The Whole Child

Post submitted by Whole Child Blogger Alseta Gholston

The issue of immigration reform and the growing populations of Latino and other ethnic minorities across the United States have, for some time, influenced changes in education curricula and delivery. However, it appears that, with recent changes in curricula in states such as Arizona and Texas and even International Baccalaureate curriculum protests in Idaho, the conservative view of multicultural education is taking hold and influencing education policy in those states. This politicized education agenda raises these questions:

• What is this conservative backlash against multicultural education and ethnic studies a response to?
• What are the estimated effects of this conservative response?
• Who determines the constitution of ethnic studies and what its purposes should be?
• How do these purposes fit into addressing equity and educating for democracy?

Multicultural education began several decades ago as a movement toward educational equity that was grounded in the premise that education must be relevant, student-centered, and empowering to learners for it to be meaningful and engaging. Multicultural education can be delivered in many forms, including ethnic studies programs, foreign language and bilingual education programs, representing different cultural voices in the curriculum and classroom, and culturally responsive pedagogy. Schools and districts have introduced these programs to meet criteria for diversity and inclusion efforts in response to concurrent social outcries from traditionally marginalized communities.

However, the right kind of multicultural education is crucial to authentically and positively affecting not only closing the achievement gap for minority students but also educating all students for global awareness and social justice.

It is not enough to limit multicultural learning to efforts such as hosting a few international potluck dinners at school, teaching students to sing Christmas carols in Spanish, or making mention of a 30 second sound bite of Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech during Black History month. Multicultural education must be much more than that: it should be infused into all aspects of the main curriculum, allowing students to explore a variety of perspectives and providing an avenue for all students to connect aspects of themselves to what is being presented as relevant content. The ideal is to develop a learning environment of interculturality, where there is equal interaction and mutual respect for diverse cultures and where exclusive monoculturism is avoided.

This means that students should examine subjects such as racism, discrimination, sexism, homophobia, immigration, colonialism, and other forms of oppression and social injustice. Some who oppose ethnic studies programs or a more culturally diverse curriculum may not consider these topics necessary or appropriate to teach public school students. However, as much as these issues have affected the relationships between different cultures, students of every background should be allowed to open their minds to critically think about these issues so that they have a more complete concept of the human family. It also empowers students to lead changes in their societies that are necessary for social justice in a democracy.

A multicultural approach to education—and ethnic studies in particular—allows for this kind of global citizenship development. Moreover, in addition to being a necessary part of culturally responsive and student-centered education, ethnic studies is a human right in that it is generally purposed to promote dignity, cultural knowledge, and cohesion. I would also add that everyone should have the right to learn about his or her culture from his or her own cultural perspective; to be denied this perspective defeats the purpose of empowerment and dignity.

It wouldn’t be hard to speculate the responses to the questions above about why conservative politicals have seen fit, in recent months, to attack forms of multicultural education. To my mind, the long-term outcomes are sure to short-change students of a complete and well-rounded education that they will need to successfully interact with those who have perspectives different from their own. All stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, and administrators from ALL backgrounds, should equally participate in deciding what children should learn and from whom.

Consequently, the primary equity issue here is that English language learners and minority represented students will be unfairly disadvantaged as the curriculum teaches them that only one perspective is important and worth having, while the hidden curriculum teaches that the knowledge, experiences, or skills they may more closely identify with are not. Attempting to unite students under one sociocultural outlook not only flies in the face of the mission of most public schools to prepare students for democratic citizenship, but it also borders on infringement of educational civil and human rights.

With this current political climate, it is becoming more apparent that advocates for multicultural education must continue to push the importance of a more culturally inclusive learning experience so that we don’t lose the gains in teaching a more comprehensive and relevant curriculum to all students, which in many cases has been linked to higher levels of achievement for ethnic minority students.

In a society with increasingly shifting ethnic demographics, and as a part of the move for educating the whole child for the 21st century, we should strengthen and support our efforts to preserve and promote authentic forms of multicultural education programs in the midst of a politically charged and conservative agenda that seek to maintain an advantage in sociocultural capital for some.

How do you harness knowledge of cultural experiences in your classroom to teach global citizenship and social justice? In what ways have you seen culturally responsive teaching methods engage students who may not otherwise feel connected to the curriculum content or the classroom?