Chapter 16, Multicultural Education

Chapter 16 reflection.:

It is an interesting chapter as well as important . Since last decade or so our culture is becoming increasingly diverse at very fast rate. As this chapter is all about multicultural education and the efforts that has been put forth by the government to promote multicultural education in schools and promoting research on this subject at all levels of education.
Multi-cultural movement which was geared by several African-American scholars such as James Bank, Geneva Gay, & Carl Grant in 1970s, became a force in education. Multiculturism also embodied “Cultural Plurism”, a model in which specific groups maintain uniqueness of their cultures, it helped in enhancing the whole society.
As the focus of multicultural education was to bring individual awareness and respect for people of all races and cultures, also to help people develop racial and ethnic identities. Although there is decline in racist acts, which were sometimes back were officially allowed, but despite of that we still see racism and prejudice among our society. I my self being the first generation from different culture and society, can understand the pressures on people/children who go through this stress of being victims of racism and prejudice.
In my day care I have children from different cultures and races, and I did see some incidence among young children , such as I had a little black girl and some of the children would not sit by her at lunch time or at art or circle time. It was sad. Actually it was not the fault of a child who said that, it is what he heard at home from their adults. As early studies suggest (Lambert& Klineberg,1967; Piaget & Weil, 1951), most young children do not grasp the relationships between nations, national origin, and traditions and do not have a concept of ,”cultures”. I had another incident when one of the students came to me and said, “Appi don’t ever let Russians enter your house, they are not good”. I had a Russian student in my day care. After noticing all these little people ‘s talks I started playing a game of going on trips (a pretend play) every week we use to go to some country and talk about how they live , what do they eat, wear, where they pray etc.( their cultures and traditions) and places to see. We use to watch movies from around the world, every parent or grand parent was invited turn by turn to tell us about their culture and childhood times. Also if some of them went on trips back home I asked them to bring pictures and something depicting their culture. As my son went to Africa and I asked him to show us the pictures of people of Nigeria and children enjoyed his pictures very much. We did invite parents over on different occasions so parents /adults of all races do interact as well and leave a positive impact on their children’s mind.. We did introduce music of all cultures in our care and children as well as myself enjoyed the music from Russia, Indai Pakistan, China, Africa , Polish and American and also from Mexico. All this took us some time to make it as part of our day care but gradually it has become a tradition in my day care. We often do cultural potluck in our care and parents bring food of their country and tell us something about themselves and their culture. Last time when parents/grandparents came over to join us to see children’s garden some grand parents told us the stories how they came over and experienced tough times but later established themselves. It has made my day care very much free of racism and prjudice. All parents and children respect each others cultures and enjoy learning about them as well as some words of language. As I talk some words in Russian to my little 2 yr old, such as “Neplach” means don’t cry or “Kushay” meaning eat. Rest of the children join me and says these words as well as they have learnt my language. I always read them a book by Ashley Brayn, What a wonderful world “ which is my favorite one along with many other multicultural books to teach children to respect and be aware of other cultures and their values. I very much enjoy introducing multi cultures to my young ones and seeing them enjoy learning about different people and their living styles.