want to learn in different ways. Some will want to learn in pairs, groups, as a class, or just alone. If the teacher is educated in their culture then lessons can be adjusted to appeal to every student as much as possible instead of forcing some to forget about their culture and learn like others. Students from

Never before has the society we lived in possessed the level of inclusion and acceptance it does today. Voices that have been denied public forum for centuries can now be heard, relatively uncontested, and we have responded to this by consistently under-utilizing them in the classroom. We have a responsibility to students to do our best to present them with an education that engages them with the material and works to integrate their own culture and experiences. We need to walk away from terms such as “merit” and “great” in the classroom. With that we can facilitate the inclusion of more diverse texts in the school setting, and we can begin to bring the societal revolutions of today to the people they matter to most: the great authors, and thinkers, and movers, and shakers of tomorrow. Inherently, we can bring education back into the realm of the

The transcendent demand for equal cultural representation in America can no longer remain unrecognized. Citizens are infuriated with public school systems, demanding more diversity in the curriculum. Unfortunately, any attempt to expand public knowledge of multiculturalism in the past has always ended with a cry from white privileged cis males falsely claiming multiculturally focused curriculum disparages American literacy. In 1987, with the (somewhat) arrival of cultural representation in education, an English professor by the name of E.D Hirsch Jr. published a list of common cultural vocabulary that he argued every American should recognize. The volume severely lacked diversity, causing Hirsch to receive an overwhelming amount of condemnation for his definition of fundamental American culture. In 2015, a journalist by the name of Eric Liu provided a second attempt to defining common cultural literacy in an article titled What Every American Should Know. Liu suggested expanding Hirsch’s pre-existing common cultural vocabulary with a compilation of influential, multicultural people, places, and events. Once the list has evolved into a canon of diversity, America must then ingrain the vocabulary throughout the educational networkings, developing a true definition of American literacy. Creating such a vast, multifarious list to teach America’s youth is undeniably challenging, however it is most definitely accomplishable and will extremely benefit our nation. Passionately

“In the 1990s, virtually all American States developed curriculum standards which in many cases their first ever state curricula. Whereas in states like Norway curriculum making has been a long standing institution and incipient curriculas are transpiring more frequently” (Philion, 46). They spell out what the addressed schools should be doing and so on; they are the constituting element of formal edifying leadership of departments of leadership. “These curricular expectations are manifest in one form or another in virtually all formal curriculum documents at the state level” (Landon, 62). It is widely accepted that the influence of formal curricula on edifying and authoritatively mandating practice is at best dubious. Acceptably, battle and

However, there are questions as to whether or not teachers possess biases that would influence their teaching methods and curriculum. Taking a class in educational diversity is only a start in addressing those biases that may have been unconsciously created. It is the writer’s sincere hope that researching and writing a paper on multicultural education will be a stepping stone toward the critical examination of biases and practices in regards to diversity in the classroom that will continue to influence the readers throughout their educational

The journal article discussed the impact teachers can have on students’ academics if they include popular culture text in the classroom to draw upon the social culture practices of their students. The authors examined the use of popular culture to address problems in the field of literacy education. The article supports the use of popular culture can be used as one of the main sources to bridge the gap traditional academic text and incorporating culturally responsive literacy pedagogy in the classroom. The authors focus is to promote popular text and academic text that equally facilitate learning skills that are sensitive to diverse cultures.

Education is one of the most important factors in every person’s life regardless of where they’re from, their race, or their culture. Becoming educated not only makes life easier for us but also can help people become more successful in all things. However with so many people of various races, ethnicities and backgrounds in the United States it is difficult to create an education system that attends to each student’s individual culture. Ones own culture influences their actions and lifestyle, therefore this can create conflict if it is different from their schools cultural teaching style. Multicultural and multilingual classrooms have become the norm in many educational and professional settings throughout the U.S. because of changing immigration patterns caused by globalization (Institute for Educational Leadership, p. 2). For teachers today, it is essential to understand the role of culture and have the ability to interact interculturally in the classroom to create an effective learning environment. Analyzing cultural issues or differences can help teachers to understand some of the unconscious processes that shape individuals’ actions and interactions, as well as their language use and communication. “Teachers who understand cultural diversity…are more likely to be successful in their multicultural classrooms” (Samovar, Pg.2).

During student teaching, and my coursework at Iowa State, my area of strength on the teaching standards would be the subject matter specialization. The coursework for elementary education requires future teachers to take classes in all core subjects, my strongest core subject happens to be math. I have an understanding of the central concepts behind the math material in each grade, and that helps make learning experiences meaningful for all students. The content of math is easier for me to help instruct students that do not understand the material, and students that have mastered the material, more than the other core subjects. My strength in the math content has to do with two other teaching standards, instructional strategies & methods of teaching. Throughout my student teaching experience, I have used a variety of strategies to encourage students to use creative thinking, problem solving, and performance skills. This can only happen with knowing the different methods of teaching to use, I will use my evidence from my 8th grade math classroom. These lessons were effective for my 8th grade class, but might not be as effective for a younger, or older classroom.

The world population has grown and diversified causing a great impact on economic and social life. This growth has influence language specialists and teachers of ELT to have a different perspective on language learning and language use. The growing changes in standardized English ask for a curriculum reform and different ways for schools to meet the students’ needs. For those reasons I will critically review the following articles, “Opportunity and Diversity: The Handbook for Teachers of English”, created by the British Council in 2009. The article “Towards Intercultural Communicative Competence in ELT” written by, Cem Alptekin 2002 and “The Future of English article", written by David Graddol 1997. This review will put in perspective the different ideas on how to approach ELT in the 20th century and the next years to come.

There is plenty of literature about interculturality in the classroom and how educators can engage with students of an ethnic minority without perpetuating their own dominant cultural privilege. There is also literature on how former colonial education systems can relearn how to teach from their own cultural perspective. What is missing is an investigation on how, through curriculum, western privileged education systems reproduce colonial discourses on a structural level. I propose a high level study into how departments are perpetuating the ‘other’ in modern academic institutions through the literature and theoretical perspectives they are presenting to their students.