The birthing of ME
Mmaotho Segotso | Friday July 31, 2020 13:07
Each person is created unique and it is this individual uniqueness that makes diversity in humanity: when there is a show of difference or great variety. To address these differences, a movement called multiculturalism was formed. The purpose of the movement was to the recognise and support for the presence of, several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society. This movement gave birth Multicultural Education (ME).
Multicultural education is defined as any form of education or teaching that incorporates the histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds. At the classroom level, for example, teachers may modify or incorporate lessons to reflect the cultural diversity of the students in a particular class. In many cases, “culture” is defined in the broadest possible sense, encompassing race, ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation, and “exceptionality”—a term applied to students with specialised needs or disabilities.
According to Banks, multicultural education is an idea, an educational reform movement. He avers that as an idea, multicultural education seeks to create equal educational opportunities for all students, including those from different racial, ethnic, and social-class groups. Multicultural education also tries to create equal educational opportunities for all students by changing the total school environment so that it will reflect the diverse cultures and groups within a society and within a nation’s classrooms.
Other scholars define it as, an education method/strategy that fuses the narratives, writings, qualities, convictions, and points of view of individuals from various social foundations.
ME is founded on equity for all students as a principle in education. It strives to remove barriers to educational opportunities and advocates for success for students from different cultural backgrounds.
The key aspects involved in multicultural education are race, ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, class, sexual direction, etc. By adapting it in schools and colleges, students can be made aware of histories, cultures, and the importance of diverse groups. Moreover, it promotes the principles of inclusion, democracy, diversity, critical thought, sense of togetherness, inquiry, values of perspectives, and many more positive traits.
GOAL
To safeguard minority groups’ culture, by encouraging youngsters to think broad and acquaint them with new thoughts and critical thinking. All this basically helps them to have an increasingly open outlook. As a result, students are furnished with knowledge, values, and skills necessary to take part in societal changes, resulting in justice for the otherwise victimised and excluded ethnic groups.
HOW DOES ME PLAY OUT?
Learning content: Texts and learning materials may include multiple cultural perspectives and references. For example, a lesson on colonialism in Africa might address different cultural perspectives, such as those of the European settlers, and how they clashed with African cultures.
Student cultures: Teachers and other educators may learn about the cultural backgrounds of students in a school, and then intentionally incorporate learning experiences and content relevant to their personal cultural perspectives and heritage. Students may also be encouraged to learn about the cultural backgrounds of other students in a class, and students from different cultures may be given opportunities to discuss and share their cultural experiences.
Critical analysis: Educators may intentionally scrutinise learning materials to identify potentially prejudicial or biased material. Both educators and students might analyse their own cultural assumptions, and then discuss how learning materials, teaching practices, or school policies reflect cultural bias, and how they could be changed to eliminate bias.
Resource allocation: ME is generally predicated on the principle of equity: that the allocation and distribution of educational resources, programmes and learning experiences should be based on need and fairness, rather than strict equality. For example, students who are not proficient in the English language may learn in bilingual settings and read bilingual texts, and they may receive comparatively more instructional support than their English-speaking peers so that they do not fall behind academically or drop out of school due to language limitations. MOTHER TONGUE EDUCATION!
ME shapes a child into a tolerant and compassionate contemporary global citizen who is aware of, appreciates and celebrates their uniqueness: an ambassador of his or her immediate community.
ADVANTAGES
ME exposes students to the different cultural values and beliefs, and helps to create understanding and acceptance of differences between people.
Since, it promotes cultural relevance, anti-bias classroom, it challenges students to think critically without jumping to stereotypes.
The method encourages students to assimilate while keeping their culture and values intact and, this makes them feel a sense of inclusion.By being culturally conscious teachers, without any bias, can help students assimilate without having compromise their cultural identity.
It promotes celebrating a students’ culture and that helps in keeping a sense of pride and confidence in the students.
All of us have certain barriers such as preconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes that obstruct our understanding of other people. Multicultural education demystifies other cultures through presenting them under an objective light. Through learning about other cultures, barriers are slowly chipped away thus allowing for more open relationships and dialogue.
Multicultural education promotes self-confidence in individuals and teams through empowering them with a sense of control over previously difficult challenges in the workplace. Build Trust: When people’s barriers are lowered, mutual understanding ensues, which results in greater trust. Once trust is established altruistic tendencies naturally manifest allowing for greater co-operation and a more productive workplace.
One of the outcomes of Multicultural education is that people begin to see their roles within the workplace more clearly. Through self-analysis people begin to recognise areas in which they need to improve and become motivated to develop and progress.
Multicultural education addresses problems in the workplace at a very different angle to traditional methods. Its innovative, alternative and motivating way of analysing and resolving problems helps people to adopt a similarly creative strategy when approaching challenges in their work or personal lives.
Through Multicultural education participants develop great ‘people skills’ that can be applied in all walks of life. By learning about the influence of culture, i.e. the hidden factors upon people’s behaviours, those who undertake Multicultural education begin to deal with people with a sensitivity and understanding that may have previously been lacking.
Listening is an integral element of effective and productive communication. Multicultural education helps people to understand how to listen, what to listen for and how to interpret what they hear within a much broader framework of understanding. By becoming good listeners, people naturally become good communicators. In the workplace people have a tendency to focus on differences. When cross cultural communication problems arise, the natural inclination is to withdraw to opposing sides and to highlight the negative aspects of the other. Multicultural education assists in developing a sense of mutual understanding between people by highlighting common ground. Once spaces of mutual understanding are established, people begin to use them to overcome culturally challenging situations.
“When students learn content about the nation and the world from the perspectives of the diverse groups that shaped historical and contemporary events, they will be better able to participate in personal, social, and civic actions that are essential for citizens in a democratic pluralistic society.” Lewis