Meta-Reflection: Multicultural Education

I entered this class with a strong desire for all my students to feel respected and appreciated and get the most out of my classes no matter what their background or diverse needs, but I was not completely sure how to do it.  I teach in a very ethnically diverse school.  At the beginning of the school year, I give a Language Learner Survey where students describe what languages and cultures they have experienced at home or have had exposure to through travel, camps, classes, or friends.  This helps to set the stage for my class, making them feel valued and helps them to feel comfortable opening up and making comparisons or sharing experiences as they relate to what we are studying whether it is in French, Language Arts or Social Studies.  This class aligns itself with Standard 9 of Cultural Sensitivity which says, “Establishes a culturally inclusive learning climate that facilitates academic engagement and success for all students” (Curriculum and Instruction Graduate Standards, 2012).

As I journeyed through this class, reading Banks’ text Multicultural Education: Transformative Knowledge & Action along with other articles, I learned many strategies that can help me make my class more multicultural.  A theme that was continually reiterated in this class was that one of the main purposes for education is to preserve and promote the democracy of this country (Banks, 1996, p. 17).  All students have access to education and through this they can learn skills that will help them to be successful as citizens and in the global workforce.

After taking this class, I realized that there were some changes that I needed to make to my classroom right away.  One strategy that I will continue to make sure to integrate into my practice is connecting current learning to students’ prior knowledge, experiences, and interests.  By helping students connect to the texts or activities that I am doing in class, students are able to see the relevance of what they are doing.  This will help them to value the tasks even when they are difficult (Guthrie & McRae, 2011, p. 135).  I will also integrate more multicultural literature into my classroom and increase the comparisons that we make between different sources (Tatum, 2011, p. 431).  Through comparing mainstream accounts of an event with transformative accounts of the same event, students can discuss why there are differences and why some voices may remain invisible in history (Banks, 1998, p. 343).  In addition, I will increase collaborative learning and different discussion styles, which has been shown to be culturally appropriate for many groups of minority students such as African American but also successful for all students (Gay, 2010).  I also give students choice of the product or content for projects to help students with diverse learning characteristics be successful.  Lastly, I would like to try a Citizen Action Project with my students in which they could choose a project that they would like to do based on the guidelines provided.

Please take a look at my prezi that chronicles my learning in this course.

References