Teaching with a multicultural perspective encourages appreciation and understanding of other cultures as well as one's own. Teaching with this perspective promotes the child's sense of the uniqueness of his own culture as a positive characteristic and enables the child to accept the uniqueness of the cultures of others.
(Gomez, 2017)
As with most education, teaching this critical concept of multicultural perspectives needs to start at a young age. As a Kindergarten teacher, that means that I should be in the forefront of this. As Rey A. Gomez says, "Early childhood educators can influence the development of positive attitudes in young children by learning about and promoting the various cultures represented among the children they teach." To do this then, I need to consider some very important issues (from Teach Now):
How lessons in your subject field can reflect the diversity of your community, region, country, or world.
My lessons in Kindergarten can reflect the diversity in the world by simply showing my students the world itself! For example, when teaching the alphabet, this lesson can be expanded to discuss the writing systems of various cultures around the world. A friend of mine uses sporting events (like the Olympics) to teach his students about the different countries that they see on their television screens. But best of all, on Show-and-Tell days, students can bring and share with the class items that demonstrate their culture. Thus making the learning of different countries/regions (the world itself) a more personal experience.
A rationale for why it is important to introduce students to multicultural content and multiple perspectives in the curriculum.
As the quote at the beginning of this post says, one extremely important reason to introduce multicultural content and perspectives in the curriculum is to help a child see the importance of his/her own culture, as well as, to help the child accept the uniqueness of other cultures. But most importantly,
"multicultural education is predicated on the principle of educational equity for all students, regardless of culture, and it strives to remove barriers to educational opportunities and success for students from different cultural backgrounds."
("Multicultural Education Definition", 2017)
"multicultural education is predicated on the principle of educational equity for all students, regardless of culture, and it strives to remove barriers to educational opportunities and success for students from different cultural backgrounds."
("Multicultural Education Definition", 2017)
How will you know that students are developing cultural competence in your classroom?
The best way to know if my students are developing cultural competence is simply by observing their classroom norms. Being kindergarteners, they haven't yet mastered (and/or learned) to hide their discriminatory ways. By observing and taking notes of situations/scenes that I see happen in class, I can tell if my students are growing in their understanding of accepting others for who they are. The best way to make sure they are on this path, though, is by setting the example. As their teacher, I need to set the norms in the classroom about what is and what is not accepted. They can then use this to guide them.
References
Gomez, R. (2017). Teaching with a Multicultural Perspective. ERIC Digest.. Ericdigests.org. Retrieved 18 June 2017, from https://www.ericdigests.org/1992-5/perspective.htm
Multicultural Education Definition. (2017). The Glossary of Education Reform. Retrieved 18 June 2017, from http://edglossary.org/multicultural-education/
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