After reading the first 2 chapters of Banks’ Multicultural Education, I thought about my current students, what I know of my world today, and what I want for my daughter.
Regarding my students, the question I asked myself is, “are my unsuccessful students not succeeding because of cultural divisions? Will they learn more if they owned the classroom more?” It’s true that I don’t have a democratic classroom. While I’ve been gradually giving my students more voice, it’s still more autocratic than democratic. If the students owned the classes more, would they own their own education more? This is a question that was raised but just lightly addressed in the readings. I’m currently observing a class with another teacher that is about as democratic as I’ve ever seen for a math classroom. I am noticing that the students are learning about good citizenship, and am looking forward to how the class evolves in its math understanding.
I have to say that what I read about personal and cultural knowledge, specifically related to how some students have a culture that says doing well academically is betrayal to a group they belong to, rang true. I wondered if this statement is true for some of my African American, Hispanic, or low performing students. I can think of two specific Hispanic students last year who were very good at math but chose to be in less challenging math classes. I had interpreted their decisions as choosing to be with their friends instead of choosing to be where they’d be better prepared for their futures but potentially with people they didn’t know.
I mention my daughter because I think the choices I make for her do reflect my values. Initially, I had her in a Montessori where she flourished in her academic abilities, but she was going to a predominantly White school with some minorities. The Asian and White mix is what she gets at home. She is now going to a public school with more minorities than Whites, with a large Hispanic and mixed race population. I see that while I can help her academically, school provides opportunities for social development, and I think she needs to be comfortable working and playing with people of all backgrounds to really flourish in her life.
One key point for me was to read that at the time the book was written, multiculturalists saw our nation as divided, and want to bring it closer together, while Western traditionalists saw the nation as united and feared that multicultural education would cause divisions. More than a decade has passed, and it seems to me that because our nation’s foreign-born population has grown, we see a lot more diversity and are influenced by a lot more diversity. Because I see our nation as more divided than united, and because I think it is part of a teacher’s responsibility to help students develop critical thinking skills and participate in the democratic process, I will put myself leaning toward the multiculturalists.
Posted by maryeun 
