Essay/Term paper: Cultural diversity in schools

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Education

Cultural Diversity in Schools


EDCI 401
Name Here
JANUARY 31,1997


Since early American history, schools, like society, have addressed
cultural diversity in different ways. In the colonial days, some attempts to
adjust to cultural differences were made in the New York colony, but the
dominant American culture was the norm in the general public, as well as most of
the schools. As America approached the nineteenth century, the need for a
common culture was the basis for the educational forum. Formal public school
instruction in cultural diversity was rare, and appreciation or celebration of
minority or ethnic culture essentially was nonexistent in most schools. In the
1930's, the educators were in the progressive education movement, called for
programs of cultural diversity that encouraged ethnic and minority students to
study their heritage's. This movement became popular in many schools until
around 1950. Now, these days in education, the term multicultural education
never escapes a teacher's thoughts (Ryan, 26).
What does the term "multicultural education" mean to you? I means
different things to different people. For instance, to some minority
communities, it means to foster pride and self-esteem among minority students,
like the progressive movement in the 1930's. Another example would be in the
white communitites, that multicultural programs are designed to cultivate an
appreciation of various cultural, racial, and ethnic traditions. Cortes defines
multicultural education by the process by which schools help prepare young
people to live with greater understanding, cooperation, effectiveness, and
dedication to equality in a multicultural nation and inerdependent world (Cortes,
16).
When I observed at Madison Elementary in December, I expected the school
would be multicultural in the sense of ethnic or racial backgrounds. Instead,
I was very surprised to discover that the school was predominately white
students, with only a handful of African American students in each classroom. I
did find out that the Wheeling Island area was in very low status pertaining to
income. Not only did over half of the students receive free or reduced lunch,
but the students academic skills were below the national norm. I never realized
what an effect of economic status can affect a student's academic progress. Of
course there are out lying factors, the parent involvement was at a minimum
because most families consisted of only one care taker. To make ends meet the
single parent had to spend most of his/her time working for money to buy clothes,
food, and to keep their children healthy. Madison Elementary had made great
strides to improve their efforts to better the students academic progress. The
school had instilled different programs like A-Team, Pre-K classes, Reading
Recovery, various health services, outreach to families, and many more to ensure
that the students will succeed in their studies.
The role of the teacher at Madison is to assist and guide the students
through school with smooth transitions. This at times is impossible due to fact
that some students in their classrooms have behavior disorders, not all of the
students are on the same learning levels, and the teacher can only help the
students at school, not at home. Sometimes the parents do not fulfill their
responsibilities at home. The teacher must adjust to the students needs. "When
dealing with multicultural issues in he classroom, teachers must guard against
perpetuating racial and ethnic stereotypes, which is often done subconsciously
and indirectly by failing to use linguistic qualifiers such as 'some,' 'many,'
and 'most' when referring to cultural groups. There is much diversity within
culture" (Ryan, 27). Teachers must also keep in mind that the process of social
development entails the successful interplay between an integrating function and
differentiating function. It is critical that multicultural education programs
foster both. The challenge is simple but significant: Can we create places of
learning where students are no longer strangers to themselves or to one another?
The answer is clear: We must (Tamura, 24-25).
Students need to understand that they are participating in many
different networks. They are involved in social networks, not just ethnic or
racial ones; however, their cultural background and experiences may indeed have
an impact upon the nature of their participation in these other networks.
Students also need to understand they are also individuals with talents, skills,
strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes (Ryan, 27). A goal for all students,
American born or not, is to develop cross-cultural acceptance, to have them
develop strategies to work through their own prejudices and to sustain their own
dignity when they become the targets of prejudice. We as teachers must work
very hard to teach children to sustain and protect our democratic way of life
and to build a world culture of human beings who resolve disputes in ways that
protect the rights of all (Higuchi, 70-71).
The curriculum at Madison is different than any other school I have been
associated with. Mr. Warren and his staff base the curriculum on the needs of
the students. As I have stated in my journal, the language arts is the area of
study with the biggest deficits. Math, Spelling, and Reading are the main
emphasis of the curriculum. I witnessed a one science lesson with the gifted
students. Madison has made great strides to improve in the area of language
arts, they have improved many students' skills. They will continue their
efforts until the students at Madison are academically strong in the area of
language arts. When using multicultural curriculum, teachers must provide
opportunities for taking perspectives as a way of helping all students
appreciate other points of view, which will help them to identify, through
contrast and comparison, their own personal characteristics as individuals.
With this in mind, one is then able to establish an identity, along with a sense
of control over it. Not all students learn the same. Teachers need to develop
an awareness for individual characteristics as a prerequisite to developing
instructional strategies that will meet the learning style of each student.
Teaching to a variety of learning styles will increase the probability of
student achievement, thereby leading to a greater internal locus of control and
improved self-esteem (Ryan, 27-28).
Some think that Cortes has the right idea by introducing five
fundamental concepts that all elementary schools should introduce to help their
students develop greater insight into human diversity. His first idea is
individuality and group identity. He believes that students need to understand
the significance of groups- racial, ethnic, gender, cultural, religious, and
others. In addition, they need to understand that each individual can belong to
many different groups. These groups may be based on birth others the result of
choice and experience. Belonging to this group may influence the ways an
individual thinks, acts believes, perceives, and may be perceived by others.
His next idea is that multicultural education involves the study of objective
culture like food, clothing, music, art, and dance. Teachers should not stop
there. There is also a subjective side to each culture like values, norms,
expectations, and beliefs. The subjective culture involves the interpretation
and expression of even universal values. Cortes states, "While learning about
the many variations in people's racial, ethnic, gender, religious, and cultural
experiences, students also need to recognize commonalties, which can serve as
bases for building intergroup and interpersonal bridges." This is the bases for
his third idea, similarities and differences. You may use the similarities as a
starting point, but in order to bond you must find the differences and address
them seriously. The differences lead to multiple perspectives and points of
view. This his Cortes' fourth concept. When diverse individuals and groups
come together with different experiences, traditions, and views multiple
perspectives hit and sometimes cause conflicts. A muliticultural person should
understand different points of view, and the elementary school is an ideal place
to begin developing this concept. Next you must build common ground. Schools
also need to help students develop the skills to find common ground with those
of different backgrounds and heritage's. This requires practice and experience.
Schools should provide safe settings with a comfortable climate in which all
students are encouraged to draw on their cultures (Cortes, 17-19).
Sometimes we can acquire cultural ways without even knowing that we are
doing so; it is like the air we breathe. Not know that our behavior is governed
by there cultural ways, we often do not see the need for change. Most teachers
have been trained in educational programs that are not geared to the needs of
the urban schools. They are normally familiar with the white middle-class
schools. Indeed, a culture of teaching exists in America that still espouses
the notion that poor children and children of color, on average, do not learn as
well as middle-class and affluent white children. A typical urban school serves
students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds that are different
form a typical suburban school. Some think that urban schools posses students
with low test scores, a high number of discipline referrals, little safety and
strict security, a high dropout rate, and few honor students. Over the past
three decades, most teachers in urban schools have been inserviced to death.
Most believe that many of the problems they face are caused by those outside the
schools. Most of them think that they have been involved in change but, the
same range has always been present throughout the culture of schooling (Parish
and Aquila, 299).
Changing the schools must have new purpose and produce new
outcomes. Most educators know that the quality of education received in America
is highly correlated with the socioeconomic status and rave of a student's
family. Yet to suggest that educators bear any responsibility for this reality
will bring not only denial but anger-as if the outcomes of schools have nothing
to do with the work of teachers and principals (Parish and Aquila 299).
With all of these dimensions into context, multiculturalism may be
associated with the celebration of cultural diversity. In overemphasizing the
importance of group membership, such programs can over shadow the significance
of individuality. Schools need to give equal time to the importance of
individual development and achievement. And students need to be empowered with
an internal locus of control that will help them develop a stable, personality
that is aware of its strengths, weaknesses, potentials, and limitations. In
previous years most school children were separated by groups and were taught to
be prepared to take their place in the world. Today, children are encouraged to
be creative and to achieve. It is ironic and distressing that many schools
still remain locked I that earlier vision. They continue to package students
into tracks, ignore individual learning styles, and generally overlook related
individual differences. At Madison school every student was treated as an
individual and every student was given an equal opportunity to succeed. I
believe that Madison is a successful multicultural school with the students
needs being their first priority.
Diversity need not lead to separateness. But the failure to develop
intergroup understanding through constructive multicultural education virtually
guarantees societal division based on ignorance. Multicultural education
belongs in all schools not just in districts with large multiracial student
bodies, because all students will share the same multicultural nation. Therefore,
all elementary schools should expose their students to a broad range of our
nation's racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity (Cortes,20).
Schools do not determine whether or not multicultural education will
occur. The societal curriculum guarantees that it will. Schools can only chose
whether or not to participate in this process. For the sake of our children; I
hope schools accept the challenge and address it seriously, now and in the
future.