Blog #7

1. Before entering the class, my perceptions of a multicultural education were very vague. I was familiar with the term and what it entailed, but that was about to the extent of it. Before this class, there was only one other education course at BGSU that I specifically remember spending more than one day learning the importance of a multicultural education. It probably came up in a chapter or class discussion, but it was never enough to make me think on a deeper level about it. Before this class, my perception was that a true multicultural education would only be necessary to use if I taught in a diverse school district or had a very diverse student in my classroom.

2. My perceptions have changed drastically when it comes to a multicultural education. I now consider myself a full supporter of a multicultural education in all scenarios, whether it's a diverse classroom to begin with or not.

3. When asked what I learned from this class that will better prepare me as a future teacher, I know it is a very broad answer, but I truly did learn the importance of multicultural education in every classroom. I learned that a multicultural education is valuable to everyone who is in the minority or even the majority. People in our own classroom shared testimonials saying that they did not come from a diverse school whatsoever, and because of this they had misconceptions about people from different cultures when arriving at BGSU. I also liked the idea of making multicultural education the curriculum, not just a part of it. When I am a teacher in the near future, every time I am doing my planning I am going to tie in culture one way or another. Some days it might be more prevalent than others, but at least it is there. America is uniquely a diverse country, so it only makes sense that all American's because multiculturally educated, and as a result become more accepting to one another. In my opinion, people who are considered racist, discriminatory, or stereotypical are downright uneducated in the "other culture." This is why I believe it is so important to start at such a young age with American children to raise a more accepting and knowledgable generation.

4. The changes I would suggest for next course are very minor. I liked the overall way the course was set up in terms of routine and organization. I really think class discussions should stay as a big part of the course. Maybe to motivate everyone a little more to stay on top of their readings, prepare a short multiple choice question quiz every few classes. There were a lot of times in class where I felt like maybe only 50-60% of the class actually read the article.

Blog #6

For blog post number 6, I decided to dig a little deeper into the very broad topic of adapting curriculum for multicultural classrooms. Doing so, I came across the article titled, “Curriculum & Schooling: Multiculturalism, Critical Multiculturalism, and Critical Pedagogy,” which does not have a listed author, but does include a large abundance of recent scholarly sources. The article opens with a “food for thought” quote that I found very valuable; “School exists to prepare young people for the future. Throughout that future, students will be exposed to a multiethnic societal curriculum. How they perceive the curriculum, how it affects their beliefs and attitudes, and how it influences their interethnic behavior will, to a great extent, be a result of today’s schools preparing them to be multiethnically literate,” (Banks & Banis, 2008). The article then gives a lengthy overview of Multicultural Education. Our textbook from class emphasizes on the theme that multicultural should not be an additional part of the curriculum, but instead it should be the basis of the curriculum entirely. It should help form the positive beliefs and affirm cultural pluralism within our growing culturally diverse society.

            The article describes the conservative critiques of Multicultural Education as being that , “schools and universities are responding to diversity in an increasingly harmful manner, and that damaging ideas increasingly drive public education with ‘myths of multiculturalism fed to all school children by a state monopoly that is masquerading behind the values of tolerance, diversity, and pluralism.” On the other hand, the article says that, “Liberal multicultural education values cultural pluralism.” It also proposes to adapt curriculum, teaching styles, learning strategies, and communication between school and families of all diverse backgrounds.

After taking this pluralistic society course, and hearing Patty Bode, the author of our book speak, I agree with the liberal view. Before, I always knew it was a good idea to introduce children in the American education system to all cultures, but I now realize the extent of the importance to include it and use it to build the curriculum as a whole.

Blog Post #5

In chapter 7 from Affirming Diversity, I decided to learn further about the idea of student resistance in the classroom. Where does it stem from? How can teachers eliminate it? In Chapter 7 of Affirming Diversity, it is explained that student resistance in the classroom “adds another layer to the explanation of school failure, “ (266). If teachers start to look more at student resistance and try to change it, hopefully this could have a lasting affect on the schools in America.

For my Blog Post #5, I read the article "Student Learning: Six Causes of Resistance," written by Maryellen Weimer, who has her PhD in Effective Teaching Strategies. This article did a great job in categorizing different forms and causes of resistance, and ended with a few tips for teaches to use to help aid the resistance that may be present in their classroom.

Weimer’s first reason for resistance in the classroom was the student’s “Poor Self-Image as Learners.” This evolves around the student’s confidence in their learning, and in some student’s situations, if they don’t believe they are capable of learning, they would rather not even bother. Her second cause of resistance in the classroom was the “Fear of the Unknown.” This basically explained that some student’s might be afraid to think outside of the box or learn things that are unfamiliar or not taught at home to them from their family, hence resistance to learn when in the classroom. Weimer’s third reason was there might be a “Disjunction between learning and teaching styles.” In this case, it is no wonder that the student is resisting; the teacher is teaching in a way that is not reaching the student’s programed learning style. This could result in a classroom where the teacher does not use differentiated instruction. Her fourth cause of resistance was “Apparent Irrelevance of the Learning Activity.” It is natural with anyone, not solely students, that there many times in life when a particular subject has no relevance to us, and in result we tend to tune it out.  This is the same result for students who find themselves in these situations in the classroom. Her fifth reason was a “Inappropriate Level of Required Learning.” If the teaching is teaching something way above the student’s developmental state, they are simply more than likely not going to be able to learn, and will find themselves resisting. Finally, Weimer’s sixth cause for resistance in the classroom was the “Student’s Dislike of Teachers.” Sadly, there may be some cases where a student doesn’t like a teacher and therefor refuses to listen or learning from him or her. The most useful suggestion that I found Weimer gave about reducing the amount of resistance in the classroom was , “teachers need to build a case for learning. They should explain clearly and often why something is important, why it’s relevant, and why it’s something students need to know. For learners without confidence who are afraid of new knowledge, it helps to create learning situations in which they can taste some success early on. “

In Chapter 7 of Affirming Diversity, it is explained that student resistance in the classroom “adds another layer to the explanation of school failure, “ (266).

Blog Post #4

For my fourth blog post, I decided to go more in depth into the benefits of children who grow up in the culture of bilingualism. The article I read was rather short, but it was packed with many valuable facts and sources. It is called, “The Benefits of Being Bilingual,” and although it does not list a single author, it seems to be a great tool for a believer in bilingualism. The article is written from the opinions of the Head Start program, and their programs belief’s about bilingualism staying active between the children’s homes and schools. Because Head Start is a preschool program that serves very low-income families in the United States, this population also includes many diverse families. The Head Start program is so diverse, in fact, that according to the article, “Head Start currently serves more than 300,000 children who ar dual language learners (DLLs) in 87.4 percent of its classrooms (Office of Head Start, 2011). The article places the benefits of bilingualism into four major categories: cognitive, social-emotional, learning, and global benefits.

In each category, there were benefits that I had before never considered. To just give a few examples, some of the cognitive benefits of bilingualism were that research shows that their brains are more flexible than those who are not bilingual. Also, they tend to be stronger in focusing, remembering, and making decisions. In the social-emotional category, research shows that bilingual children tend to have stronger ties within their entire family, culture and in some cases community. The learning category somewhat ties in with cognitive, but what stood out to me was that children who are bilingual develop a more flexible approaches to thinking through problems. Also, because of their ability to read and think in two different languages, they tend to have higher levels of abstract thoughts. Finally, as for global benefits, bilingual individuals have the opportunity to participate in the global community in many more ways.

The section of Affirming Diversity that this article almost directly relates to is under “Linguistic Diversity and Learning.” The section states that “In contrast to negative perceptions of bilingualism, a good deal of research confirms the positive influence of knowing more than one language, and these benefits begin very early in life,” (226). The passage goes on to tell more examples and studies of children who grew up in a bilingual setting. Both of the book and this article work well hand-in-hand to demonstrate the benefits of teachers and parents supporting bilingualism within children’s education.

Blog Post #3

For my third blog post, I read the article “School tracking Harms Millions, Sociologist Finds,” from the Stanford University News Services. This article works as a great parallel to the tracking portion of Chapter 4 of Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education. This summary of this article is the compilation of all of the negative affects that tracking can have on students, especially when in high school. The article also agrees that tracking is a system that does no good when met with the demands for a more multicultural education in America. The article explains that one of the shocking parts of tracking is that students and parents in the schools may not even be aware that it is going on, because it is never clearly stated whether the classes they are taking are college preparatory or not. This might be intentional of the schools, the article explains, because this helps them avoid the many complaints and requests they would receive from students and their families.

            Chapter 4 of Affirming Diversity states that, “Research over many years has confirmed that tracking is frequently linked with racial, ethnic, and social-class differences,” (110). The article I read for my blog is just another believer in this situation. The article claims that not only does tracking limit the opportunities for the high-achieving students, but it is particularly “disastrous” for students who find themselves to fall in the middle range. A research experiment that was conducted in this article consisted of researches selecting randomly an equal proportion of students with high, middle, and low grades for each gender-ethnicity combination (so that there were no ethnic differences in school grades for their sample). After comparing the students’ schools records to their current placements, here were the results: “The researchers found that the proportion of high-ability African American and Latino American students not taking college prep courses in math and science was more than twice that of white and Asian American students of the same ability level,” (Standford University). In my personal opinion, this is an eye catching statistic that should not go ignored, and should be an alarm to administrators everywhere that tracking in high schools has to end. 

Blog Post #2

For Blog #2, I read the article “Implementing Multicultural Practices in Early Childhood Education” by Quinita Ogletree and Patricia J. Larke from Texas A&M University. The ideas from this article were very symmetrical with Chapter 2 from “Affirming Diversity; The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education.” While Chapter 2 defines multicultural education for school reform, Ogletree and Larke’s article gives very realistic and direct solutions to help improve the multicultural educational status today in schools, particularly in Early Childhood Education.

This article first begins with the needs for multicultural education in Early Childhood programs. It gives the many rising statistics of the changing of the proportions of the American population. The article explains that the National Association of Education for Young Children (NAEYC) has made significant advancements of developmentally appropriate practices, including a, “commitment to respect the ‘dignity, worth, and uniqueness of each individual (child, family member, and colleague,’” (NAEYC, 1997, p.7). However, the article goes on to explain that, “the three top child developmental theories (Piaget, psychoanalysis, and learning theories) are linear, universal, and individualistic,” (2010 p.2). In other words, they do no match the ideals of a multicultural education that is needed today. This is when the article introduces “Banks Five Dimensions of Multicultural Education,” which are ways to describe how programs/schools can implement components of multicultural education. These are listed as Content Integration, Knowledge Construction, Prejudice Reduction, Equity Pedagogy, and Empowering School Culture and Social Structure.

Content Integration is essentially to create an awareness of different cultures, but it goes far beyond just the content in general. This relates to our text in the section that talks about multicultural education being pervasive, meaning multicultural approaches are “apparent in every lesson, curriculum guide, unit, etc.,” (2012 p. 50). The pervasiveness in multicultural education also relates to another one of Banks Five Dimensions of Multicultural Education, Equity Pedagogy. These are “teaching techniques and strategies that are designed to improve the academic achievement of diverse students.. understanding learning styles, teaching styles, and language,” (2010 p. 6). Again, considering multicultural to be more than a lesson, but also a way of learning.

I think promoting a school environment in all grade levels of more multicultural education can only have positive implications on more than just students, but even families, teachers, and communities as a whole.  According to the article, research has shown “that by the age of three or four, construction of gender and racial identity has already started in a child, “and also “research supports that a child’s racial attitudes can change but education must start early, (2010 p. 2). This is why by implementing a stronger dosage of multicultural education especially in Early Childhood Education will help decrease and hopefully eventually eliminate discrimination and social injustice of all people.