Adapting Curriculum for Multicultural Classrooms - Coursework Example

Adapting a Curriculum for Multicultural rooms affiliation: Introduction A multi-culture curriculum is vital in exposing students to culture diversity, prejudices, biases and prejudice, help students understand and advocate for diversity awareness. This paper will focus on developing a multicultural curriculum to facilitate better learning for students. The curriculum will focus on incorporating many cultural concepts of different students in the school. According to Boutte (2002) a multi-cultural curriculum clarifies issues of diversity such as race, gender, ethnicity, religion and language. Currently, schools use the mainstream traditional curriculum. Schools currently contain students who are very diverse in terms of culture such as race, religion, language, ethnicity, gender and language (Miller, 2001). These students come from different regions and countries. As such, it is very difficult for some to adapt to the American mainstream curriculum due to their diversity. Consequently, the current curriculum has very little aspects of diversity. It mostly suits the dominant group that is mainly the students of American origin, especially those who grew in uptown cities. Therefore, it is very difficult for the other students to identify with the American culture and thus learning is hindered. For example, students from Vietnam have very different passive learning patterns in relation to their American counterparts. Subsequently, teachers and other students don’t understand this and therefore view the Vietnamese as dump and stupid. The traditional curriculum also views Israeli students to be rude and obnoxious because they have a culture of openly criticizing a teacher when they feel like he is saying something wrong. These cultural aspects are affecting learning of the students. The teachers too have a hard way since they use the same teaching approach to such a different and diversified group. As such, it is necessary to address cultural diversity so as to create a balance and address the learning needs of all the students. The plan to adapt the curriculum to include all students and families was developed to counter the problem of diversity. The traditional curriculum will be altered to even include subject content to include a multi-culture content. This will be achieved by including crucial culture perspectives, holding discussions of social contexts such as equity, discrimination and ethnicity and incorporating activities that foster critical thinking and self-awareness (Kazemek, 2005). The change to the new curriculum will be made up of five stages. The process will involve educators participating in multi-culture workshops and seminars to get more insights on multi-culture curriculums. They may also need to revise the current course content they teach, solicit for support from their peers and carry out self-appraisal tests and changes. The initial stage is recognition that the traditional curriculum is not enough to address students’ needs in a diversified school (Boutte, 2002). Mainstream curriculums don’t address contemporary issues of diversity. Thus, the teachers must recognize their own prejudices, biases, and assumptions that they make which affect their teaching and hence their students. The teachers may become more effective by adopting a multi-cultural curriculum and reach more of their students. The process of identifying and eliminating prejudice and biases is an on-going process that takes time. The second step is recognizing heroes and celebrating culture holidays of the non-dominant groups. This may draw students’ attention to the fact that society is made of multiple cultural perspectives (Tomic, 2001). The third stage is integration of information concerning the non-dominant groups across all areas of the new curriculum. For example, the daily lesson plan may include a special session where books, films and discussions that highlight the non-dominant groups are made. Teachers have to move from using the new materials on cultural diversity as secondary sources that are just a by the way. The fourth stage is the structural reforms. At this point, teachers will use diverse perspectives and multi-cultural resources in the mainstream curriculum. This will create a seamless unit where a single source of knowledge is not viewed as a primary source thus lead to other more accurate sources being ignored. The final stage is social action and creating awareness (Kazemek, 2005). The teachers will use discussions and other activities that focus on social issues of equity, ending race and gender based discrimination and achieving social democracy across all pillars. The teachers will help the students understand the importance of embracing multi-cultural diversity and create awareness to others in the society. The impact of culture on education is that it affects the learning patterns of the students. The teacher has to comprehend the learning patterns of students who have a different culture from his (the teacher). This is very important in ensuring the effectiveness of the teaching method he uses. For example, students from Israeli culture are taught to readily and openly criticize a teacher if they feel he is saying something wrong (Miller, 2001). This behavior can disrupt the learning process as a teacher and other students may view the Israeli students as being rude and obnoxious. However, if the teacher understands their pattern of learning, he may save the situation. He may tell them that while he appreciates their culture of openness, it is not right to openly criticize a teacher as this affects other students negatively. Additionally, the Vietnamese culture does not allow students to criticize their teachers but memorize the concepts given without participating in class. These students may be viewed by the teacher and other students as being dumb and stupid when they dont participate in class. The teacher has to understand these learning patterns so as to use effective methods of teaching, and encourage the non-dominant students to adapt to the schools culture. The impact of language differences in school is that it may create barriers in communication. Some students may have dialects that are completely different from that of the dominant group. In some situations, students don’t use the English language as their first language. This creates a big problem as they are unable to communicate with their peers and teachers. These students also have difficulties in understanding classroom lessons. The teacher should be proactive in identifying this group and help them out. He could obtain books written in English by authors from the students’ culture (Tomic, 2001). By reading these books, the students may understand the concept better since the author understands their back ground. The new curriculum may also introduce English lessons to students with language barriers to facilitate their learning. The pitfalls that teachers should try and avoid are making assumptions about students. For example, assuming that all black students come from Africa and don’t understand English is a bad assumption. This portrays the teacher as being racist. Going overboard in a bid to help a group fit in the class should also be avoided (Miller, 2001). For instance, a teacher using Latino phrases and words in every class so as to impress students of Latino culture is discouraged. The other students may view the teacher as being biased in favor of the Latino culture. The big idea in developing this curriculum is creating awareness on cultural diversity and helping students appreciate their culture and tolerate others. The new curriculum will address different cultural needs of the non-dominant groups. In the process, the dominant groups will learn and appreciate other cultures. The result is a student body that appreciates their roots, tolerates their differences and creates awareness on diversity in the society. This results in a democratic society. We all want to live in a free and fair society, don’t we? The new curriculum will be applied in different areas of learning by use of different approaches and activities specific to that area. The activities will include discussions in class that will highlight cultural aspects of the non-dominant groups. The teacher will collect a library of books by different authors from the non-dominant groups for the class to read and present their views. The teacher will invite guests from different cultures to help students understand cultural diversity. The success of the multi-cultural curriculum will be measured by the ability of students to appreciate their culture and that of others (Boutte, 2002). Tests will be carried out that examine a student’s understanding of cultural diversity especially the cultures that are represented in the school. The adaptation of the new curriculum will further achievement by increasing the self-esteem and self-awareness of students. Understanding cultural diversity will enable the teacher to use teaching methods that are appropriate to their students. The students in turn will learn to appreciate each other’s patterns of learning and work together in class. This cohesion will lead to better lessons and academic success (Miller, 2001). Next, the teachers will focus on issues that are important to the needs of all students to make them unleash their academic potential. The community and family role in advocating for cultural diversity is very crucial. The two help a student to appreciate their culture and thus build his /her self-esteem. They also teach students the importance of understanding other cultures and celebrating cultural differences. They therefore help students to be aware of the importance of cultural diversity and spread this education to then society (Kazemek, 2005). The family and community, as such, help in adapting to the new curriculum by teaching on the significance of diversity and its role in education. References Boutte, Gloria S. and Christine McCormick. "Authentic Multicultural Activities: Avoiding Pseudomulticulturalism." Childhood Education 68 (2002): 140-44. Kazemek, Francis E. ‘African Literature in the Secondary English Language Arts Classroom.’ English Journal 84 (2005): 95-102. Miller, Howard M. ‘Beyond Multicultural Moments (Middle Gorund).’ English Journal 86 (2001): 88-90 Tomic, Alice D. F. ‘Challenges and Rewards in the Mixed Culture Classroom.’ College Teaching 44 (2001): 69-73. Read More