Final Project - Summary

Multicultural education is not just a singular focus but a complex diversity which relates to many aspects such as race, ethnicity, social class, language use, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, other social and human differences, and so forth. Multicultural education advocators put more interest in how the sociopolitical context of the United States and our global society shapes schools and therefore shapes the experiences of the children and adults who inhabit schools. This BIG idea radiates from the conceptual understanding of the sociopolitical context of multicultural education, the goals of multicultural education, school reforms, racism, discrimination, and expectations of students’ achievement to structural and organizational issues in schools, culture, identity, and Learning, linguistic diversity in U.S. Classrooms and adapting curriculum for multicultural classrooms. In chapter 1, through the demonstration of relationship and interaction of identity, difference, power, and private, it has been concluded that schools and teachers should pay more attention to create equal environment, policies, and practices to complete the educational structure. Also, NCLB has been considered a successful example of multicultural education. However, I am still wondering what the bottom line or dividing line is . How far we could go to define what the exact content of multicultural education. Without doubt, multicultural education is a sort of critical thinking but what is the real vision or what will this perspective lead the national wide education to?



In Chapter 3, further demonstration has been given around multicultural education. Multicultural education represents a way of rethinking school reform because it responds to many of the problematic factors leading to school underachievement and failure. This discuss leads us to an intriguing insight. Multicultural education is simply a good pedagogy, which means all good education takes students seriously, uses their experiences as a basis for further learning, and helps them to develop into informed, critically aware, and empowered citizens. I largely agree some comments that are made in the chapter and would like to emphasize that we as teachers should take our students seriously. It is not just students’ problem if they are not able to achievement their academics. Sometimes, we teachers should think over what are the good method to help our students become more successful.
It is so complex and complicated to connect diversity and discriminations. Focusing on the persistence of racism and discrimination and low expectations is in no way intended to deny the different family and economic situation of may poor children and children of color, or its impact on their school experiences. Moreover, poverty can lead such problems as drug abuse, violence and other social ills. However, blaming poor people and cultural groups for these problems is not the way to solve the problems. Under this circumstances, in my opinion, we as teachers or educators should think more about the inside of the students and their homes instead of just outside of their situation.
Due to the limited role of teachers, students, parents, and communities, the organization and structures of schools often are contrary to the needs of students. Curriculum decisions in public schools are usually made by those furthest from the lives of students- namely, central and state boards of education, with little input form teachers, parents and students. Although school is a place where a lot of talk goes on, it is seldom talk , and teachers lose our on an opportunity to learn firsthand from students about their educational experiences and what could improve them. So both teachers and students spend the most time in schools and classroom often have the least opportunities to talk about their experiences. That is totally true in our school life. Mostly teachers and students communicate academically. However, students not only come to learn academically at school but know how to grow up positively. So schools and teachers should create more opportunities for students to talk about their learning experience in school and at home as well.

Chapter 6 discussed how culture can influence students’ learning at school in crucial ways. Through a research of student’s learning style, teacher get to understand that students of different background might differ in their learning preferences. Thus, culture behind gives an impact on learning. Teachers should recognize the difference and figure out some programs or lesson plans to meet the requirement of the students of diverse background. Also, they should provide students with a caring environment to make the accommodations necessary to promote their students’ learning. Culture does matter on students’ learning.

With a brief overview of the history of language diversity in U.S. Schools, language policies and practices in the United States have ranged from a grudging acceptance of language diversity to outright hostility. And this turn out to be the barriers to students’ learning. Despite of the hostility, bilingual education has ultimately proved to be an effective program for students for whom English is a second language, because it is based on a fundamental critique of the “assimilation equals success” formula on which much of our educational policy and practice is based. Still, some problems exist for those English learners who have low status and separated from other students for instruction. Regardless of the social class or economic status, bilingual education can be considered to be a very successful. Educators and policy maker should take this into account and put forward into our multicultural education.

In chapter 10, the first two adapting curriculum has impressed me by efficient teaching design and effective learning. However, I am wondering how could we put this into action in our school for we are not able to give it so many hours on similar special groups. What is more, it spend a team of members to work together through the whole summer to design for it. What made me more hesitating is the adapting curriculum 3, many of which I could not agree to. Some big ideas are still TOO BIG for elementary school students and it is pretty challenge for them to make a big private profile. As everybody knows, the structure of family today has been largely changed and , for students, they are not at a mature age level to face and accept some kind of changes, such as parents’ divorce, separate, or missing, maybe even worse. For them, family mostly belongs to his or her private not public. So it could be very difficult for some students to tell their stories. Problems also exists in high schools.

Adampting Curriculum

In chapter 10, the adaptation curriculum for multicultural classrooms has been demonstrated through three curricular adaptations, a study of Cambodia and the Cambodian American experience; transforming pedagogy by detracking math; and expanding definitions of family. Among them, I was deeply impressed by the first two adaptations. Adaptation 1 mainly offers a real good example that teachers with multicultural education perspectives made their best effort to stimulate intellectual growth, deepen understanding, support curiosity, affirm the identities of students from all backgrounds. They focused on a team of seventh grade Cambodian students with poor expression of their culture in several distinct ways and their low academic achievement. To help those students reach their goal, teachers made a whole package of backward unit design, including the “Big Ideas” or “Enduring Understandings”, based on what we know and we don’t know, set up the thematic topics, then, objectives. The question “how long should I spend on this unit” shapes the teaching strategies into three: 1/ events throughout the school year 2/intensive study for one to three weeks 3/the focus group week. Through the visitors, field trips, connection to varied classes, focus groups and the Demonstration Day, teachers are able to reinforce their teaching as well as raise the student’ understanding. Meanwhile, the perspective of “ It’s not only what we teach; It is how we teach” draw a bright line between the traditional teaching and critical thinking of teaching. “Detracking math” was taken as another good example to demonstrate that , for students at different levels or from all backgrounds, varied strategies should be tailored. This can not only help create more access to a rigorous curriculum for a wider range of learners but make serious structural change to achieve multicultural goals.

In my teaching experiences, the way that teachers design the lessons with “Big Ideas” or “Enduring Understanding” really works very efficiently. I often create a big idea in the class when I start a new unit, with a few essential questions which can reflect their learning. Then, objectives needed to be set up so that students understand the direction or the requirement. With a clear blueprint in their mind, both teachers and students work together with a goal and all class activities have purposes and become meaningful. Students are able to connect their prior knowledge with all the small pieces they learned in the new unit to make the whole learning productive. In addition, it can help satisfy those who has little or no interest in academic learning. Through all kinds of strategies such as visitors , field trips, visualized pictures, events, and so forth, students with low academic achievement might become interested or curious about what they are learning so that they could accomplish their academic achievement successfully.

For the Curriculum Adaption 3, Expanding Definitions of Family, it sounds like an attractive theme for teachers because it offers many promising possibilities. The promise lies in the idea that every student from preschool through high school many be able to tell a story about family and relate to ideas about family change. Subsequent thoughtful curriculums have been deliberately designed and tailored for first graders, middle school students and high school students. Obviously , the author is trying to expand the definitions of family beyond the traditional family by involving LGBT , the homosexual or heterosexual adults who are not married and single parent families. However, I am wondering that we as educators should teach our children what the current society looks like whatever is good or bad, right or wrong or input their mind with what the truth is supposed to be. Even though some good curriculums for middle schools are designed comprehensively such as studying our own assumptions, measuring, reflecting and representing, genetics, probability, and critical pedagogy, visual art and visual culture, identity and beauty and so forth, first grade curriculum is still facing big problems. Some big ideas are still TOO BIG for them and it is pretty challenge for them to make this big private profile. As everybody knows, the structure of family today has been largely changed and , for students, they are not at a mature age level to face and accept some kind of changes, such as parents’ divorce, separate, or missing, maybe even worse. For them, family mostly belongs to his or her private not public. So it could be very difficult for some students to tell their stories. Problems also exists in high schools. The high school students , within the so-called multicultural education perspective, are largely encouraged to be critically thinking, challenge the presence and raise the questions for changes. Wait a minute, think about it, why do we try to become critical? What are we critical for? Of course, you might answer the question with the statement that we should make a better change. But is the change good and worthy? Otherwise, any of critical thinking will have to compromise to the truth. So I believe the topic of definition of family will last for a long time. It appears too sensitive, political and controversial. Multicultural education turn out to be very critical, but as educators, what is the most important is that , as educators, what is the right direction we should lead our children to.

Linguistic Diversity in U.S.Classrooms-Billigual Education

In chapter 7, a brief overview of the history of language diversity in U.S. schools has been demonstrated. It is undeniable that linguists diversity is an educational issue in this country because , according to the demographics, the population of those immigrants who speak a language other than English as their native language has increased tremendously in the past several decades. All the states have felt the impact of this immigration, especially, California, who has the largest enrollment of language-minority students with over one third of all students for whom English is a second language. To help immigrant students or LEP students be able to successfully complete their English acquisition, policy makers, educators, schools and teachers spent decades, trying to create some powerful learning environments, develop an addictive bilingual perspective, consciously foster native language literacy and so forth to dig out what is really needed.

Bilingual education has experienced a big wave from being weakened considerably to be advocated to be a basic human right. Not until 1970’s , the Supreme Court recognized the connection between native language rights and equal educational opportunity, Bilingual education became more like a political issue rather than a simple issue of language. Thus, there were more documents and acts emerged.

What makes it powerful and persuasive is bilingual education works very effectively. By definition, bilingual education program involves the use of two languages of instruction at some point in students’ school career, mainly aiming at developing proficiency and literacy in the English language. Whatever the kind is, Transitioning bilingual education, Developmental or maintenance bilingual education or Two-way bilingual education/immersion, it can not only help students receive their content area instruction in their native language while learning English as a second language but also develop bilingual proficiency , academic achievement, and positive cross-cultural attitude and behaviors among all students. What is more, it lends itself to cooperative learning and peer tutoring.

Even though bilingual education turns out to be very effective and positive for language-minority students, still it has always been controversial for any reasons in many aspects. First of all, its long-term potential for empowering traditionally powerless groups will challenge conventional U.S. educational wisdom that one’s native language and culture needed to forgotten in order to be the “real successful American” . Also, this finding contradicts the administration’s English-only agenda and , thus, could not be published in public but privately. In addition, this achievement conflicts to the conservative agenda, which calls for the return to traditional curriculum and pedagogy. Meanwhile, it threatens to explode the myth of the “basics”, which means only valuing a Eurocentric curriculum and the English language. Last, by the real examples, it has been verified that those who speak English best are not necessarily earning the highest income or have the highest number of managers and professionals among their ranks. Instead, it is Asians or other language-minority made more. Apparently, bilingual education, more or less, threatens the mainstream groups and will probably cause a new social pattern or structure.

Even though I did not have a clear understanding of what bilingual education is before I have read this chapter, I somehow supported the bilingual education program anyway and I am sure I will insist on it after these readings. The main reason is that I feel the abandonment of one’s native language costs a lot, especially psychologically, which is crucial to a language minority student when he or she starts a new life in a new place. So it needs a certain period of adaptation. In stead of encouraging students to accomplish successfully in their content areas, abandonment will negatively affect student’s mentality and attitudes or interests in their subjects learning. Moreover, the calling for return to traditional curriculum and pedagogy might cause the devaluation of language-minority students’ both academically and psychologically. After all, how can you depend on a newly immigrant students having the prior knowledge and background to the academic content area. This is not fair for them. Since many real good examples verify its effectiveness, why do some people or groups hinder its implementation by political means? Otherwise, where is the equality or equity?

Cultural, Identity, and Learning

Chapter 6, based on the definition of culture, began to discuss the influence of culture on students’ learning, mainly focusing on learning style and preferences and communication style. Learning is the core of the discuss of culture. Through adequate examples, it has been discovered that students from different background or culture learn in different ways. Teachers and schools should understand that the statement of “differences are not deficiencies “ and “Equal is not the same”. Yet, to enable the teachers to bridge the gap , they should follow up the Triple AAA, that is acknowledging the differences that children bring to school such as their gender, race, ethnicity, language, social class, sexual orientation, abilities and talents and so forth; admitting the possibilities that students’ identities may influence how they experience and, hence, how they learn; accepting differences and making provisions for them. (refer to Nieto & Bode page 171)
Also, with many evidence supported on page 173) it has been emphasized that identity is not an absolute state of being but rather a variable that is constantly shifting and changing. Any unchanging theory could result in school failure or more problems. Otherwise, students who differ from dominant or mainstream group might be devalued. In addition, the communication style may influence students’ learning in more ways, such as discourse logic and dynamics, social functions, norms of interactions, and so forth.
Teachers and schools should be unaware of these differences and the impact they have on learning may result in cultural conflict. Furthermore, they must realize that individuals differ in the specific profile of intelligences that they exhibit and these differences may be influenced by what is valued in their culture. The examples on page179 to 180 make this statement more evident and firm. Modification can be made in communication style, program design, direction to encourage and support students’ learning of diverse background, and connection between culture and the sociopolitical context of schooling. Critically, even though some culture-specific accommodations are taken into account, still limitation exists. First, the diversity of the student population in most schools mitigates culturally specific modifications. Secondly, it might lead to segregation and inequality as well. So teachers who want to provide all students with a caring and healthy learning environment must take into account the diverse background and identities, learn about and from the students, make appropriate and necessary accommodations and promote them learning.

It has been years since I came to this country. I am actually very touched by any of the critical statement because I have experienced it. For many years of living in this country, I have been learning what American culture is? What the culture of domination group is? Should I give up or forget my own culture or background to be adapted to the so-called American culture? I am from China. In my country, like most Asian countries, everybody gets used to the solely domination culture and you never feel bothered by any other alien cultures nor realize to learn what multicultural education is about ? The USA , instead , is a country characterized by multicultural or diversity. In the classrooms of China, students’ learning style exposed to be listening and memorizing. However, in America, Students are expected to ask questions and speak in front of the class and group work is normally seen every day. If you keep silent in the class, it will become strange and odd. The professors would not understand why you always keep so quiet? He or she will be wondering “ No question? Not understand? Do not like the teacher? Or something else. “ In most Asian countries, students respect the teachers in a manner of being obedient. In comparison, the students here feel free to speak up or answer back. More importantly, I really experienced the varied philosophies that people follow. But, in my opinion, none of these values is innately right or wrong.
In short, the awareness of the cultural influences on learning is very important. the issue of diverse cultures is a realistic problem in the USA. It consists of people with varied background, inheriting diverse cultures, such as African, European and Asian. Now it is getting to form its own so-called American cultural, an example of Hip Hop on page 174 shows a good support. As schools, as a role of education and culture delivery site, teachers, as an important role of cultural agent, both should take responsibilities to critically think and take into account the background and identities of their students when teach and communicate. Modifications should be made in many aspects, such as policies and practices, manners, attitudes , interactions, delivery style, discourse logic and dynamics, the curriculum and role expectations for from a nuances, teachers and schools can make a BIG difference.

Structural and Organizational Issues

In chapter five, structural and organizational issues in schools have been critically discovered comprehensively from the perspective of three dimensional analysis of schooling, mainly focusing on the school policies and practices, such as tracking, retention, standardized testing, curriculum, pedagogy, physical structure, disciplinary policies and the limit role of all related aspects: students, teachers, parents and communities. From the perspective of school policies and practices, it is to be the case of tracking and retention. Through the demonstration of a few negative consequences of tracking, such as the earliest grades and decisions about student placement made on tenuous ground, the development of enduring classroom personalities and attitudes, students’ least access to the excellent and experienced teachers and so forth, it is obvious to see that effectiveness of tracking is questionable. It is almost exclusively negative for most students and contrary to its intended outcomes , even though it works on a few excellent students who benefit from being tracked and whose parents are most likely the greatest barriers to “detracking”. So is retention, which failed improving students’ achievement and has caused tremendous amount of dropout.

It is also to be the case with standardized testing, curriculum, pedagogy, physical structure and disciplinary policies. Standardized testing. Basically, testing and tracking have often benn symbiotically linked. Like tracking, testing, for many reasons, such as different cultures and languages, social class, inexperienced teachers, the NCLB law and so forth, appears uncritical. Badly further the sorting and segregating students rather than improving education achievement. Besides, it , to some extent, has affected other practices, such as curriculum, pedagogy in a negative way. As a consequence, it may has limited teachers’ creativity, led to a higher dropout rates, teachers’ autonomy has been removed from the class to school or school district, students lost their interests in class discussion, essay writing, and projects researching. Speak of curriculum, as it is defined in the book of Nieto & Bode that curriculum is the organized environment for learning. This means that it concerns what should be learned and under what conditions it is to be learned. By definition, we can understand that curriculum at school should be set around the real life and the reality. Unfortunately, the truth is that school curriculum and real life are most likely at polar extremes. Due to the limit role of teachers, they are less able to perceive the nature of learning and create conditions to motive students to become critical thinkers. Consequently, teachers would be lost and frustrated in the use of pedagogies. Many people may take another two practices, climate and physical structure, and disciplinary policies lightly. They both seem superficial issues. However, according to Ron Berger, we can better understand that their importance. He demonstrated these as that the aspects of a school that most clearly engrave the school experience on children are often in the “other stuff” category: the physical appearance of the school building, outside and in; the manner in which school property and personal property are respected and cared for in the school; the levels of physical safety and emotional safety that children and adults in the building feel; the ways authority is exercised; the tone of courtesy, kindness, and acceptance in peer culture; the ways in which students’ achievements are shared with the school community and outside of it; the aspects of the school that define it in the larger community. These things are every bit as important as curriculum. So is discipline. Discipline can be an issue among more economically privileged students who are culturally different from the mainstream. So a lack of awareness of cultural and social factors on the part of teachers and schools can result in misinterpretations and faulty conclusions.

Lastly, the limit role of students, teachers, parents and even communities must be emphasized as a warning sign. Most often, students at school are learning what is decided, designed and executed by others. Schools and teachers rarely provide the opportunities for students to talk about their own experiences. And teachers are not able to learn firsthand from their students. As for teachers, they are shown little respect by the society and poorly paid, lack of parental support and involvement, becoming a decision follower instead of decision maker. The more powerless they are, the lower expectation they have on their teaching and students. Not only do students and teachers’ role limited, but families and communities’ role are limited as well. Actually, family involvement is a complex issue. Due to changes of family structure, more and more family are characterized by one-parent or two-parent families or even more complicated. It is really hard for parents to split the responsibilities on the involvement on whatever it is, such as parents’ conference, PTAs, and so on. Furthermore, cultural and economic differences also influence family involvement. For example, for those parents who were foreign-born, not educated in the USA and not able to communicate in English very well. It is really hard for both teachers and parents to communicate about the students performance at school on an efficient understanding level

As many issues come up in schools and school districts, are there any ways that we can find for schools to provide students and teachers more opportunities to be more fully engaged? Let’s critically think! Maybe we can try “detracking”. Schools should try to provide safe spaces, make students feel valued, let students be engaged in cooperative learning, peer tutoring, multilevel teaching shared decision making with students, de-emphasizing the use of textbooks and challenging racist and classist notions of ability. Also, we can combine the academic success with co-curriculum and extra-curriculum to promote their grade moving. In addition, we may try to replace or complement norm-referenced tests with performance-based assessments or make it to be an authentic assessments to guide students’ learning to a real life-oriented style in order to motivate their learning interests. Meanwhile, we can not neglect the establishment or development of the environment of school climate and physical structure and disciplinary policies, from outside to inside. What is more important, schools and teachers should aware that they should pay more attention to students’ firsthand information, providing them with more opportunities to share with peers about their life experiences. After all, schools are the places for students to learn knowledge and perspectives or skills for their future life. Teachers are educators who should teach academic knowledge and the ethnic as well , which will influence the value for their future life. Teachers play an important part to bridge the students and parents. Their limit should be enlarged as much as they feel comfortable to make a critical think and take any actions. We strongly and sincerely recommend parents that, no matter your conditions are, be brave to make impossible possible, encourage and show your children by contributing some time and being involvement in schools’ activities. You will be more satisfied and pleased by your children and the teacher.

Racism, Discrimination and Student Achievement

When one encounters individual discrimination, he or she will feel very hurtful and psychologically damaging. This negative outcome may either become very frustrating and increase one’s self-inferiority or a motive in a positive way for a change , with the metaphor of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” in mind. Actually, the discrimination is not simply an individual bias; it is above all an institutional practice, which should be viewed more seriously. Individual discrimination, as defined in the book of Nieto & Bode, means the conduct based on a distinction made on grounds of natural or social categories, which have no relation either to individual capacities or merits, or to the concrete behavior of the individual person. However, it is incomplete. It describes neither the harmful effects of such conduct nor move beyond the individual l. Indeed, institutional discrimination, as a systemic use of economic and political power in institutions, can define discrimination more completely and lead to detrimental policies and practices, which does far greater damage. As It is stated in the book of Nieto & Bode, the major difference between individual and institutional discrimination is the wielding of power. It is primarily through the power of the people who control institutions, such as schools, that oppressive policies and practices are reinforced and legitimated. I have a friend, who is a foreign-born Asian and came to the USA at his 20’s. He had successfully accomplished his PHD education from Harvard University. Then, he was hired by a large company and has been working there for about 15 years. Guess what, he is just a manager of a small department, which is mainly dealing with business with Asian countries. He quoted that he is going to fail in his career because he didn’t see any hope or possibilities to be promoted to higher position of the top management or any board member no matter how hard he has tried. I am wondering he is smart, intelligent even brilliant, working hard and able to communicate in English very well , but why couldn’t he see his future in this company? Just because he is an Asian, foreign-born, Asian language native speaker not English native speaker , has no family background ? Obviously, it is not the individual discrimination but the institutional discrimination that gets in the way of individual effort. So discrimination is not solely an individual phenomenon, it is more of an institutional practice , which is underlying behind with more powerful effects.

Taking into consideration the sociopolitical context of multicultural education, there appears some ways in which discrimination becomes an institutional education practice. Many examples reflect this phenomenon, for example, a White teacher tend to have much more frequent eye contact with her White students than with her Black or other color of students.
And, according to the study, the Black children had to try three times harder to catch the teacher’s eye for signs of approval, affection, and encouragement. Obviously, the light-skinned students are able to derive significantly more benefits from their schooling thank their dark-skinned peers. In addition, from the differences between schools that primarily serve middle-class or affluent European American students and those that primarily serve students of color and students living in poverty, it has been found that schools with a narrow “achievement gap” have highly competent, dedicated, and well-trained teachers who have higher expectations for all students; a curriculum that is both culturally sensitive and challenging; a school community that emphasizes high achievement. What is more, the discrimination based on social class is also prevalent in our public schools, and social class and race are often intertwined. This can be found from the differences in academic achievement. Basically, the academic achievement are mainly due to the kinds of schools students attend, the length of time they stay in school, the curriculum and pedagogy to which they are exposed, and societal beliefs concerning their ability. As a consequence, unequal opportunities to learn can produce significant differences in academic achievement by low-income urban versus affluent suburban students. So it can be seen that compound educational and political inequality in the occupations, salaries, and housing of the urban poor and affluent reinforce political and economic differences. Based on both racism and classism, it has appeared in recent indictment of public education, the segregation of African Americans and Latinos in poverty is going more serious. Last, in a study conducted by Karen McLean Donaldson, shows that students were affected by racism in three major ways: 1/ White students experienced guilt and embarrassment when they became aware of the racism to which their peers were subjected. 2/ students of color sometimes felt they needed to compensate and overachieve to prove they were equal to their White classmates, and 3/ students of color claimed their self-esteem was badly damaged.

In my educational experience, I did not experience institutional discriminatory practices every day, but there were still some times that institutional discrimination cause bad effect. Exclusion is a typical example. In some schools, White teachers pay more attention to White students while Black teachers show more preference to their Black students, So do the Hispanic teachers and Asian teachers. Automatically, the students who receive less attention are excluded. Also, teachers , most of the time, treat those students with the high achievement much better than those who are not good at the subjects. as a result, those who felt being ignored or belittled did not show an active participation and lack of confidence. Some of the University teachers built up closer relationship with White students rather than others. So the others would feel like being excluded and have to make hard effort to attack their professors attention in many ways. Exclusion also exists among students themselves, wherever it is, middle school or high school, the segregation would automatically excluded some minority or those in poverty. Besides, Expectation of high achievement exclude those students who have the difficulties in their study. As a result, the whole family had to move to other community which suits them or some students had to decide to drop out from school.

In my neighborhood, about 33% of the population is Asian people. Many Asian kids go to public schools. There are mainly two issues come up. One thing is that many Asian parents complained about their poor involvement in PTA because most Principles or administrators are of White people. Another issue is that most Asian parents intend to send their kids to the public schools which include most White and Asian people and less Hispanic or Latino because they are concerning about the bad learning environment. Another invisible phenomenon is also existing. Some White teachers are gradually leaving schools from which consist majority of Asian children to those which have more White kids. In another school district, they received many immigrants form Mexico and Asia, those students really have problems with English language, so they are not able to understand their teachers in class. Plus, there are no ESL class for these special group. As a consequence their grades go down below the average and they lost their interest in study and their self-esteem and self-confidence had been broke down. To solve the problem, I think, the school district should limit the number or the rate of the PTA, according to the rate of the whole population of the school in order to have reasonable occupation. For those schools who have many recent immigrants, they should tailor their students with curriculum , such as , to set up the ESL class or emersion class for those students who have the difficulty to learn in English.

Multicultural Education and School Reform

In the Chapter 3 of the book Affirming Diversity, it has been emphasized that antiracism is at the very core of a multicultural perspective. And this can not just be made on the superficial level, such as ethnic festivals, food festivals, exotic cloth program or bulletin boards decoration. It must be made mindfully and consciously and inclusive and balanced, such as the choice of curriculum , teaching materials, policies and practices, the recruitment and promotion of employees and teachers’ attitude and interaction with students and parents, and so forth. I partly agree to the statement and support the idea that the multicultural education perspective should go around a core, but I would put the core as “justice” not the “antiracism” because “antiracism” makes me feel the smoke of fire. I do not deny that, in the long history, some group or segregation are overwhelming over others, psychologically , made the other side expose to overturn and balance the world for many sound reasons. This just makes people fight rather than lead people back on the right road of truth-justice. To be straightforward, endless fighting does not make any good change. At school level, any decisions, comments, critics must be made on justice base, teachers treat students and parents equally both physically and psychologically. Any comment given from the teachers or parents must be based on students performance only with no regard of the race, identities, color of skin and so forth. It is a fact that we look different, but we do have things in common, such as everybody has the right to receive their education, every student needs teachers’ attention, all parents are welcomed to be involved in school education, all teachers need respect from students, parents, fellow teachers and society, every educator should take the responsibility to educate young generations to be a better mature person with bright future. If “justice” can be imbedded in mind, who is going to fight for racism?

However, I totally agree to the statement explained in the part “multicultural education is basic education” that , under monocultural education, students only learn a fraction of what is available knowledge and those who decide what is most important make choices that are influenced by their own limited background, education and experiences. Under multicultural education perspective, it seems more open and acceptable. As a person in this world, no matter where you are, not matter who you are, it is our right and responsibility to know and understand the world for real. Dominated education makes students’ learning incomplete. As a consequence, the curriculums, especially art, history, social study and school activities must be taught inclusively in school and the subject teaching should relate to multi-societies, backgrounds and varied culture.

Respond to the “multicultural education is education for social justice”, I basically appreciate the philosophy that developing a multicultural perspective means learning how to think in more inclusive and expansive ways, reflecting on what is learned, and applying that learning to real situations. Compare with Asian learners, who are a little bit bookish, in my opinion, students in this country have stronger ability to apply their learning to real situations. However, I was stuck by the example given afterwards, saying that middle school students are the most sensitive to fair, anger, resentment and alienation. What does it mean? It means that middle school teachers need to satisfy and reflect themselves when they receive the signal from the students emotional behavior?. They are during the adolescent, a period of very strong rebellion. During this period, young people appear very emotional and sensitive. But it does not mean that they respond or act appropriately. Instead, teachers should stand steadily on justice to guide students psychologically and professionally in correct direction and method.

It is very true that multicultural education is critical pedagogy. It is pretty challenge for both teachers and students, parents and society. But it indeed open your eyes wide as much you can. I would follow up and support the viewpoint of using a critical perspective to understand the reality. According to James Bank, the main goal of a multicultural curriculum is to help students develop decision-making and social action skills. By doing so, students learn to view events and situations from a variety of perspectives. Without doubt, nothing can be learned completely and perfectly. Still, if teachers make their best efforts to provide as many ways as they can to enlarge the possibilities, students will know and understand the reality and the world more objectively. A multicultural approach values diversity and encourages critical thinking, reflection, and action. For example, what we are doing now is actually kind of critical philosophy. Our profession is now providing the opportunities to be critical and not just repeat teacher’s words. And I believe most of us enjoy our discussion and comments on whatever we have read. In another word, being critical can make educators more like a real educator and students more like real being educated.

It can not be denied that America is a very special country in the world. It is a country with more than two hundred years of history, full of diversity, races, culture, religions and so forth. There are many issues need to be talked about. There are a lot of changes need to be made. Multicultural education is basically a philosophy which fixes the situation. The point is how we are going to change in education? What is the goal? And Why? It is not supposed to be just a movement. Instead, we should seek for a right direction. As educators, we should take the responsibility not only to teach students knowledge in a broad perspective but educate them to shape their personalities to be positively mature by justice action. Educators’ justice action itself is an education. To make the multicultural education more beautiful and overwhelming , every educator, student and parent needs to think critically to push the school reform move in a better way. After all, it is a multicultural education for all in this country.