Impaling the monocultural windshield: multicultural education in all things curricular.

Heaggans, Raphael

A popular applause line among some teachers in academic circles is "I an in favor of diversity." Of course, this line sounds plausible, but being in favor of diversity does not make anyone embrace diversity just as being for music does not make one sing. Accepting, embracing, and respecting diversity is a process; the end result makes diversity an endemic part of the schools' core. To begin the process, one of the first steps is for teachers to engage in an exploration of their prejudices, values, beliefs, attitudes, and stereotypical notions they have about their students. It may be a discomforting process, but this discomfort may be a necessary factor to dismantle the negative beliefs some teachers have about diverse students.

If teachers have completed a teacher education program without exposure to multicultural education, they can begin to take strides in empowering all students via

Afro-Americans in New York Life and History

multicultural education by considering the following:

1. Exploring what institutional practices exist within the classroom and within the school (e.g. curriculum, textbooks, omission of persons from underrepresented groups) and how to dismantle it;

2. Researching and reflecting on information related to multicultural education to familiarize self with the scholarship; and

3. Deciding how to apply the i lation to subject matter. (1)

These suggestions are in order since one cannot be moved to become a multicultural teacher without first researching ways to empower multicultural students. (2) If a teacher attempted to teach multicultural education without assessing self-biases, institutional practices within schools, and knowledge about different cultures across a variety of diversities, then s/he is not providing students with their multicultural truth of their legacies in North America. One of the tenets of multicultural education is transformation; that is, teachers are transforming themselves as they transform students and curriculum (3). The transformation process is ongoing.

Connie, an eighth grade social studies teacher, understands this transformation process all too well. She aims to include multicultural education in each of her lessons and evaluates her efforts based on the three suggestions previously provided. (4)

A Snapshot of Connie's Classroom

Connie is a "no-nonsense", quick-spoken European-American woman in her forties. She has a commanding presence that is impressive. She has a calm welcoming voice. She uses humor to get her students laughing and excited about the lessons she teaches. She has an assertive demeanor that communicates to students that while she showers them with understanding, she will not stand for disruptive behavior or indolence.

Connie's first period social studies class consists of 28 students. The breakdown is 1 African-American male, 1 African-American female, 3 Asian-American males, 1 Asian-American female, 10 White males, and 12 White females. Connie's classroom is decorated with posters of people and geographical themes. For example, there are postings of Gandhi, Miles Davis, Hank Aaron, and the Sphinx.

Exploring Institutional Practices Within the Classroom

Connie finds her eighth grade social studies curriculum to focus namely on the contributions by Europeans. To make the curriculum multicultural, Connie uses the cultural background of her students to enhance her geography/social studies curriculum. In teaching about different ethnic backgrounds and cultural perspectives, Connie has some of her students from different cultural backgrounds assist in teaching lessons. Connie has no qualms about asking different students questions related to their culture and background. Connie also solicits for parents to assist her in teaching about different countries.

Reflecting on Multicultural Education Scholarship

To learn how to make the eighth grade social studies curriculum inclusive of diverse cultures, Connie first learned that culturally relevant teaching is "a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes" (5) The cultural backgrounds of the learner are the center of culturally relevant teaching; students' cultural backgrounds should serve as part of the standardized curriculum. (6) Connie sees multicultural education as an education about all groups of people. She says, "Teaching about diversity for me involves cultures from around the world". (7) She adds, "With that in mind, I do not deliberately isolate a student's culture. What I do is listen to what students are questioning or sharing. Then I pull that directly into the lessons somehow because automatically it becomes an experience for all of us". (8)

Deciding How to Apply the Information to Subject Matter

Connie wanted students to see the importance of studying Southwest Asia and North Africa. She decided to show them how Southwest Asia and North Africa play a role in each of their lives, regardless of cultural background. She had the students to do a dramatization of students having a conversation about Southwest Asia and North Africa. Here is an excerpt of what the students read from information she posted on the board:

  Student 1: I don't know why we should bother studying
  Southwest Asia and North Africa. I'll never go there
  and what does it have to do with me?

  Student 2: What does it have to do with you?!! Well,
  you eat don't you? Did you know that agriculture developed
  more than 10,000 years ago probably in the Fertile Crescent
  area where Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Lebanon and
  Jordan are today? Student 1: Agriculture? Big deal! I'm not
  a farmer. That still doesn't mean anything to me.

  Student 3: Some of my favorite fruits originated in this
  area, like pears, cherries, plums, olives, figs, dates,
  cantaloupe, and I just couldn't live without my apple a day.

  Student 4: And don't forget; we all need our veggies like
  carrots, artichokes, onions, broccoli, cabbage, asparagus,
  beets, parsley, celery, and my favorite, SPINACH.

The students continued with the dramatization by discussing other contributions Southwest Asia and North Africa contributed to U. S. culture. For example, make-up, a pharmacy, the idea of licensing physicians, and different instruments were some of the contributions dramatization pointed out.

A few days later, Connie had begun this particular day with going over students' homework questions on Kenya. They discussed the Safari as being the biggest tourist attraction averaging 250,000 visitors a year. They also discussed information about Swahili, which is the official language of Kenya. Connie continued with:

  You know that [Ms. Tiges] (a Shadypine ESL teacher) taught
  in Kenya for a few years. She told me that in the schools
  there, Kenyan students would always stand each time the
  teacher would enter the room and say, 'Jamb[degrees] Mwalimu'
  which is Swahili for 'Hello, teacher.' Say it with me, 'Jambo
  Mwalimu.'

Connie repeated the phrase several times with the students. She then stated, "Imagine that you are a student in Kenya with me as your teacher. I am going to see how you are going to respond to me if we were in a Kenyan classroom." Connie walked out of the classroom and was away for about two minutes. When she returned, the students stood and said, -Jambo Mwalimu. "I am very impressed," Connie commended.

Connie continued the lesson with asking students, "What is a proverb, and give an example of a proverb?" Several hands were raised, but the student who was called upon stated, "A proverb is like a wise saying that has a clear meaning imbedded in the proverb." "Alright, based upon that definition, give an example of a proverb," Connie suggested. Several hands were raised. Connie called upon three students who had articulated an example of a proverb: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket. The early bird catches the worm. It is raining cats and dogs." The class discussed the meaning behind each of the proverbs mentioned.

"Now we are going to take a look at some proverbs written in Swahili that you will teach and act out to and in front of the class" Connie proceeded. The students were assigned in groups to discuss how they were going to act out their Swahili proverb. The next day each group taught the Swahili proverb to the class through asking the class to repeat the proverb. Then each group acted out the Swahili proverb in an effort to get the other students to guess what the proverb's meaning equates to with English proverbs. For example the first group consisting of two boys and two girls presented. Boy one wrote the Swahili phrase: Dalili ya mvua ni mawingu on the board. Girl one said, "Ok group. I want you to repeat after me. Dah-LEE-lee." The other members of the class stated in unison, "Dab-LEE-lee." "YAH," girl one continued. "Yah", the students announced. "Dah-LEE-lee YAH um-V00-ah" girl one proceeded in a higher pitched tone. The students mocked the voice by saying, "Dah-LEE-lee YAH um-V00-ah." Girl one laughed and said, "Great. Now try saying this word: NEE ma-WEEN-goo." The students repeated the word after her. "Now let's said it all together," girl one said. The class responded, "Dah-LEE-lee YAH um-V00-ah NEE ma-WEEN-goo." "Very good," girl one responded. Now we are going to charade what this Swahili proverb is in our language. Girl two and boy two began to act out throwing a discarded cigarette onto the ground pretending that it caused a fire. Different answers were shouted to the students. The common answers were smoke and fire. After about seven minutes later a female student guessed the correct phrase: Where there is smoke, there is fire. Girl one said, "The Swahili equivalent to this proverb is 'The sign of the rains is the clouds.' Other members of the class clapped their hands as the group proceeded back to their seats. Other groups presented their proverbs in similar fashion.

Connie adds that she is always open to any kind of discussion in her classroom relevant to racism, sexism, or any form of discrimination. She adds:

  At this age level, you need to be the professional, and
  you need to allow them to engage with each other and bring
  ideas to the discussion. And the teacher should intervene
  if necessary and be watchful on where conversations and
  discussions might go. But as it always happens, students
  know more and more at an earlier age. So with their thinking
  about gender, racial, or discrimination issues, they have
  questions. [Their questions] need to be addressed but not
  with me being the teacher but with me acting as a facilitator
  for a broadening discussion that will give them new ideas.9

During my observation with Connie, her culturally dominant orientation to the geography/social studies curriculum became evident. In teaching about culture, Connie contends that her geography/social studies curriculum does not include much information about cultures outside the United States. She believes the geography/social studies curriculum is not a standardized one. Thus, she does not rely on her monocultural class textbook to teach her subject matter.

A Concluding Thought

Multicultural education is endemic to Connie's lessons. As a next step for Connie, she is considering designing on-going sessions and manuals related to the multicultural education scholarship for other social studies teachers at her school. Connie admits to being asked by other social studies teachers how to make their lessons more applicable to the lives of the students. Connie assesses and evaluates the subject matter and the delivery of her lessons by comparing and contrasting what is in the multicultural education scholarship with what she teaches. The scholarship is her point of reference in the teaching of her multicultural lessons.

As Connie's transformation is taking place, diverse students are helping to bring Connie out of her cultural space. These students' cultural perspectives should be the source of their learning to aid the teacher in teaching about such perspectives so the students are empowered. The student can even assist the teacher challenge other students who may have prejudices against other cultural perspectives. It must first start with teachers. If teachers live in an environment where their beliefs are not challenged by people who have different cultural perspectives, then they may grow to believe that what they are teaching students--from an unchallenged monocultural perspective--is 100% appropriate and accurate.

Teachers need Asians, Africans, Latinos, Whites, persons with disabilities, and other persons within underrepresented groups to assist them in the presenting of cultural learning materials without prejudice and with accuracy. Overcoming prejudicial attitudes involve analyzing self beliefs about discrimination. Teachers cannot expect students to analyze some of their beliefs about discrimination when some teachers who avoid teaching about it are regarded as models of appropriate behavior to be imitated.

Too often some schools and teachers take a song-and-dance approach to teaching diversity for they believe it is a part of diversity awareness. It has minimal benefits. However, it does not lead one to analyze his or her beliefs on diversity, and it does not provide an automatic self-assessment that the school supports and is aware of the diversity that exists within their school. Further, awareness is just a state of being aware. Using peripheral vision, a person may be aware of another person talking in a room without giving visual regard to the person. This example raises the question that when schools consider promoting diversity to students, is their goal to help people to arrive at some abstract notion of diversity, or are they seeking to inculcate something more empowering and life-changing?

(1.) James A. Banks and Cherry McGee-Banks, A. Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education, 2nd edition (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004).

(2.) Darren. E. Lund and Paul. R Carr, Doing Democracy: Striving for Political Literacy and Social Justice, (New York: Peter Lang, 2008).

(3.) Melanie. E. L. Bush, Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness, (Lanham, MD: Rowrnan & Littlefield, Inc., 2005).

(4.) Connie is a pseudonym used to protect the confidentiality of this teacher. She teaches at Shadypine, a pseudonymous middle school within the east coast of the United States. 79

(5.) Gloria Ladson-Billings, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994), 18.

(6.) Ibid.

(7.) Connie Sumner, Interview by the author, Tape recording, December 12, 2009.

(8.) Ibid.

(9.) Connie Sumner, Interview by the author, Tape recording, December 12, 2009.