Entry 1 Multicultural Education

Multicultural education is exploring and teaching the similarities and differences between people of different ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, race, gender, socioeconomic background, age, and experience.  As Gosrski states, multicultural education involves looking at and transforming yourself and your own beliefs and bias', the school's beliefs and society's attitudes.

Multicultural education is difficult to define for me partly because it is difficult for me to understand that we still have so much work to do to gain a respect and understanding of the differences between so many groups.  I can understand exploring different cultures,  but multicultural education goes far beyond that.  It includes getting students to respect the differences and be aware of all the wrong that has happened to people throughout history.  It means addressing issues that can be painful and can mean having to accept ownership for much of the harm that continues today.  It means examining current law and practices the majority may be very comfortable with but which discriminate against minority groups.

The challenges facing classroom teachers begin with  being fully aware of their own bias' and the misinformation they were given when learning about historical events and interactions between groups of people.  The next challenge is teaching students who have been strongly influenced by their home environments regarding prejudice and have been given misinformation regarding different groups of people and their role in history and society.  This will be followed by challenges within the school environment including administrators who have not had much, if any, quality training in multicultural education.  The next challenge is dealing with the bias' in textbooks regarding the way different groups of individuals are depicted, and testing bias's, particularly during a time of high stakes testing.  Society poses a challenge to teachers by being an obstacle in allowing a teacher to openly explore many of the conflicts and challenges that face our society today.