Multiculturalism

When I started reading the posts and articles about Multiculturalism, there was quite a bit of information thrown together under the same title of Multiculturalism that was not directly related. One post talked about the need to re-write our history books to include the perspective African Americans throughout History. One post talked about how to make the schools include Multiculturalism. I was happy to read the post by Caleb Rosedo that broke this information down by saying, “The concept of multiculturalism embodies a new orientation toward the future. Unfortunately, in all the heated discussion around the term no clear definition of the concept has yet emerged.”

I think that Multiculturalism is definitely a position that deserves attention. I personally teach in a school that has makeup of 50% white students, and 50% other: black, Hispanic, Asian student population. In any school setting with a largely diverse student population there will always be a need to make the information relevant to the students and make it culturally sensitive. The argument has been made that "culturally relevant" history would keep blacks and Hispanics in school and stop them from dropping out at ever-increasing rates. I do not know if I would go so far as to say that this would stop these groups from dropping-out of school, but I do believe that students need to feel connected to the material they are presented. The statement that, patriotism will not grow in the heart of a child who cannot look back with pride upon his nation's past, is partly true. I do believe that the more important part is that a child must be able to look with pride upon the nation’s future. I do believe that we are on the right track when it comes to the future. The question is how to do both more fully, and do it properly.

Many people have made the claim that Americans may look back on the history of the US with guilt or shame at some of the atrocities committed against different groups of people if history were re-written. I think that Thomas Jefferson could foresee this very concern coming to future generations when he said, “On historical occasions, questions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, will naturally arise, and may be put to youth, which they may debate in conversation and in writing. When they ardently desire victory, for the sake of the praise attending it, they will begin to feel the want, and be sensible of the use, of logic, or the art of reasoning to discover truth, and of arguing to defend it, and convince adversaries.” School teachers should not be afraid to let the children debate issues of the past, and speak out to voice their values and morals. I think that this strategy would cause for more children to search for their personal value system, if they had not been taught one at home.

On the other end of this debate would be the people that take this argument to an unnecessary extreme. For example, New York's public schools recently authorized a curriculum revision based on an openly anti-white position paper drafted, in part, by the black-supremacist professor, Leonard Jeffries. Or take San Francisco’s schools system, as mentioned in the article, The Challenge of Multiculturalism, where 82 percent of the public school children are non-white, the school board reluctantly accepted the new “more encompassing” History books, but added a supplemental reading list with titles like Black Heroes of the Wild West, Chinese Americans, Past and Present, and Gays in America. (Homosexuals were angry that these grade school texts said nothing about their contributions to America.)

I think that the issue of Multiculturalism is an extremely valid concern in our vastly diverse US school system. The largest problem right now is that we seem to have the opposite-side extremists pushing for their own personal interests. What we need is a middle ground; a group of people to realize that we need changes to take place in regard to representing all groups and making them feel part of the whole.

For more information on Multiculturalism Education: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/presrvce/pe3lk1.htm