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Anthony DeBevc
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
ENGL 1102
Moser
The Importance of Teaching a Multicultural Classroom
Every student has a different style of learning that an effective teacher must be able to
identify and analyze. The goal of a teacher is to connect and be able to teach each student the
material in the best manner by which each student is best able to comprehend. Most untrained
teachers struggle attempting to reach certain students who came from diverse cultures and
unfamiliar backgrounds. A truly multicultural classroom is influenced and molded by several
different cultures.
Teachers often encounter difficulty when trying to teach students from less fortunate
families, non-English proficient students, as well as a student that is of a different race or
ethnicity. There are very good reasons and statistics that can back these facts up, such as a white
female teacher that has been raised in a predominantly white town. This teacher may not have
had many interactions with students of differing backgrounds making the connection process
more difficult. That is why it is imperative that teachers have the appropriate training they need
to teach in multicultural environment.
There exists a scholarly debate as to, what exactly a multicultural classroom consists of
as well as the effects it carries onto the students, “Multicultural education relates to education
and instruction designed for the cultures of several different races in an educational system. This
approach to teaching and learning is based upon consensus building, respect, and fostering
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cultural pluralism within racial societies. Multicultural education acknowledges and incorporates
positive racial idiosyncrasies into classroom atmospheres.”(2) Stating that a teacher must be able
to diversify and immerse themselves into their student’s lives in order to make each student work
together while respecting their individual cultural backgrounds. This quote also explains that the
teacher has to be able to produce a positive outlook on the students’ races while helping them
become more comfortable with each pupils individual race in and outside the classroom. For
teachers without the experience to immerse their students in this type of classroom setting will
suffer with not only connecting in the classroom, but in the real world.
America is a melting pot because of our cultural diversity and our teachers must have the
resources and skills to utilize the chance they have; teaching students to work with other cultures
and races to help not only this nation but our world grow and come together. Teachers have the
opportunity to expose students to each other in a model multicultural classrooms, to get young
students comfortable with others cultures that are not their own. With cultures migrating and
expanding over the nation our schools’ students are also changing. Schools are now filled with
more students of different cultures more than ever before and as time goes on these numbers will
continue to rise. The teacher needs to possess the adequate tools to be able to integrate their
students in our changing world. Students have gone onto say that when they feel more
comfortable in their multicultural classroom settings because there is more honesty in class
discussions making learning significantly more effective.
Teaching students in multicultural classroom will help prepare them for the working
world. By exposing students to different cultures and ethnic backgrounds, breaks boundaries for
them and lets them have more of an open mind to work with people that are different from them.
The following quote supports this statement, “If the students being taught happen to belong
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mostly to one group or another, it is still the case that all of them, at some point in their lives,
will need to learn how to understand and work with those who are different from themselves”.
(1)The quote basically restates the point that multicultural learning is not only beneficial for the
individual student who is exposed to it, but also anyone that student might work with in the
future.
It is imperative that teachers in multicultural classrooms are able to cater to every
student’s needs in the classroom and not alienate any certain race of culture. This quote helps
make an example of this “Multicultural awareness…refers to teachers’ awareness of, comfort
with, and sensitivity to issues of cultural pluralism in the classroom. Furthermore, teachers high
in multicultural awareness see cultural diversity as strength and feel the responsibility to address
multicultural issues in the curriculum and in the teaching/learning process”.(3) Explaining that a
teacher with an understanding of many different cultures can help adhere to every student’s
needs and not leave any specific culture out making everyone comfortable in a multicultural
classroom. Teachers with these teaching skills can incorporate things from different cultures into
everyday classes making their students more able and willing to connect with the material that
pertains to their culture. Referring to the aforementioned statements, it would be prudent for a
teacher to make little but significant changes into their curriculum pertaining to a certain cultural
group like including African American Readings in multiethnic readings in social studies classes.
Strong efforts from all school systems around the country are trying to implement more
multicultural classroom friendly curriculums. Multicultural classrooms benefit the students to
expose them at early age because children start seeing color of skin as early as five and minority
students start to act out as early as first grade, “Because multicultural education is an effort to
reflect the growing diversity of America's classrooms, many programs move beyond curricular
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revisions to specifically address the academic needs of carefully defined groups of students,
often minority students.” (4) The drop out rating for minority students rise every year, so schools
are putting a plan into place to adequately educate students from the minority and make them
more actively involved in school.
Teaching in multicultural classrooms has come a very long way, “earliest
conceptualizations in the 1960s; multicultural education has evolved both in theory and in
practice.”(5) It is crucial that our upcoming teachers are educated and can adapt to our changing
cultures of this country. The main goal for a teacher who teaches in a multicultural classroom is
to be able to educate each and every student no matter what ethnic background they are from.
That is why it is imperative that our teachers today can be conventional to the changing world
that is ours today and adapt their classrooms for their student’s benefits.
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Works Cited
Source (1): Hard copy
Noel, J. (2008). Classic Edition Sources: Multicultural Education. McGraw-Hill: New
York. Page 22
Source (2): web
Social integration between African American and European American children in majority black,
majority white, and multicultural elementary classrooms.
Rodkin, Philip C.; Wilson, Travis; Ahn, Hai-Jeong | New Directions for Child & Adolescent
Development | 2007-01 | 2007:118 | 25(18) | ISSN: 15203247 | CLASSROOM environment;
AFRICAN American students; EUROPEAN American children; SOCIAL integration; RACE
relations; PSYCHOLOGICAL aspects; SOCIAL aspects
http://wf2dnvr17.webfeat.org/4cmxO193/url=http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfview
er?vid=2&hid=17&sid=d2144b8b-daa5-4420-85dc-eb0b8d758b37%40sessionmgr10
Source (3):web
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. 2003. Comparison of NCATE and TEAC
processes for accreditation of teacher education. http://www.aacte.org (accessed October 9, 2006).
http://www.academicleadership.org/emprical_research/564.shtml
Source (4):web
Varieties of Multicultural Education: An Introduction. ERIC Digest 98;Burnett, Gary, June 1994.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education New York NY
http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/multicultural.html
Source (5):web
The Challenge of Defining Multicultural Education, Gorski, C. Paul, April 14, 2010. Edchange
project
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http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html