Multicultural Education

Multicultural education uses educational strategies that prove to be intelligent and sensitive to a diverse group of students' needs and abilities. There are five general approaches to multicultural education. These are, teaching the culturally different, human relations approaches, single-group studies, multicultural approaches, and education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist. Does both students and teachers benefit from having multicultural classrooms? The answer is YES!

It might seem that multicultural education could cause problems inside and outside of the classroom, but in reality these problems prove to be microscopic compared to the benefits teachers and students receive from this type of education. Multicultural education teachers both students and teachers to be open to things that they are not used to, for example, someone of a different culture or race. Having a multicultural classroom teaches students to accept people for who they are regardless of how different they maybe. This is HUGE, because of the amount of discrimination that is in schools today. If you start having a multicultural education at an early age, students become accustomed to having friends and classmates who are different than them. This is key when they get older, they don't see those people as different. Everyone is one in the same. Although having a multicultural education might require more work for the teacher, it is worth it. He or she can learn something new each day by their students about multiple different cultures, races, heritages and so on. Multicultural education can reduce the amount of fear, ignorance and personal detachment beginning at a young age.

I personally love the idea of multicultural education in the classroom at a young age. Although it is more work for the teachers, both teachers and students do benefit from it. I think that it will make our school systems and our society much better off, where there isn't as much discrimination and disrespect. Children at a young age need to be taught how to accept people for who they are no matter how different they can be. They also need to learn not to judge a book by its cover. If children at a young age learn to accept people and begin to learn from people who are a little different than themselves, it makes it a lot easier for them in the long run beucase they will be used to others being different then them.

Education The Practice and Profession of Teaching: McNergney and McNergney
Educational Foundations: Canestrari and Marlowe

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/keith.html

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=what+is+multicultural+education&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=multicultural+education&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=P-TrT974Hc200QGy69i4BQ&ved=0CFoQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=82dfe0d40a3cc136&biw=1237&bih=614