The Importance of Multicultural Education

Engage:

What qualities make you unique? What qualities make other people unique?

I have many different qualities that make me unique and so does everyone else in the world! However, the ones that make me unique include my personality, my experiences, my goals, my passions, my attitude and my perspectives. The qualities that make other people unique include all of the same things that make me unique, just in a different way. Being unique is something extremely important in life. If we were all the same everything would be boring and repetitive. Being unique means being unlike anyone else, and in order to develop the qualities of being unique we must start by being our authentic selves. It also helps to broaden your horizons by trying out new and interesting things. Some new and interesting things to try out could include becoming a painter, creating a blog, keeping a sketchbook or playing an instrument. These are just some ideas and there are a lot more that can lead to finding your own uniqueness. 

What can we learn from stories different than our own?

We can learn a lot from stories that are different than our own. Stories help us to understand our place in the world. We learn about behaviors, lessons and consequences. Stories show us what we have in common with others, and we can learn to engage with people despite out differences as we come to understand who they are and what our place is in this world. 

What will you do to spread love and acceptance?

I strive to spread love and acceptance everyday. One of the biggest things I do in order to accomplish this is to always be kind no matter what. There are a lot of negative things in this world and a lot of cold-hearted people, but I never let this get in my way because I know who I am and what I stand for. Love is something that we all feel to varying degrees for different people and it can change lives -- even the lives of strangers. I always try to be kind in order to spread love and acceptance because it is contagious to those around me! I know this does not mean that other people will love me simply because I am near them. Instead, it means that the love I feel makes me act in a different way than I would if I did not have that love. Some ways that I have tried to spread love and acceptance in the past is by saying something nice to others, helping someone out, saying thank you, giving a gift and paying it forward.

What do your actions say about what kind of person you are?

A person's actions say a lot about themselves. There are many ways to express who we are and the way we feel. Some of the most common actions that reveals a lot about a person's character can include making. eye contact, the way they treat others and how they interact with others. Also, the way a person reacts to any emotional situation will reveal a little bit about their character. This includes love, loss, remorse, stress, anger, sadness and more. It is important to pay attention to the actions of others to know who they truly are because actions define the real character of a person even more than their words. 

What did you do when you saw someone being hurt?

When I was in middle school a girl I knew used to get bullied everyday. This person would harass the girl and force her to give up her lunch money. Oftentimes, I noticed that she would sit alone at lunch and look very upset. I always sat with the same group of friends at lunch, but one day I decided to go and sit with this girl. I felt really bad for her and thought to myself: How would I feel if I were in her shoes? At first when I went to sit with her she was very quiet and there was not much to talk about, but overtime I started sitting with her everyday. We quickly became good friends and the bully ended up leaving her alone. This girl also ended up telling someone about what was happening to her and her situation got better from there on out. 

Explain:

The WebQuest that I chose to view was: Who Represents Me? In this WebQuest students have the ability to find out who represents them in government. There is also a Who Represents Me contact sheet for them to write down all the details about how to tell the government officials what is on their minds. This contact sheet will allow the students to become an informed and active citizen. 

This WebQuest is a great way to inform students about their government and get them thinking about who represents them. This would be a great asset to use when teaching a lesson about the branches of government in a social studies classroom. This WebQuest also follows the 5 principles of teaching social studies. Let's review them before we go on!

1. Meaningful -- Engaging, connects students with real-world situations

2. Integrative -- Draws on more than one discipline, subject or skill set

3. Value-Based -- Strengthens students’ sense of democratic values and social responsibility

4. Challenging -- Incorporates different perspectives and draws on students’ critical-thinking skills

5. Active -- Participatory, makes use of manipulatives or physical environment

This WebQuest is meaningful because it allows students to engage with who represents them in the federal, state and local government as well as teaches them how to get in touch with them. It is integrative because it focuses on 3 different types of government (federal, state and local) instead of just 1. It is value-based because it allows them to become an informed and active citizen. It is challenging because it makes students think critically about government officials. Lastly, it is active because it allows students to write down important details about what they want to share with government officials.

Starting Small:

 

This video touches upon multicultural education and why it is so important to appreciate. An important goal of multicultural education is to help students acquire the knowledge and commitments needed to make reflective decisions and to take personal, social and civic action to promote democracy and democratic living. Multicultural education also values different cultures and prepares students to thrive in a diverse world. It also fosters equality, justice, and equity. It is important to instill these ideas into your students so that they learn/understand them from a young age. This is because it can increase a child's awareness, appreciation and inclusion of diverse beliefs and cultures.

What is you skin color? Lesson:

I really loved the idea of the what is your skin color lesson because the students were so excited to see what color they were going to be. The teacher took different color paints to put on the children's hand to match their skin tone. If the color was not quite right the student's would tell the teacher why and what they needed to change to make it a good match. This lesson showed how it is important for children to be honored as individuals and be noticed. This lesson was also a great representation of how we are all different. Children must learn about differences from a young age so that later on in life they are able to build a community. Talking about differences is not always easy and it takes practice, but there a lot of multicultural actives for students to engage in within the classroom. 

Evaluate:

1. View the video about one classroom's social justice project and comment on what what impact it had on the teacher and her students

• A teacher from Moose Saw SK took her 10th grade class to get involved with something called "The Invisible Children" which seeks to rebuild schools in Uganda that were destroyed during a war. This project meant a lot to her students. They were asked to bring one dollar month in order to help support scholarship funds; however, the students wanted to do more. So, the students did some research on what they wanted to do so that there money would go to a good place. One student actually suggested joining a competition and the teacher signed the class up for it. The students then created a Facebook page for it and came up with a goal. The goal was to raise $10,000. The following weekend the students went and met some of the students from Uganda who were able to finish secondary schools thanks to them. This had a huge impact on the students because they were actually able to have a conversation with the people they helped and got to understand just how much it meant to the people in Uganda. After meeting these people, the students changed their goal to $20,000. They changed it because they had a purpose and knew how much it would mean to the people in Uganda. To these students, anything was possible and in the end they raised almost $23,000. This social justice project allowed students to understand that they matter and what they do in school can impact others around the world. 

2. Turn Learning into Action Lesson:

• I think that lesson is a great experience for students and a great way for them to identify a local community issue that they want to help solve, and create an action plan to get started. Some of the learning outcomes that students will become knowledgeable about include understanding/learning about their community, creating a community map, examining cause and effect relationships and more. 

3. Evaluate your own civics knowledge... 

  U.S Citizenship Test

• The link above is a 10 question test about the United States. I scored an 8 out of 10 which is not too bad. I knew a lot of the answers from my previous knowledge of history and our government. I would use this test in my social studies classroom because it allows you to choose the reading level (3-6 or 7-12). This test is a great way to improve knowledge about the United States and take a look at some of the real questions someone would have to answer in order to become a U.S. citizen. 

Elaborate:

1. "How can we (teachers) create “windows and mirrors” for students to see themselves and others’ experiences in the classroom?"

• In order for teachers to create "windows and mirrors" for students to see themselves an others' experiences in the classroom they must study texts that reflect students' own identities. When there is diversity in classroom materials, students can connect to the experiences of others and have their own reflected and valued. An example of an activity that can be used in the classroom for students to see themselves reflected is to have them create a character -- someone they wish was in a story. They can make it look like them or someone else, it is all up to their use of imagination.