Equity ~ Multicultural Education

Cultural compentenece is my ability to be an effective teacher to all the students in my class. It is about expanding my point of view beyond my personal experiences and beliefs. Understanding that other views and experiences in the world differ from mine and that children bring these differences into our classroom. As their teacher, it is my responsibility to ensure the children in my class feel that their voices are heard and valid.

Incorporating diversity in my curriculum is important but I do not want diversity to be "just" a unit or theme in the classroom. Thematic and unit teachings about diversity seem to increase the idea of one culture dominating a classroom with the other cultures having less value. Diversity should be an integrated daily occurrence in the classroom. In our classroom, the goal will be to daily view the world through someone else’s and our own perspective.

To make this happen I need to incorporate the transformation and social action approach of multicultural education in my classroom. This is what I want to see in my classroom but it does seem daunting at times. It will take time and effort to make sure that I have the correct knowledge and information to share with my students. I will have to push my student and myself out of our personal experience and comforts.

One way I want to improve our classroom knowledge about cultures other then mine is by involving the students’ families and the members of the community we live in. By bring people into the classroom we learn from their perspective and gain a social awareness of what is important to our community. I hope that it will allow the children in class to make connections between their lives at school and their world outside school.

Mainly, I want to make sure that the student in my class feel safe being who they are and who their families are. That in our classroom students, teachers and visitors will feel welcomed, part of our class. That this, feeling of inclusion, will allow us to focus on learning. It won’t be prefect but we would learn to work with our imperfections to find our close to prefect class.