(Name-mce) ListServ Learning the value of multicultural education

[bill at billhowe.org]

Posted on Wed, Nov. 08, 2006  

 

COMMENTARY

 

Learning the value of multicultural education

 

By LEWIS DIUGUID

Columnist

 

 

 

Old-school teaching methods don't work with today's children.

 

That was what Reg Weaver told the 21st Annual State Conference of the Kansas
Alliance of Black School Educators. "We can't do for them in 2006 what we
did in 1966," said Weaver, president of the National Education Association.

 

"You can holler and scream at these kids, and they will holler and scream at
you," he said last month at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. "You have
to have a different way of working with them in order to get their
attention."

 

Multicultural education is the key, enabling educators to reach today's
kids. I've heard speakers at multicultural education conferences in
Missouri, Connecticut and Kansas talk of transforming schools from
Eurocentric environments to inclusiveness. I've seen it work.

 

I hope to learn more this week at the National Association for Multicultural
Education conference in Phoenix. Paul Gorski, who spoke at the Michael
Tilford Conference on Diversity and Multiculturalism this fall at Wichita
State University, said the civil-rights movement helped promote
multicultural education.

 

It introduces a growing minority population of students to people who look
like them and whose contributions helped shape America. "Diversity and
multicultural education cannot be just simply an academic interest," Gorski
said.

 

"This is about creating a learning environment where all people feel
welcomed and affirmed so barriers of racism and sexism and access are
eliminated," said Gorski, an assistant professor in the graduate school of
education at Hamline University. "Making some small change in curriculum is
not enough. It's about shifts in consciousness so it informs shifts in
practice. Students deserve the best."

 

Change must keep up with the growing minority population. Already 45 percent
of the country's children under age 5 are racial or ethnic minorities.

 

Education often fails to connect with them. In addition, teachers graduating
from America's colleges are poorly prepared to contend with today's
classrooms - particularly in the urban core. A report, "Educating School
Teachers," released in the summer pointed out the shortcomings.

 

"Today's students won't accept anybody," Weaver said. The children, parents
and the community must be enlisted in the education process. But the lessons
have to be relevant to what the students know and understand for them to be
driven to learn more.

 

Multicultural education works, but it must include institutional and
comprehensive reforms with accountability. Diversity festivals and
international food events don't provide the inclusiveness needed to fully
engage young people in learning, Gorski said.

 

"Students learn best when the content they're learning is connected to their
lives," he said. Lessons must incorporate the history, literature and
accomplishments of minorities.

 

Educators also must shed their biases to connect with the students and
community they serve. "Multicultural education is as much about unlearning
as learning," Gorski said. Teachers should challenge stereotypes and model
an inclusive behavior. They must confront whiteness, racism, classism,
homophobia and sexism.

 

Teachers can't speak of genocide against Jews during World War II in Europe
without telling students of the holocausts that American Indians and blacks
faced in this country.

 

Students are hungry for the truth, Weaver said.

 

Anything less than inclusiveness is a lie and shouldn't survive in the
classroom today.

 

 

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Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of The Star's Editorial Board. To reach him,
call (816) 234-4723 or send e-mail to Ldiuguid at kcstar.com.  

 

 

 

 

 

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(c) 2006 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.kansascity.com





Bill Howe 
 <http://www.billhowe.org/> http://www.billhowe.org

 
Past-President 

National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME)
 <http://www.nameorg.org/> http://www.nameorg.org

 

 

 

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