Preparing Students for a Diverse and Global Society
"I need help finding good multicultural books" . . .
"I'd like to talk to other educators about this" . . .
"I'd like to hear about a teacher's classroom experience" . . .
"Just what is multicultural education?" . . .
"It's great, but I don't want more work--so how do I do it?"
Debated as well as celebrated, multiculturalism is undeniably weaving its way
into today's classroom curriculum. Many educators agree that a multicultural
approach to education is essential to engage children of all cultures in learning
and to prepare students for the diverse and global society that will be their adult
world.
"For teachers living in urban areas or the border states, multiculturalism is no longer an
issue for debate or discussion. Multiculturalism is now an always exciting, sometimes
challenging, everyday fact of life," writes Bonnie O. Ericson of California State University
in
At Home with
Multicultural Adolescent Literature. Yet multicultural literature, she says,
is hardly for students in those regions alone.
All students must learn how to interact with and understand people who are ethnically,
racially and culturally different from themselves, concurs Geneva Gay of the University of
Washington-Seattle in
A Synthesis of
Scholarship in Multicultural Education. As she points
out, "The United States and the world are becoming increasingly more diverse, compact and
interdependent."
The best way to teach multiculturalism? Incorporate it into the existing curriculum, says
consultant and former professor of multicultural education Deborah Eldridge in "Diversity
in Language Arts Classrooms" (The Education Digest, Vol. 62, No. 4). "The best culturally
sensitive teaching I have seen was the result of focusing on the curriculum in a new way,
not adding to it," she writes. For lessons on incorporating multiculturalism into the
classroom, see Deborah Menkart's
Multicultural Education:
Strategies for Linguistically
Diverse Schools and Classrooms, a guide presented by
The National Clearinghouse for
Bilingual Education.
Introducing a multicultural novel in his English class for the first time, ninth-grade
teacher Rodney Smith relates his experience in "All Brown All Around" (The Progressive,
Vol. 59, No. 7). Adding Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street to his classic-text
curriculum opened a door for one Latina gangbanger in his English class, involving her in
literature in a way she hadn't previously experienced. The student later wrote: "Sometimes
I think back when we read this book and picture me as being the main character . . . It is
like, here is this Latina girl writing a book that I really like. I never have gotten into
a book like I do now. And that is the truth."
Need help locating multicultural books?
Instructor magazine's
"How to Choose the Best
Multicultural Books," points to 50 books for K-8 and gives advice on how to spot literature
that transcends stereotypes. The Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison has compiled the list
"25 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know,"
and the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English and Communication offers
Multicultural
Literature in the Elementary Classroom. For K-12, Weber State University maintains the
Clearinghouse for Multicultural and Bilingual Education, which provides sources for
multicultural information and materials, including books.
The Multicultural Pavilion and the
Multicultural Publishing and Education Council are two
other valuable resources for educators, as is the Multicultural Education Resource Guide by
Cheryl Gorder (Blue Bird Publishing, 1995).
Interested in discussing the topic with fellow educators? For listservs and discussion
groups, see Multicultural Education Pathfinder.
Article by Colleen Newquist
Education World®
Copyright © 1997 Education World
06/15/1997
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