Multicultural Education

Today's classrooms are becoming more and more diverse by the second, and it is important that this is recognized by educators, both current ones and those of the future. Wanting to be a teacher in the near future myself, multicultural education makes me wonder one thing: What can I do to make my classroom a culturally responsive classroom?

There are hundreds of things that I should -- and should not -- do to make this classroom successful. One of the most important things that I will to first do is understand all of my students and the different perspectives they might have. By different perspectives, I mean that they might be immigrants, non-English speaking, have different sexual orientations, or might have exceptionality. Regardless of how different each student is, in my opinion, a teacher is only successful when they understand their students. Students should be taught that one culture is not superior to each other -- they are all just as important and equal to one another. If they are taught this young enough, it might eliminate further stereotyping and bullying as they get older.

There are five approaches in multicultural education, but I believe that the human relations approach is the most important. This approach tries to help students from different backgrounds accept, understand and relate to each other. With this, I think it is important that emphasis is put on cultural similarities students (and I) have with each other, rather than focusing on the differences, which is what typically happens. Another approach that I feel I will use in my own classroom in the future is the multicultural approach because it really promotes the importance of family and languages, and it makes students think from other people's point of views, rather than just their own.

Something else that I will do to run a culturally diverse classroom is potentially have some parents or guest speakers in the classroom to speak about different cultures. To me, this would definitely be interesting and it would be different than me just telling the students my knowledge because the parents would have first hand, accurate knowledge.

Another thing that will make myself successful is being informed about a multitude of cultures, rather than just my own. In order for this to happen, I will have to read and research about other cultures, and maybe even incorporate materials that will engage the students and expand their knowledge. I think that engaging projects about foreign countries could be eye-opening and fun for future students, and I say this because of experience. In middle school, my 7th grade world geography teacher assigned partners a country and together the students did a project about the country's values, history, culture, etc. Although it was a little different than how I might do it in the future, I think it was a good project and I took a lot away from it.

Like I stated before, it's not just about what I should to do to make my classroom culturally responsive; it's also what I should not do. RaceBridges For Schools provides an excellent list of things that should be avoided, including focusing only on one culture, and providing students with things that are stereotypical or wrong about certain cultures.

Overall, it is extremely important to assure that your classroom is culturally responsive for students. It will benefit them not only for that school year, but for their entire life ahead.