Growing up in McMinnville, Tennessee led me down a fairly sheltered path in life. Most everyone looked like me, acted like me (well maybe not just like me), and basically lived like me. There were “minorities” in my school system growing up and there were enough of them that they were not viewed as being any different than I was. I do remember having several “celebrations” in the classroom that revolved around other cultures. Although multicultural celebrations didn’t happen often in my school, they were typically fairly bias to Spanish cultures and practices alone. I am sure that my teachers thought that they were doing an amazing job of exposing us to “the world”, and maybe they were, but it just didn’t seem like it happened all that often. I suppose that as a child I really could have cared less if we were celebrating other cultures or not. I did enjoy the experience and I do remember enjoying the knowledge that was acquired about how other people lived.
The use of curriculum, policies, and structure as a social control is a bit harder to nail down. To me, rules were rules and expectations were expectations. We were expected to be polite to everyone, no matter his or her cultural background. I assume that the policies that made these expectations were both based in political correctness and simply general humanitarianism. I feel like I have always been exposed to a “treat other right because that is right” environment.
After reading the articles for this blog assignment I was a bit torn. There are several ways to look at Multiculturalism and several ways to apply it to the classroom. We have obligations to the curriculum and we have obligations to each other as humans. Where we draw the line on how to blend the two is a bit challenging. The amount of “minorities” is on the rise and it is something that we are going to have to deal with, including modifying our current educational approaches (Brown-Jeffy, & Cooper 2011).
I agree that we should address different cultures in the classroom. However, I don’t feel as though the curriculum should be completely altered to do so. I know that there is much to learn by understanding other cultures but what truly matters in life is the ability to understand. If we instill in a student the ability to be sensitive to other cultures, and to appreciate them for what they are, then we have truly educated that child. It goes back to the principal of giving a child a fish vs. teaching a child to fish. At times we should simply give an idea to a student, but then there are times when we should actually teach that student to think for himself or herself. There is proof that ethnic sensitive educational facilities can make all the differences in how well minorities can thrive in environments that are tailored for them. (Dwyer, 2006). As successful as these have been it stands to reason that our education systems simply can’t be completely effective at reaching all students at all times. Teachers have to be mindful that even their own ethnic understanding and experience can play a huge role in how a student who is ethnically different from them relates to them as an instructor (Blunt, 2006).
Multiculturalism is so important but I personally don’t see that it is worth loosing a sizable amount of instructional time to. Teachers have such high standards to reach with each student that as much time as possible must be spent educating toward the core ideas.
Reference:
Brown-Jeffy, Shelly & Cooper, Jewell. (2011). Toward a Conceptual Framework
of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy:
An Overview of the Conceptual
and Theoretical Literature. Retrieved on 9-26-11. Retrieved from: http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ914924.pdf
Dwyer, Brighid. (2006). Framing the Effect
of Multiculturalism
on Diversity Outcomes
among Students
at Historically Black
Colleges and Universities. Retrieved on 9-26-11. Retrieved from: http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ751760.pdf
Blunt, David. (2006). The Effects of Multiculturalism within the
Parameters of Instructional Course Design. Retrieved on 9-26-11. Retrieved from: http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED490178.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment