Culture-Rich Curriculum

A hot issue now is multiculturalism. The debate takes many forms: what to teach in schools, how to deal with immigration, racism, cultural superiority, etc. When it comes to multiculturalism in schools, it takes a couple basic forms. One is a multi-cultured approach. This form is as it sounds - teach what you teach from the perspective of multiple cultures. Ideally this takes shape every day in the classroom, not just in black history month. The other option (quite simplified) is that it's better to focus your attention as an educator on the basic needs of students, to answer the question "what do these kids need to know to make it in this world?"

This plays itself out in my school a number of ways. We celebrated black history month like most places, with an assembly and some extra information on famous African American contributions to the world. But the debate also takes shape in that I am constantly trying to challenge my kids to more. Sometimes am I less aware of cultural differences? Unfortunately, yes. I'm still learning. But sometimes do I make the choice to challenge my kids to answer the WHY questions in life instead of the WHAT questions in order to prepare them for the "real world" (as if school exists in some alternate dimension that isn't real...)? Yes, I do that as well.

Multiculturalism is a big part of our school. We have a quite diverse population and I'm thankful for that. I see many kids interact on a personal and friendly level every day and I find that to be a very good thing. But it would be unfair to say that I never see educational excellence diminished simply to add a piece of literature from another culture. I hope I don't sound insensitive (but I probably do), but there are times that an educator should not worry about what culture an author or history-maker comes from. Well, for history you probably should worry about it. We are all a part of the world's population. And as "we are the world" as it may seem, we all matter. I don't think it's necessary to spend five minutes discussing an author's personal, cultural history before we dive into his or her poetry or prose. I don't see a consistent benefit to that. If the piece is good, study it. If it's not, don't. It seems easy.

Now then, we do study other cultures in my English class. We did a good amount on Native American culture and Puritan culture, as two examples. I hope still to do a section on the Harlem Renaissance. But these pieces of literary history are good. They are not just studied because their authors filed into some special cultural realm.

At the end of the day, I don't know which one of these wins. I realize how culturally narcissistic I sound right now. I hope that over the next years of teaching I'll figure out the right answer.

Multiculturalism in my Classroom

One day in my seventh period, I asked my students to get into three groups. A minute later, my kids were all chuckling and laughing in a oh-man-this-is-weird way. I looked around the room and there was one group composed of four Hispanic students, one group composed of five African American students, and one group composed of five white students. To say the least, it was an odd moment. Since the students grouped themselves, and the students work well in the groups they created, I didn't rearrange them. But, to be honest, I was almost worried that an administrator would walk in and later feel the need to talk to me about racial grouping or something. Thankfully none of that happened, the weirdness blew over, and the students did well with the lesson.

We live in a world of varied cultures. The question being asked in many history, literature, and other classes nowadays is "What sort of American citizens should we be shaping?" The root question here, of course, is "What is America?" This question has a million answers from a million perspectives on one very long, complex series of events. Our history used to be simple - Europeans came and discovered America. I remember the day I read an article in ninth grade about Christopher Columbus being a genocidal maniac. Maybe they didn't use the word maniac. But the article was certainly strongly worded, and I had never heard any of it before. To say it challenged everything I understood about America's genesis would be accurate.

Whatever America is, I know that part of education is national pride. This has changed over my life as well. When I was young, and all the way through high school, we said the Pledge every day. In my classroom we still say the Pledge. But let me clarify: by "we" I mean me and one student. This is something I simply do not understand. One student told me he doesn't say the Pledge because a teacher when he was younger told him that it "wasn't true." The ironic part of his decision is that it was based purely on what somebody older and influential told him instead of any research or deep thought. Now then, I understand that my students have the right to not say the Pledge. If I'm honest though, I'm very annoyed by it. Growing up in a military family, we were taught to respect the flag and the men and women serving our country. Today, I just don't really see that.

Ultimately, multiculturalism to me means that we are a country of many cultures. We will never be a country where our cultures meld into one - I do not think that is the goal or the hope. I enjoy the fact that my students have many backgrounds. I enjoy the fact that we can enter into conversations about those backgrounds in class and that the students enjoy learning about each other in that way. I've seen the conversations happen, and I've been excited about it. I hope we as America never loses our individuality. I hope we never turn to Sameness like in The Giver. That would be, as the main character Jonas said in that book, completely unfair.