Making Changes in Your Classroom

Revamping or giving a face lift to your entire curriculum may sound a bit daunting. Keep in mind that small changes can make a large impact. Allison and Rehm (2007) provide areas to focus on when beginning to adopt multicultural education in your classroom:

• Visuals: In order to reach students who may not speak English or struggle with the language, pictures, bulletin boards, flash cards, graphic organizers, etc. may assist them in understanding a topic. Visuals are a tool that can be used in any subject area and may serve to make learning more meaningful for diverse students. Student drawings, story boards, and posters can also be used to allow expressive thoughts.

• Peer tutoring: This technique is highly effective with students from racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse backgrounds. Coupling two students of differing aptitudes and backgrounds, has been found to produce positive outcomes in multicultural classrooms, especially with English language learners, Hispanic and Native American students whose cultural values accentuate cooperation and mentoring.

• Cooperative learning: This approach groups students from diverse cultural backgrounds in heterogeneous groups. Students are then instructed to collaborate and cooperate with each other on assignments and problem- solving tasks. This strategy has been found to elevate inter-ethnic relationships, develop cross-cultural understandings, and develop teamwork while also building literacy and language achievement among linguistically diverse students.

• Alternative means of assessment: Traditional tests, including paper and pencil, discriminate against students of diverse cultural backgrounds. These types of tests are unsuccessful when it comes to recognizing various heritages, languages, and experiences. Alternative tests are considered critical, because they provide students the opportunity to validate their understanding in several ways. This increases the students’ opportunities for success. Researchers have strongly asserted that assessment techniques must be compatible with and relevant to the cultural backgrounds, learning styles, and life experiences of all students.

What's working for you in your classroom?

Source: Allison, B. N., & Rehm, M. L. (2007, November). Effective Teaching Strategies for Middle School Learners in Multicultural, Multilingual Classrooms. Middle School Journal , 39, 12-18.

Current Trends

In order to understand fully comprehend the value of multicultural education; you must be aware of the demographic shifts in student population that are taking place in public schools. Because of things such as housing and economic patterns, more children are loosing what little chance they had to attend school in a diverse environment. Without the first hand exposure to diverse cultures, I strongly feel that becomes the school’s duty to provide quality multicultural education in order to promote respect and appreciation.

It is also worth noting the patterns in placement of teachers in the public school systems. According to Davis and Thompson (2004), “One of the concerns that urban schools face is that teachers with less than three years of experience are twice as likely to work in predominately minority schools as they are in predominately white schools.” (p. 9) The prior statistic is not presented to undermine the ability of new teachers; rather, to recognize the trends in hiring practices by predominately white school districts.

From personal experience and conversations with colleagues, I have come to the conclusion that some where in your first or second year of teaching, educators realize that they have not been fully prepared for the position they are in. Although I’m not sure it’s possible to ever feel completely prepared, it must be considered that according to Davis and Thompson (2004), most of the experienced, veteran teachers can be found in predominately white schools. Unless the newer teachers in urban school districts are receiving proper support, the students are going to receive an education that may not be equal to those students in white schools. Why is this acceptable??

Source:
Davis, D., and Thompson, S., (2004, November). Creating High-Performing Middle Schools in Segregated Settings: 50 Years After Brown. Middle School Journal, 36, 4-12.

My journey begins...

Upon completion of my first year of teaching in my own classroom, I took time to reflect upon some of my experiences...the good and the bad. The importance of multicultural education is one of the first topics comes to mind.

My first year of teaching took place in an elementary setting. I was responsible for teaching 4th and 6th grade Science, Math, Social Studies, and Health. The student population at my school is made up of mostly middle to lower class families from diverse cultural backgrounds. Some of the ethnicities represented include Hispanic, African American, Asian, Chinese, Ukrainian, Native American, and Latino.

My classroom of fourth graders totaled twenty four students; eight of which were labeled English Language Learners. This meant that one third of my entire class was still just learning how to speak the English language. At first I viewed my situation as a challenge...I mean this was my FIRST year teaching! I slowly began to realize how lucky I was to work with such a diverse group of students. As the year progressed, I began to learn more and more about how imperative it was for me to incorporate multicultural education into my curriculum.

Just what exactly is multicultural education? Many confuse it with ESL support for students who speak English as a second language. I spent a great deal of time researching this topic during my first year of teaching and feel that Bode and Neito (2007) describe it best,

…multicultural Education does not simply involve the affirmation of language and culture. Multicultural education confronts issues of differences but also issues of power and privilege in society. This means challenging racism and other biases as well as the inequitable structures, policies, and practices of schools and, ultimately, of society itself. (p. 4)

At this point, I would suggest re-reading the above description and allow yourself a moment to fully digest what it means to you in your personal life and career.

Source:
Bode P., and Neito S., (2007). Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Contexts of Multicultural Education. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.