The Importance Of Multicultural Education

The aims of multicultural education is to make sure any student, no matter their demographic, receives and is provided the essential resources to get an education. Along with Banks, he discusses that multicultural education “is to reform the school and other educational institutions so that students from diverse racial, ethnic, and social-class groups will experience educational equality” (p. 3). In today’s schools, the students attending are changing, in regards to demographics, so schools need to adjust to be able to teach to all students.

As demographic changes in the United States have significantly increased the cultural diversity of student populations in public schools multicultural policies and practices have become important and also have debates against it . Multicultural Education was reformed shortly after the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s .Many traces back to the discrimination of African American and other people of color. At that time most oppressive was the educational institutions.

Taking in consideration the peers’ critique and instructors’ feedback, I was able to recognize that in the second example of an anecdote of my paper, I took the quote “Today, Astilla asks his kids to compare Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein. All used violence to stay in power, several suggest. ‘They used propaganda,’ one student points out. ‘Good one!’ Astilla says approvingly” out of the context and my explanation of this quote ended up not having any relation to the quote. Thus, I chose to remove this explanation “McGray’s argument that young Americans are uninformed and misinformed about the world beyond the United States borders” that according to the instructor’s commentary and my own understanding, it seems vague and lacks connection to the quote. Instead, I decided to

This nation is integrated of diverse learners. Diversity in the United States includes race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, cultural heritage, ability, and disability. As teachers, we have to help meet all of the student’s needs, so they can reach their full potential. Offering programs to help diverse student will help them succeed in school and life. Teachers can respond to diversity by practicing multicultural education, gender equality, considering students for programs like English Language Learner, and accommodating the student’s need according to their disabilities and abilities.

Participants’ perceptions of their schools’ commitment to providing a multicultural education inclusive of the three domains under inquiry (promotion of cultural competence, cultural socialization, and critical consciousness) were represented under the theme entitled “Patterns of Practices of Diversity and Social Equality Awareness and Multicultural Education”. This theme is representative of all the methods through which our participants’ school systems sought to provide their students with curricula that attempted to expand their understanding of issues surrounding racism and discrimination, as well as expose them to cultures other than the dominant white culture of the United States. These methods are categorized according to the subthemes “Classes”, “Clubs, Organizations, and Events”, “School-wide Practices”, and “No Practices”.

Multicultural education encompasses a variety of instructional methods designed to support the social and academic needs of the learners within the educational environment. Banks (2002) discusses several benefits to incorporating different cultures into a school’s curriculum as well as a strategic plan for executing the strategies. Restructuring a school’s curriculum is an enormous task that requires planning, professional development, monitoring, and evaluation from various stakeholders in the school community. In order to restructure a school’s curriculum, create a paradigm shift for educators, and successfully implement change, there must be a concerted effort from school administrators, teachers, students, parents, and community members (Assaf et al., 2010; Bhargava, Hawley, & Scott, 2004).

One of the major goals of the American school system is to provide all children with equal educational opportunity. However, with regard to minority students, meeting this particular objective has presented a real challenge to educators as they have been confronted with the task of reshaping education in the multilingual, multicultural society that characterizes the United States.

There is a difference among instructing a class in which multiculturalism is the emphasis and joining a fundamental multicultural, comprehensive viewpoint into the classroom environment. Given that "there is no worldwide structure of a multiculturalism development that is faultless for attaining all objectives for all students" (Chamberlin, 2005, p. 26), discovering a method to shape a multicultural basis for sequences across the disciplines may be a better goal for faculty in higher education organizations. Multiculturalism is an idea that cannot be overlooked in today's culture. It is actual, it is connected to the globalization of higher education, and it is going to do nothing but produce in wealth in the future of higher education locations in the United States. Therefore, "it is dangerous that universities and colleges play a leading function in arranging its elements to purpose successfully in a more pluralistic society" (Almarza, 2005, p. 1). With that said, this essay will discuss the pros and cons of teaching multiculturalism in college classrooms.

Through multicultural education we are awarded with a unique opportunity to effectively alter the opinions of individuals. The effects of these courses have been demonstrated in multiple studies and while the subjects of this research is often college students, these effects are easily generalizable to the rest of the population. Although this generalizability is there, it can be understood why it be the most effective to begin with college age students. This is often lauded as a critical point in development for most young adults. It is a time where students are at a higher level of learning, while critical thinking and personal challenge is at a poignant high. This period in life and development is difficult to duplicate and for this reason this is the perfect place to implement this form of education and begin changing the underlying racist and sexist thought processes that support biased systems. By taking advantage of this, we will equalize the understanding of future generations and create a system where multicultural education is no longer necessary as they will teach the generations to come after them.

All people I interviewed did not receive a formal multicultural education and they learned from their interactions with people at their home, church, working places as well as from their travels. They all agreed that knowing people from diverse cultural backgrounds had enriched their life experiences. However, they all agreed that similar human experiences are shared among different races and genders. “Implicit” test results told me that I hold more personal biases than I had thought. These unchecked biases may have potentially kept us from forming fair judgments toward others.

The public school systems goal in the United States is to provide every child with equal education. Unfortunately somewhere along the lines the education system in our country has failed to provide this equal education to many of our children, especially minority. It isn’t that the education is not there, but many other things such as , teachers,learning styles, and the culture of the school itself affect a child’s education. African American students at Forest high experience school differently than Whites. For example, many students at school were they are the minority report they feel less connected to school than do their White peers; many Black students contend that they are forced to participate in a system that has little regard

Moreover, multicultural education is an intellectual concept, a reformist movement and a process (Banks, 2009). Its basic idea is that all students have the equality of opportunities in education without being subjected to racial, ethnic, social class, or gender discrimination, An educational reform movement that aims to change the structure of educational institutions so that male and female students, exceptional students, and student who are members of diverse racial, ethnic, language and cultural groups will have an equal chance to achieve academically in school. In other words, it allows the school to promote educational equality

Raquel mentions she failed the seventh grade; as a result she was placed in “special classes.” She also stated she does not see the point of going to school. Brammer (2004) mentions language barriers is a hindrance among Latin American while in school. Many Latin Americans are bilingual; however, the will speak little English outside of the school setting. This causes complications due to their primary language is Spanish which is spoken by family and friends (Brammer, 2004). Additionally, Latin American endures a vast amount of peer pressure to do poorly in school or to drop out. One method to reduce the dropout rate of Latin Americans is teachers can make reasonable accommodation to their lesson plan to the address the students needs. Also involving the child’s parents in their educations with the use of interpreters can assist the child to thrive educationally (Amy Buttler, personal communication, November 7, 2017).

There is an unspecific amount of human population that inhabit our planet and each and every person have their own distinct culture and ethnic background. In Australia, there are statistics that show more than 30 percent of households speak another language beside English (ABS, 2011). Many people in the world can also have a combination of these cultures, which gives them the ability to communicate in more than one language. This would mean that they are considered either to be bilingual or multilingual. Being bilingual is a formidable skill that is primarily used to communicate with others, but it can also provide power and opportunities in certain social fields. There are those who discourage their children from learning another language because of many reasons. This could include not being able to pay for these lessons, availability of competent teachers and may reduce the child’s focus in other subjects. Conversely, there are free educational programs in Australian schools that give children an opportunity to study their family language because it demonstrates the country’s strong support for cultural diversity. This is because multiculturalism promotes cultural awareness, which includes having a diverse range of cuisines, beliefs, interests and traditions shared across the country.

Through a number of interviews with multicultural parents, Lisa Delpit (2006), in Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, lists some requirements for a person to be a good teacher. According to Delpit, a good teacher must care whether students are actually learning, challenge all students, not move onto a new subject until all students get the concept, connect learning to real life experiences, push students to think and make their own decisions, and get to know students as individuals (Delpit, 2006, pg. 118). Other People’s Children goes beyond this list in what it expects great multicultural teachers to look like. I will go through some expectations of what a great multicultural student should do and evaluate my own teacher to conclude if I am a great multicultural teacher or not. One thing that will be emphasized is that great multicultural teachers must not silenced their students; this means that all students must be given a chance to express their individuality, and that the teacher does everything in their power to make sure that the students are learning to the best of their abilities. The full rubric I will be using to evaluate my teaching is located in the Appendix. The rubric was created based off the suggestions of Lisa Delpit in Other People’s Children, my own knowledge of multicultural education, and Geneva Gay’s (2010) Culturally Responsive Teaching. A score is located at the bottom of the rubric to determine if the person being evaluated,