Online Reading Essay
America, a country created by the outcasts of Europe in the 1700’s, is a nation that consists of a diversity not known by any other country. Since the first settlers travelled to this new nation, people from all over the world have come to this great country for many different reasons. Some people come to make a better life for their families, some people come to experience freedom, some have come to stay alive and avoid genocide of their own nation, in the past some have even been forced to come to America with their lives being changed forever. In schools today, we learn about the reasons people come to this nation, but it’s not often that we learn what happened after they arrived. Textbooks are often written to please school boards that value the white European’s journey to America, it’s not often we see a journey to America from a Mexican, Chinese or African’s perspective. In order to incorporate these cultures into the classroom, a teacher of a multicultural classroom should incorporate additional multicultural literature into the curriculum. By incorporating literature that provides different cultural perspectives, students of the culture will be able to relate better to the readings, while students not of the culture will be able to see things from another’s perspective.
According to the Normal Acculturation Process, when immigrant students come to a new country they go through four variable stages. During the second stage, the student experiences a bit of culture shock (Richard-Amato). This culture shock will lead to the student feeling isolated and frustrated while losing their sense of identity. With multicultural literature, the teacher is able to provide a sense of security to this student. If...
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In A Woman Who Went to Alaska, students were introduced to the local culture that can be found in Alaska, particularly during the Gold Rush. In “Ruby Bridges: A Girl of Courage,” students were able to understand what it was like growing up as an African American in the Southern United States, particularly during the Civil Rights Era. While they don’t promote international cultural diversity per se, these two readings can still expose students to cultures (or rather, past mindsets) that they are not necessarily aware
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print.
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Cowhey’s book is broken down by the major themes and concepts she teaches her first and second grade students. Each concept relates back to her personal pedagogy of implementing a Multicultural Education. These major themes include empathy, freedom, peace, activism, community, and social justice. Cowhey’s pedagogy uses “language and literacy to teach about the world with rigor, depth, and challenge in a way that engages and
... so that students can become critical thinkers and view the world in a different way. Many of the materials that we use in the classroom are written from one perspective and do not always portray historical events as accurately as they should; this is not fair to other cultural groups that had a part in the historical event. As educators, it is crucial that we analyze the materials that we use in our classroom. We should use a multicultural approach on content to build our students’ civic competencies and capacity for respecting others’ perspectives. History is not a one-sided story and we should not take a one-sided approach to teaching it.
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When looking at why multiculturalism in school and classroom libraries it is important to understand why there is the need. According to Ruth A. Oswald and Lynn Atkinson Smolen have multicultural books is “timely” because of the “increasing diversity in our schools”. According to the National Center of Education Statistics (2010), 45 percent of U.S. public school population enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth grade comes from diverse racial and ethnic background” (Multicultural Literature and Response: Affirming Diverse Voices pg.xi). Educators want to help develop children become empathic, understanding, and tolerant adults, by doing these things educators hope to lessen bullying and
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Manning, L.M. & Barruth, L.G. (2009). Multicultural education of children and adolescents (5th edition). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
The concepts included in providing a more diverse, multicultural education are requiring teachers to review their own issues and prejudices while expanding their knowledge of the many cultures that make up the classroom. These efforts help the educator recognize the various individual and cultural differences of each student, as well as gain an understanding on how these differences impact the learning process. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon individual and cultural difference research and why diverse students struggle to succeed in school. Furthermore, I will share some instructional approaches I could implement in the classroom to accommodate diverse students. Finally, I will discuss the responsibility of educators in addressing the issue of how our o...
Davidman, Leonard and Patricia T. Davidman. Teaching with a Multicultural Perspective. New York: Longman, 1997. Print.
Author unkown (2003, March 9). In gifted classrooms is diversity lacking?. Salisbury Daily Times. Retrieved March 10, 2003, from http://www.dailytimesonline.com/new/stories/20030309/localnews/1142640.html