The Teacing of Multicultural Education free essay sample

â€Å"To be not just effective, but to be the Approach† Maitha T. Rasonabe CED-02-601A Rizal Technological University Special Topics in Education (PROFED11) Ms. Lynn M. Besa Instructor INTRODUCTION: â€Å"Before we can transform the world, we must first transform ourselves† A demanding world that we are facing today challenged us to be a proactive teacher, a transformative one who is willing to start the change and engaged in a process of self-transformation. Teacher and student go together as well as the teaching and learning process, whereby the need for understanding cultural differences and the dynamics of culture contact in an increasingly diverse society is needed. Multicultural education promotes not only to teach â€Å"what† is the content and â€Å"how† to teach a particular subject area but it addresses that teachers must be responsive to honoring and celebrating the diversity of all the learners. That as teacher educators we must always consider that the learners is the center of the teaching and learning process. We will write a custom essay sample on The Teacing of Multicultural Education or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page We must always think that an individual-learner is a complex well being with one or more differences that put gaps or boundaries to the learner and to the teacher. Multicultural classroom caters not only one set of learners; a â€Å"classrooms are culturally diverse† and we need to uncover this diversity. There is diversity if children who are different in views and perspective are present. This article would like to address the need for a transformation in teaching inside the classroom. This would discuss the important features of Multicultural Education in a laymen perspective. This article would also like to persuade and inform teachers and students on the needs for the teaching of Multicultural education. To what should be a teacher in a multicultural classroom? How should be the teaching and learning process? And what should be the implication of the teachers to their students? What is an ideal classroom setting and an ideal curriculum for learning in multicultural school? These are just some of the questions that I would like to address to you and I will try to give answers to these. DISCUSSION: The primary goal of multicultural education is to transform the school and to cater or to have equal opportunity to all the learners to learn. According to James Banks(2001), the primary goal of multicultural education is to transform the school so that the male and female students, exceptional students, and students from diverse cultural, social-class, racial, and ethnic groups experience an equal opportunity to learn. We do not simply mean a particular person or area for transformation but we are looking at the larger perspective for transformation. The proponent of the five dimensions of multicultural education Dr. James A. Banks had an interview on September 1998 issue by NEA Today Online readers. From that interview I’d knew the reason why he developed this five dimensions because he found out from his works with the teachers that many thought of multicultural education as merely content integration, so he developed the â€Å"five dimensions of multicultural education† to help educators see that content integration= putting the content in the curriculum is important, but it is only the first dimension and that multicultural education has at least five dimension. The five dimensions of multicultural education are as follow in lighter perspective. From different researches that I had I find hard to fully understand these five dimensions and my objective in presenting these five dimensions is to provide my readers an information that can easily understand which do not sacrifice the real meaning of each dimension. The first dimension is the content integration. That is how we get started. Teachers use examples to illustrate key concepts, we use the discipline through examples. Second, knowledge construction in this teachers help students to understand, investigate, and determine the understood cultural assumptions and frames of reference and perspective of the discipline they’re teaching. In other words we help student our learners to understand and also helps children to become more critical thinkers and readers and that is the knowledge construction process. Third, equity pedagogy with this teachers change their methods to enable students from diverse racial groups nd both genders to achieve, teachers modify their teaching styles so that they use a wide range of strategies and teaching techniques such as cooperative teaching, the use of simulation, role playing, and discovery. Fourth, prejudice reduction it seeks to help students develop positive and democratic racial attitudes. It helps students to understand hoe ethnic identity influenced by the context of schooling and attitudes and beliefs of dominant social groups. Fifth, empowering school cultures it involves restructuring the culture and organization of the school so that students from different racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and language group experience equality. We are looking not just at individual classroom, but at the total school culture to see how to make it more equitable. We are trying to get rid of this traditional conception of teaching that was â€Å"filling up the bucket†, that if we talked about pedagogy, we are talking about teachers and students becoming learners together. The role of the teachers and students should be both active and not passive. In teaching and learning process where culture and background of the teacher is of different, let’s keep it in our mind that it’s not the race of the teacher, but a set of cultural characteristics that make the teachers effective with children of colors. Characteristics that knew the culture of children, who often live in the community, who understood the daily lives of the students, who could relate to the students, who understand students verbal and non-verbal cues. Teachers who made demands but warm demanders. Teachers who showed students that they cared. Teachers who had high expectation with their students, and believe with their students these are the characteristics of an Effective teacher. Teachers must have the good values and attitudes and experiences. How to be not just Effective but, to be the Approach Teachers have to be engaged in a process of self-transformation. It must start with us, â€Å"before we can transform the world, we must first transform ourselves†, the process of reading, a process of engaging with others, a process of understanding that the other is us and we are the other. Teachers must do these three things. And that is to know, to care, and to act. That in order to bring this reform and to bring about this self-transformation, we need knowledge, that we cannot do this in ignorance. But knowledge is not enough, we also have to care. Horace Mann said to the graduates of Antioch College in 1859, â€Å"be ashamed to die until you’ve won some victory for humankind†, so we have to care and we have to win victories. Those teachers can have these small victories. A victory once a day or once a week, in helping students feel needed, helping a student overcome, helping students feel better in school that day, it’s a small victory; a series of small victories. Finally, we need to act because as Dante said, the worst place in Hell is reserved for those, who in times of great moral crisis take a neutral position. We need to care and to act because in that way we can transform ourselves and help transform our world. As Margaret Mead said that â€Å"A handful people can change the world. IMPLICATION: Multicultural education is an approach to school reform, and movement for equity, social justice and democracy. It tries to provide students with educational experiences that enable them to maintain commitments to their community cultures as well as acquire the knowledge, skills, and cultural capital needed to function in the national civic culture and community. Embracing the pedagogy of multicultural education lead us also to promote peace to our students. We create mindset to our student to become critical thinkers, and to be sensitive inn all aspects of life. As stated above, the main point of view of this discussion is focus on the transformation of the school. But in order to bring about this change or transformation we must be reflective, we have to start within ourselves the transformation. As we always say; we cannot teach what we do not know, same with we cannot make a transformation to others without starting this in ourselves. Another is the KCA, the acronym that I gave to the process we should have for transformation. That is to know, to care, and to act, for ourselves and for others. The seven key characteristics discuss above, help us to uncover diversity in a classroom and to eliminate any form of discrimination and biases in teaching and learning process. That â€Å"education is for all†, and we offer equal opportunity to our learners to learn regardless of their diverse culture, racial, socioeconomic status, cultural background, language group. To implement multicultural education, teachers and administrators must attend to these five dimensions of multicultural education. As future educators we must be aware of our student’s differences. We must be familiar with the approaches, methods and learning styles that are applicable in addressing the needs of our students. We must be sensitive at all times and have the set of good values and characteristics as teachers. That we are not only responsible in teaching our lessons but we are also responsible in building good values, attitudes and experiences to our students. Multicultural Approach cultivates a school environment that celebrates diversity, support mutual acceptance of respect for an understanding of human differences. References: Gorski, Paul C. 7 Key Characteristics of a Multicultural Education Curriculum. http://www. edchange. org/multicultural/resources/ct_characteristics. html Banks, James A. and Tucker M. †Multiculturalism’s Five Dimensions. †NEA Today Online. http://www. learner. org/workshops/socialstudies/pdf/session3/3. Multiculturalism. pdf Multicultural Education-History, The Dimensions of Multicultural Education, Evidence of the Effectiveness of Moral Education. http://education. stateuniversity. com/pages2252/Multicultural-Education. html#ixzz2L0tTcMZs