Venus (Jinxin) The key points Dr. Andy mention about today: 1. If teachers are not delivering knowledge anymore, what are we doing? In my opinion, the students do not have enough space to develop 2. Zero sum game--- 10+0 / 3+7/, the more space you can leave and encourage to develop, your students will be have more improvement. 3. If you are, engage in the activities, the same with your students. Facilitation --- assisting, help or direct, inquiry learning Scaffolding--- Encouraging thought processes 4. “Sage on the stage” is not an appropriate model in our times today. 5. 4 parts Curriculum reform--- Bias Equity pedagogy--- Climate, content. Equity has the high level than equality. Multicultural competence--- understanding the background of the students Teaching toward social justice--- 6. Multicultule---A firm cultural pluralism with culturally diverse and recognize the interdependent world. 7. Teach the kids what they want, do not worry about the cover of the whole book. ESL methodology. Language is only a media and is a carrier of the culture. The key point is that we can use it. 8. 1983 A nation at risk---a fail experiment on reading, listening and so on if you do not consider other culture things.
Applications 1. In my opinion, the teacher is who can reorganize the information what will we talking about and be a good model of processing lots of information and how to use it. That’s why we still need teacher today, even we can get the information by hand very conveniently, the teacher and any one is good at something could be our teacher and show us how to use something, how to solve the problems and how to deal with different people. 2. I always believe that life, especially the real life experiences could be the best teachers. In addition, we may meet many culture problems and meet different kinds of opinions on one thing. Just take our classroom for example, some students from western countries may was accustomed to a learning environment where students are continually encouraged to ask questions and discuss while new learning is going on. However, some students from eastern countries are maybe shy, however, in my opinion; most of them were been educated in the school expectations that students should be quietly attentive until the teacher’s presentation is over. If not, they may be considered as obnoxious and pushy by teachers and other peers especially. 3. Teach the kids what they want, do not worry about the cover of the whole book. ---Recently, I make this kind of mistakes. I tried to explain the whole three dialogues in one class and have no time to let them practice, which make to students feel tired and what is worse, they do not really know how to use these stuff. What I should do after this lesson is to make my teaching objective much more clearly for them and put more attention on the activities of using them and assessment on their level of understanding and comprehensive.
Today, we had a very interesting class on multicultural education. Many terms used in the class such as facilitating, scaffolding etc really caught my eye. However, there are were a lot of issues discussed in this context such as how to assess students if there are language barriers in such a diverse class. What I would like to add to that would be that its not imperative for every multi-cultured class to have language barriers. A good example could be that of a university in India like IIT, where its one of the most prestigious universities in the technology field in the world and my main focus here is to tell that it's really hard for an average student to get entrance into that university due to the tight screening process of applicants. Therefore, in such cases where the screening process in language and other technical areas is very tight, there I think a multicultured class might not have to face the language barrier. A few of my applications would be:
1)Relating to ethnocentrism, I think I should be able to express this to many people around especially around me I know a few people who are stereotyped with the fact that a person is well educated if he/she knows good english which is wrong. Even in a few universities in Thailand, there used to be a concept in the teacher's minds earlier in time that the foreigners would probably score better in their classes than the locals do. I'm glad however, that that concept is actually gradually diminishing.
2)Equity and equality, differences in them which I'm sure many people around don't realize that there is a difference between them. However, in many cases I think implementing equality is a bi more simpler than implementing equity. Sometimes, equity could also be seen as unfair in the perspectives of some students and teachers as well and that concept could also be linked to favoritism. However, if I do need to use the concept of equity pedagogy I should be able to clarify my intentions to the ones with doubts without any second thoughts.
3)Talking about interdependence, yes the world is at a point where everyone is more or less connected to each other. However too much of interdependence also has its drawbacks, such as it reduces the country's independence. Also if we're talking about simple trading of goods for example, then many a times the production of similar goods in the importer's country is discouraged which therefore reduces the job opportunities for a few jobless people. What my point is that if we're relating to education, then let's say if students in Thailand get good access to resources such as textbooks, journals etc from the US, and the teacher is supposed to teach from the book compiled in the US. Here, the parents send the students to an international university/school cause they want their children to be on par with the globalized world. However, while the teacher is teaching the content from that textbook I mentioned earlier, there would be many chances where the different theories taught cannot actually be practiced in Thailand. And since students don't complain about it, such a curriculum gets repeated every year. And students are more encouraged to know more about US for example than about Thailand. Also since anyways all the resources are available easily from the US market, this reduces the tendency for the Education department to actually get local textbooks in English published as it's much easier to get it from abroad. Just imagine, if the country had it's own books, it's own high standards for the curriculum in english not only in thai, then in terms of education the country's progress could have been substantial. That was just a small example, however the growth in education quality obviously do arise from many other factors as well.
Very good, in particular the point about being careful with texts from other countries with applications that may not match the local context. This is something we must be wary of as educators.
@ Laxshmi... I really liked your example of the unversity of IIT which has a tight screening process, i guess this shows us how we are actually getting into the globalized world and where language is not a barrier anymore.
Yesterday’s class was very interesting, and I really enjoyed the stories which Dr. Andy told us based on his experiences to illustrate some of the key issues or concepts of multicultural education. Multicultural education has four dimensions: curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice. As a teacher, I have been conscious about being equal and fair to all my students, but I have never thought of the difference between equality and equity in education before. Therefore, today’s discussion made me really think about the importance of equity in the classroom. Equity is different from equality in a way that equity meets need of students even if it does not give equal treatment to all the students. It also means giving equal opportunities to develop “the intellectual, social, and personal growth of all students to their highest potential.” I agree with Laxshmi’s comment on her reflection that equity might be seen as unfair and that some students might think the teacher has favoritisms toward a particular student. However, as she also commented, we, as teachers, need to be able to explain why we encourage educational equity and how important it is in the classroom.
3 applications 1) We need to change the level of support we give to each student depending on student’s level (scaffolding). For example, I teach Japanese to Japanese major students at university. Some students have already studied Japanese for 3years at high school, but others have never studied. For the first year students, there is a big gap between these 2 groups, but we have to teach them in the same class from the first year. Instead of expecting them to learn all the same, I think it is important to consider the difference and difficulty which some students might face and to give more support to meet their needs. 2) Peer teaching is also a good way to cope with students with different levels of abilities and therefore I think it encourages educational equity in the classroom. It lets students to help each other and advanced students can also benefit from it. My fellow teacher often use “peer response” in his Japanese academic writing class. Students are paired up and they correct mistakes and give advises to each other after writing a composition or essay in Japanese. 3) In order to promote educational equity in the class, we need to think about not only students’ ability but also students’ backgrounds, culture, and educational history. These things really influence their learning. When we have students from different cultures, we need to recognize their differences and adjust how we teach depending on each student’s need.
First of all, Welcome back Dr. Andy, it was great to see you after three weeks. Yesterday was a very interactive class and I really liked the concept of multiculture education and how important it is in this era. We also discussed alot about ethocentric education which is a contrast to the topic. There was another great discussion about language being a part of a culture. It is not in our hands to say which language or culture is better than the other but we sure can come up with one single language setting it as a standard and medium of communication with other people around the world. Another interesting topic was about the question asked to us in the beginning of the class "If we as teacher are not delivering knowledge anymore, than what are we doing?" Some of us came up with terms like facilitating and scaffolding. Which I feel is very important to have these as a characteristic for a teacher. Teachers are looked upon as people who help others through their process of education, and we should be able to guide them in the right way.
3 Applications:
1. Create an awareness about Ethocenticism: In my culture as an Indian, We do come across such behaviour and mind ste that what we are doing is the right way, but I would like to create an awareness that there is no right or worng, but we should provide the best that we can to our students, keeping in mind their cultural background.
2. Make one day as a Multicultural day where, students would dress and bring food or major distinguishing item in their culture to share with everyone.
3. Mutlicultural competence: Being a teacher I have to understand what are the major keypoints in different cultures, If I don't have the backgorund and I say something which might actually offened some students, as those things might not be appropreiate in their culture. I have to reform my lessons in a way which is appropreiate to all students and it also helps them in understanding it well.
Multicultural education is important issue, and it doesn’t matter whether we teach in international schools or bilingual schools; every teacher needs to be aware of multicultural education because our students come from different background. Sometimes when we talk about multicultural education, we focus too much on cultural differences and language barriers that we tend to forget many of our students, who speak the same language and live in the same country, are alienated in schools because they are confused between the expectations of the home, school, and their peers. Jimmy Miller’s case in the text book is the clear example of students speaking the same “language”, living in the same country, and experiencing the same “culture” but they feel out of place in our classrooms, because of the differences in the family background. Jimmy Miller is a Scotch-Irish immigrant so he is as white as many of his classmates in his school. Although he speaks English, he was punished for speaking in his dialect and not “talking right”. I’ve seen many of the students have same experiences like Jimmy Miller. Multicultural education will help teachers “to achieve the intellectual, social, and personal development of the students.” Applications:_ 1) Students must be dealt with on an individual level. We can’t expect equal outcomes from all the students regarding their achievement. We need to find out the reasons behind inequalities in students’ achievement, and we can adjust our schools, our subjects, and our understanding to create equity in education. We can also educate the parents to understanding that grades do not always reflect students’ learning. 2) Try to get to know the students and accommodate my instructions and assessments as much as possible to meet their needs. 3) Be a role model to the students that we need to embrace everyone regardless of differences in our racial, sexual, social-economical, or religious background.
Yesterday's class (07/07/10) was extremely interesting. We talked about multicultural education and its importance.
My 2 cents :)
I personally love the concept of multicultural education and I do agree with it. I believe that all the kids should be given equal opportunity to develop to their full potential. No matter where the children come from, no matter what their background is - they should all be given the same opportunity.
But...in my opinion it is difficult to implement and I think it will take quite a long time before we can see some changes. Mentality of administrators, parents and teachers need to change. Multicultural schools / classes are a great idea but teaching in such environment (students from different backgrounds, with different abilities in one class) is really challenging. Time a teacher gets to teach his / her subject is limited yet the content needs to be covered. With a multicultural class this time will have to be divided between students who are good and those who struggle with the subject.
I have nothing against such classes (multicultural) but then the curriculum needs to change content-wise as well. If we ask teachers to teach in such a diverse environment we can't expect them to cover the same amount of content they could cover before. Another thing we need to consider is finances - the size of classes needs to be reduced so a teacher has less students and can give each of them more attention.
Applications: 1. As an administrator I should allow students of different abilities and background in one class but I should make sure the number of students is less so teachers have more time to give to each individual. 2. As an administrator/teacher I should explain to the parents the importance of multicultural education. I should explain why all the students can benefits from being in a multicultural classroom. 3. As a teacher I need to make sure I help each and every student regardless of their background and abilities.
I thought some of you might find it interesting: International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (IJTLHE) URL: http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/index.cfm
@jinxin I do agree with your 3rd application but it does not work for all the subjects. When teaching subject such as Maths you have not much choice but to cover as much of the curriculum as possible. You can't forget about the students and their abilities but many times you will find yourself having to move on even though there are still quite a few students who do not understand the topic.
Reflection #5 Yesterday we talked about multicultural education, particularly ethnocentrism and its effects on education. I do sincerely believe that it’s an uphill task teachers are up against because culture is such a complex issue. We may be able to get people to know about other cultures and perhaps even get them to understand and accept the other cultures but it is almost practically impossible to level the cultural play ground for education purposes, especially where language is involved. As mentioned in class, the teachers may be successful in terms of equality but equity will remain an elusive dream to chase. The most interesting part yesterday was review session of the previous weeks. I liked the “sage on the stage” analogy, this is something Thai learners have a big problem with, they believe a teacher is a- know -it -all being and must provide all the answers. Applications 1. As a teacher in Thailand, I should be able to understand the Thai culture in order to effectively deliver. 2. Will endeavour to have my students understand that teachers have moved away from by being providers of knowledge to being facilitators. 3. Will encourage my students to go out there and search for information by themselves and not to depend on me as their sole source of information
Hi there everyone...It was nice seeing Dr. Andy again! and not only that, the discussion about multicultural education brought us unaware of so many things."If we as educators are not delivering knowledge to our students anymore, then, what are we doing?". I raised my hand and said," we act as facilitators'. In my mind, it similar to what Mr. Andy is doing in our class, he facilitates, assists and equipt us with the knowledge, he asks us questions, even doing some 'scaffolding'(changing the level of support),in the sense that, he adjusts the amount of guidance to fit his student's current performance in the class. Actually, this is my first time to experience to be with people having different nationalities,even having a 'falang' teacher and it's very interesting that you come to learn so many things from them, culture, values, etc. but to sum up, in the classroom, we try to connect with one another. I guess, the same thing in an International School, where teachers build interdependence among their students. I think that this is very critical to some political countries, that sometimes they forget about the connection of all of these things in EDUCATION, as teachers, it is very important that we see the impact of what we're doing in the classroom. We should be able to look at the ethnic group that we're assigned to teach. I think, if we would be open to this, then, education in a multicultural setting would be a successful one.
Thanks and see you next week. I want to watch the suggested videos and maybe write some comments about it later.
Welcome back Dr. Andy ! Great discourse on Wednesday night, however I particularly liked the parts on multiculturalism such as equity vs. equality, the anecdotes on your own experiences in teaching Mexican students and the different student case scenarios in the handout.
Some of the applications of the above that I will use in the future are:
1) Help promote cultural awareness in the classroom by generating interest in the different cultural backgrounds of students via multicultural activities.
2) As an educational administrator, provide extra support and guidance for teachers who are not familiar with multicultural classrooms and teaching styles.
3) Evaluate my own actions and decisions in the light of multiculturalism and improve administrative processes in my school to avoid falling into the trap of ethnocentrism.
Wow, this just gets better and better, doesn't it! I really appreciate the way you are sharing and commenting on each other's work, as well as the high quality thought processes evident. Some of you point out the challenges of muticultural education and circumstances in which it may not apply or may not work or content restrictions will hamper the effort. I welcome bringing forward these challenges as well; and feel that by giving our differences airtime, we can better understand and work with each other. Consensus, if it stifles valid counter arguments, is not always a good thing. I also would like to thank those of you who have taken the time to find and make some additional resources available here. See you in class, Best Wishes, Andy
Further to my comment about dissension and differences. I have just finished reading "The War Within" a book by Bob Woodward about the last years of the Bush administration. For historical perspective, in the last portion of the book, Woodward, interviewed Robert S. McNamarra, who was the Secretary of Defense for President Johnson during the last phase of the Vietnam war. McNamarra, now in his 90's, discussed how he had come to disagree with the war, and felt that the terrible loss of life was not worth it, given the foreign policy goals of the US at the time, and that the US should have gotten out much earlier. But he said, out of loyalty to President Johnson, he kept quiet. He now says he realizes he did a disservice to Johnson, the Amercian people, and the world. Had he and others voiced their concerns, thousands, perhaps a million or more, lives may have been saved. So, repeating myself: Consensus, if it stifles valid counter arguments, is not always a good thing.
In my opinion, lesson of week six;multicultural education, was a great challenge for the education system of the whole world because there is impossible to have only one culture in a school because of human rights. Therefore, curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice become the need for the school. The school has to become cultural pluralism.
Application,
1) As for principal or administrators, they have to think about curriculum for multiculture and othres things in the school.
2)As for teachers, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice are very need for them in the teaching area.
3)As for students, they have to know the value of different culture because they have to study not only from the school but also from the world.
The topic Multicultural Education which we discussed on Wednesday night is very fanstastic and significantly important to the schools where many ethnic diversities are attended in modern education era. Multiculturalism is the critical problem that many schools,especially international schools, are confronting currently. In order to manipulate this heated problem, initially we must know vividly the meaning and goal of multicultural education. Multicultral education is focused on visions of all humans being to live in greater harmony with each other and with the environment systematically. The pivotal purpose of multicultral education is to annihilate the racism and other isms and to promote the opportunity of the ethnic minority as well as socioeconomic disvantaged students. The following are my applications to tackle with the problem of Multicultralism. 1. we must require a level of frankness in order to get good relationship. 2. we must accept respect for human dignity and universal human rights as a fundamental value. 3. we must be able to consider alternative viewpoints ( our own as well as those of others).
I was really looking forward to this class on multicultural education as I feel it is a highly debatable topic and one of most teachers’ concerns. I found several things important in this class: for some I have a different point of view, others I agree with and lastly for my application I would like my fellow students to try this activity in their classroom. Equity in the classroom has made me realize that we do treat our students based more on equity than equality. This is simply because we know our students are different in terms of personality, capability and development. We can’t treat them all the same all the time; we need to nurture them according to their needs. Regarding what you said about George Bush and his speech “America is the best country”. I agree with you that he is ethnocentric but this term ‘the best’ is used quite often and it does not necessarily have to be on an ethnocentric basis. Using the term ‘the best’ to describe a country in my point of view is simply to inflict a sense of pride in its people. I agree with what you said but if I had heard that statement from him or even from the king of Thailand I would not have thought of it in an ethnocentric way. I think this is because of the culture here. In Thailand, there are people of different cultures who live and work together in harmony. There might be conflicts and problems but at end they respect each other. So, to say ‘Thailand is the best country’ would simply be to enforce a sense of love and pride in oneself towards their nation and people. Or maybe I’m just naïve. However, on the other hand, racism is clearly a part of the Thai society. Thais are more partial towards foreigners and look down upon their own people. This racism is passed on from parents to children. Even young children have strong opinions about people of different races. I have tried the following activity with grade 2 and grade 4 students and have seen surprising results. I would like to share this activity with everyone as a means of changing their opinions and forcing our children to think for themselves before they judge others based on their skin color.
1.List down 5 random countries; try to select those where we can see a great difference in races. Try to pick countries which the students in the class do not belong to. For example: Switzerland, Japan, Laos, Nigeria, America, India and Vietnam.
2.Ask students to describe the people from those countries. Accept all answers both positive and negative and state them on the board. Do not react towards any kind of feedback. Once it has been done for all countries, you will surely see a more positive reaction towards countries like Switzerland, Japan and America and a negative reaction towards countries like Laos, Nigeria, India and Vietnam.
3.Ask students if they agree to things mention on the board. Go one country at a time and ask them to explain why they think so. Most of their explanations will be based on what was told to them or what they experience at one time. At this point ask them ask them if it was fair to judge a whole country if they only visited it for a few days or met a few people. Provide them a direct example by saying if an American walks into the school and sees the children eating spaghetti that mean the whole of American should believe that every single person in Thailand eats spaghetti. This is merely to point out the fact that one cannot judge an entire country based on one or few people of that country. Ask the students to think for themselves and not to judge people by their color or nationality and to believe in what they see for themselves and not form opinions based on what has been told to them.
Welcome Back Dr.Andy! This week's multicultural class was very interactive and i personally feel like i learned a lot of new terms like the 'zero sum game' and 'sage on the stage'. Teacher's role today play a very different role from the past, we no longer delivery knowledge and spoon feed. The roles are moving to giving guidance and facilitating. Another interesting topic that was brought up in class was Vygotsky's Scaffloding and the importance of peer learning. Teacher's should always be adaptive to change in order to keep up with the globalized world.
Application: - Recognizing the importance of learning. As a teacher we should always encourage our students to keep learning without us formally delivering the knowledge. - I would encourage my students with different background to share either culture with each other, so that they would be the minimal discrimination. As a teacher i would not be bias with any student no matter what their ethnic group might be. This way students would take teacher's as a role model and follow. - Scaffloding technique such as the use of language and play should be added to their cirriculum and dialy classroom activities.
As Dr. Andy mentioned in a part of his lecturing on Wednesday, now we are leaving in a globalized world in which all the actions taken are interacting with each other and having consequences in the future of the others.And as an example to this he mentioned about the approach of Thaksin that although he was saying that he was really sorry for the loss of lives in Burma due to the political issues, he was still giving support to the army economically which leads to this chaos. So we must be aware of the consequences of our actions and behaviors if we really want to keep living peacefully and in a better life quality on the only Earth that we have.
So as a science teacher I want my students to be aware of the consequences of their actions and behaviors on Earth.
1)Plan a trip to one of the polluted beaches of Thailand and get students to realize the bad effects of littering carelessly.(As bad smell and dirty environment) 2)Assign a homework to the students to search the unwanted effects of using Fossil fuels in energy production. 3)Arrange a discussion with my classes about the alternative energy sources that can be used with a less damage on Earth.
Neet, sharing cultural traditions amongst students is a great way to enhance mutual understanding in a diverse class. Maxidex, what about helping with a beach cleanup provided safety precautions are taken fot the students?
We talked about Multicultural Education in four dimensions; curriculum reform, teaching toward social justice, equity pedagogy and multicultural competence. We mainly discussed the issues of ethnocentrism and equity versus equality. I got precious knowledge from this discussion. In Myanmar, there are many different major and minor ethnic groups, so that I must practice and know which hypotheses to apply in practice with no bias, discrimination, and prejudice. - Teachers must strengthen critical thinking in each ethnic background culture and direct student compared with global education. - Teachers must have awareness of the diversity of societies in which students live and make clearly understand of equity and equality to help effectively students. Since I was in high school, I had encountered with racism in peer. I felt under-motivated and my grades were terrible. Hence, I, as a future teacher, need to identify each race culture in individual, in order to balance in learning and students must be fully motivated by both teachers and peer. - For me, attitude is the most important thing in a teacher. The students will response what kind of my attitude on them. I mean the issue is love, not performance. Teachers teach or direct student from the bottom of heart, so there will be no bias, sexism, prejudice, etc. Thanks.
It's true, Ms. Hnin, as you point out, that your attitude will always show through. Dr. Covey stated this very well when he said, "who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you are saying."
First,I was nice seeing Dr.Andy again.And the discussion about multicultural education.I believe that school is purpose built and represents a modern vision of how education should be delivered to all students in equity.Somehow I like Dr.Andy asked the question that If teacher are not delivering knowledge anymore,what are doing? educators should assists,direct and inquiry learning or using scoffolding( help the level support)to students.They will be facilitator.Not only these things to develop education,but the most significant is understanding concepts of multiculturalism.We can use curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, Multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice.
Applications:
1. It is important that students need to share their individual culture with community of multicultural students.Students may learn about another country through activities, food, poem, song, dance and history.
2.To provide special course in multicutural education for teacher who is not familiar with his or her environment or it might set up this program in inset day ( first semester of each year in meeting )
3.last one, it's for myself. I aware that we must consider culture from each other country. I should have more tolerant and accepting of different from their background also. It can helps to produce less conflict when meet with cultural differences.
Last week class room discussion was very interesting to me. The subjects were similar to our class room environment as our class consists of students from different countries. Topics like the “zero sum game” and “sage on the stage” were really interesting . Another part including discussions on curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, and multicultural competences were very informative. Multicultural education is actually related to the classroom where different culture and races are represented. Consensus building, respect and fostering culture pluralism with racial society are important consideration for a teacher. As teacher or a school administrator we have to be aware of multicultural educational environment to help students learn and live in a multicultural society. Culture and culture diversity are also most important to teacher because they influence student’s lives.
Here are some applications which we can involve in our teaching.
1. School Administrator have to arrange and train teacher on “Multicultural Education for teacher” to motivate teacher to understand their students and involve all of them in learning. This type of programme helps teachers to recognize, accept and affirm cultural diversity.
2. As a teacher we have to understand and be aware of student’s culture, we have to recognize each student from which background they come from and have to acknowledge and respect their culture. We have to talk about their culture while teaching the subject like social studies and provide them the environment for them to open up and talk about their culture. This way all students can feel that they are part of the class and participate more in the classroom activities.
3. Highlighting importance and value of different languages is very important in a multicultural setting. Language itself has a deep root in their culture. We have to support various languages the students speak for example in primary classes we can let them sing the nursery rhyme in their own language. We may have to give more support to the English language learning classes as well. We have to guide the students personally and even if it needs repetition many time till all students understand clearly.
With these applications we can enhance the student leanings.
Some facts what I have observed from week six are four multicultural education approaches-curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence,and teaching toward social justice. In the previous part,Dr.Andy's examples were very apparent to see the difference between equity and equality. Moreover, culture pluralism, culture diverse or difference, and independent word, which I have observed also in that day class, created my new scenes in order to consider and recognize my particular environment. Applications: First, As a teacher, knowing the multicultural education approaches apparently is one of the most important to assist the teachers in education field and society handling the multicultural class, as well as the different assumptions among not only our students but our neighbors also and to encourage the learners effectively, on the other hand.
Secondly, it is the point to be in harmony with our particular situations by respecting others' culture or beliefs, because we come from different countries and even the same country, different background.
In the future, finally, these approaches will help me to be a better educator in a school or in an organization.
"Week six discussion" brought a lot of ideas that mainly on the question "Why is multicultural education essential today?" The answer is clear enough as a student said to look the e.g of our ed6007 Educatinal Foundation, Wednesday class because in the next 5 or 10 or 50 years, there will be the rates of the class like the above completely increased in all the countries in the world. Here I would like to apply; -as an admistrator,there should be cleared the case like Jesus Martinez on pages 8-9 before let him enrolls the class. -as a teacher,he/she should be aware the class backgroud before transfering his/her methods. -to be a teacher or administrator in any type of school and any time is hard but not impossible.
Reflection: Dr.Andy talked about zero sum games that we have to find the suit space to develop students.Dr.Andy gave a question that if teacher are not delivering knowledge anymore , what are we doing? In my opinion, teacher has to delivering the experiences to students how to survive in our world. Nowadays,sage on the stage is not an appropriate model in our times today. And we talked about three themes of multiculture education :Cultural Pluralism, Culturally diverse and Interdepentdent world. Thus, Dr.Andy talked about Ethnocentric - national or race 4 parts
- curriculum reform -bias
- Equity pedagogy(how we educate) - climate(fairness in class) + content
- Multicultural competence(level of understang culture)
- Teaching toward social justice
Three applications 1. I will focus on the multicultural students that I will treat them in equally. 2. I will try to understand each culture that can help me to teach students in the right way and I will know the reason why different students have different behavior. 3. I will try to get along well with every students whoever they are I will understand them.
Thanks everyone for your contribution to our class blog. I agree with Dr. Andy that our reflections and comments are getting better and better. Not able to be present in class physically but are able to read your reflections is as if I am there in class especially the week 6 reflection. Thanks for helping me keeping up with our class discussion. I treasure it dearly. Sr. Rose
Reading the multicultural materials, week six reflections, and video clips that Dr. Andy suggested (Stand and Deliver and Freedom Writer), it brings back memory of my own. I was once a student in a multicultural school environment where African, Caucasian, and Vietnamese studying together. Similarly to the movie, "Freedom Writer", each had their own group. I was just starting to learn English at the time. An elementary African American teacher whom I always respect,remember, and grateful, Ms Linda. She is a very dedicated teacher who always caring, listening, and interesting in our backgrounds and using every teachable moments to teach us. She is my first teacher who believe in me and help me to believe in myself. If you have not seen "Freedom and Writer", I recommend that everyone should watch. It's such a powerful movie and a good tool to introduce to students about ethnocentrism and multicultural education. Applications: 1. Journaling could be a powerful tool to help me better understand my students --give my students opportunity to write their thoughts, feelings, or asking questions in their journals. Give my shy students that don't feel like asking question in front of everyone a chance to express themselves.
2. An insight that I got from the "Freedom and Writer" is that the value of a dedicated teacher is the one who care about whom they teach, try to understand the backgrounds of my students and their stories. --I can do this by keeping a close contact with parents, previous teachers, and their classmates. 3. Teaching in an International School or Bilingual school is also like having a multicultural class. Students came from different ethnic and backgrounds and families. Therefore, I need to always have high expectations for each individual regardless of their ethnicity. Everyone should have an equal chance. Not only for ourselves but also for students to be aware of each other difference in backgrounds and cultures, religion, and learn how to respect differences.
Last week's discussion on the case for multicultural education was meaty for me. There were alot of interesting stories that came out of it and alot of good points as well. Like some of my fellow students, I particularly liked the story of the Mexican student that got into Dr.Andy's face all the time. It was interesting for me to see how Dr. Andy utilized his understanding of the culture to manage the class.
Having said that, I think that multicultural education is important - even if one doesn't think it is relevant in his context. I think that it is important to teach our students understanding of another culture and for us as teacher's to understand our student's culture. My application are as follows:
1) I teach in a fully Japanese kindergarten. We celebrate Japanese festivals every year but we also celebrate western festivals like Halloween, Christmas and Easter. Next year we plan to have a day where we celebrate Filipino culture as well. Then in the followsing year we plan to hightlight another country's culture and so on in the following years. I think it is important to teach the children to be aware that there are other cultures out there as well.
2)As a teacher to Japanese students I should take steps to understanding Japanese culture more. My fellow teacher's do help me already but if I can further my understanding on my own (via books, documentaries, articles... etc), it would lead me to a better understanding of my students.
3) Lastly, I would like to touch on something that was said earlier in class. While we were discussing how the "sage on the stage" model was not relevant to education anymore, we mentioned something about giving space for students to develop. In other words room for failure so that we can help them develop. I never thought of associating the word "failure" with education before, but I've come to realize that we as humans learn from making mistakes. Furthermore, I find that it is true that knowledge is so much more accesible nowadays that we cannot be that "sage on the stage". However at kindergarten level this may not be the case. I think that children in that level need more direction and teacher's need to be more like a parent.
For me, I teach, ESL to Japanese Kindergarteners. This means that I really have to guide them in the writing and reading. I also need to give them room to try it out for themselves so that they can develop it. What I do with my lead teacher is we give them worksheets, play games with them, and work one on one with them in their reading and writing. We allow them to make mistakes and then work to help and support each one.
We have learned a lot about the multicultural education and also the role of teachers in this information era. Teaching with direct instruction is not an appropriate teaching model in our time. As you said that struggling is one of the best way to learn even though this is very hard way sometimes but students can gain the knowledge more. actually our class is already multicultural classroom. There are students from different countries with different culture and many differences but we learn together, work together as a group and learn from each other. 1. when we teach the students we should use combination of direct and indirect instruction to make the students in active learning rather than passive learning and also they should have hands on activity so that they can involve in it and will never forget waht they have done. 2. As a teacher, we should understand about the background and culture of students so that it make us easy to handle some kind of difficult situation inside the classroom such as students' behavior, attitude etc. 3. We have to use the different kinds of teaching method to reach all the students in different levels to support their needs.
Language is a carrier of culture. This is really true and something that really registered in my mind as I reflected on Wednesday’s class. I had the opportunity to grow up in a Multilanguage country (Malaysia) where I need to learn at least 3 major languages (English, Malay and Chinese) in Elementary School and Secondary School. In addition, we speak dialects at home with our parents and grandparents too. Malaysia is truly a multicultural country as we are formed of 3 major races (Malay, Chinese and Indians) and 10 other races. I was educated as a child that respecting other’s culture is so important that all races can live peacefully and harmoniously under one roof. I understand more about other cultures while learning their languages. It is sometimes not easy to do that due to the diversity and differences of values taught in different culture. However, when we try to stand in other’s people shoes and understand their cultural practices, it is not difficult to recognize that all cultures originated from one root, which is to shape an individual to be a better person as well as appreciating life.
As the world is moving towards the direction of global village, it is essential for “villagers” in this global village to realize, recognize and respect the diversity of culture in all ethnics groups. Multicultural awareness is then becoming a significant subject to be taught in family, school and community. I learned to respect others’ culture at a young age because of the environment that I was living. I learned from my parents, teachers and adults in the neighborhood as how they were respecting and recognizing others’ culture practices. In my opinion, we, as adults (whether is teacher, parents, auntie, uncle, cousin and etc…) should be a good example to the children as Children See, Children Do.
Therefore, my application for this week will be:
(1) Create a learning environment to encourage multicultural awareness in the classroom. For example, having culture day where students to presents something interesting about their culture, bringing some local delicacy as well as organizing cultural activities such as dance, songs and games.
(2) Encourage students to find a pen pal from other countries and try to foster an international friendship from there. Students are able to practice their writing, reading skills and creativity too.
(3) I love to learn new languages. Therefore I will try to devote some spare time to learn to speak, read and write Thai as I am now living in this land and I really want to be able to understand more about this place through watching the TV programs, reading their books and listening to their songs.
This week, I learn that "Sage on the stage " is not appropriate model in our time.In Malticultural Education, there are 4 parts 1.Curriculum Reform,2. Equity Pedagogy,3.Multicultural Competence and 4. Teaching towards social justice. If teacher is "sage on the stage" person it's hard to change, hard to reform. We need to understand student's cultural and background. Moreover, language is a carrier of culture. Applications 1. As a teacher, we try to know each student's background and understand culture.That can help me to teach students in the right way. 2.Try to find student's need in their learning and give help in term of students need. K. Hkawn San Mai
I'm very happy to see Dr.Andy again,I'm very intereseted in your class.this class we have talk about multicalture education ,there are four dimensions of multiculture teaching that are curriculum reform,equity pedagogy,multiculture competence and teaching toward social justice.In this class,I like the equity and quility issue.at first ,i can't understand what's the different of these and what is real equity.I think it's very useful for teacher to teach right way.
application: 1)make sure the ability level of the students and find what is their weakness.
2)use different way to help the students find their confidence and develop their potential.
45 comments:
Venus (Jinxin)
The key points Dr. Andy mention about today:
1. If teachers are not delivering knowledge anymore, what are we doing?
In my opinion, the students do not have enough space to develop
2. Zero sum game--- 10+0 / 3+7/, the more space you can leave and encourage to develop, your students will be have more improvement.
3. If you are, engage in the activities, the same with your students.
Facilitation --- assisting, help or direct, inquiry learning
Scaffolding---
Encouraging thought processes
4. “Sage on the stage” is not an appropriate model in our times today.
5. 4 parts
Curriculum reform--- Bias
Equity pedagogy--- Climate, content. Equity has the high level than equality.
Multicultural competence--- understanding the background of the students
Teaching toward social justice---
6. Multicultule---A firm cultural pluralism with culturally diverse and recognize the interdependent world.
7. Teach the kids what they want, do not worry about the cover of the whole book.
ESL methodology. Language is only a media and is a carrier of the culture. The key point is that we can use it.
8. 1983 A nation at risk---a fail experiment on reading, listening and so on if you do not consider other culture things.
Applications
1. In my opinion, the teacher is who can reorganize the information what will we talking about and be a good model of processing lots of information and how to use it. That’s why we still need teacher today, even we can get the information by hand very conveniently, the teacher and any one is good at something could be our teacher and show us how to use something, how to solve the problems and how to deal with different people.
2. I always believe that life, especially the real life experiences could be the best teachers. In addition, we may meet many culture problems and meet different kinds of opinions on one thing. Just take our classroom for example, some students from western countries may was accustomed to a learning environment where students are continually encouraged to ask questions and discuss while new learning is going on. However, some students from eastern countries are maybe shy, however, in my opinion; most of them were been educated in the school expectations that students should be quietly attentive until the teacher’s presentation is over. If not, they may be considered as obnoxious and pushy by teachers and other peers especially.
3. Teach the kids what they want, do not worry about the cover of the whole book. ---Recently, I make this kind of mistakes. I tried to explain the whole three dialogues in one class and have no time to let them practice, which make to students feel tired and what is worse, they do not really know how to use these stuff. What I should do after this lesson is to make my teaching objective much more clearly for them and put more attention on the activities of using them and assessment on their level of understanding and comprehensive.
Good overview: Well done, with a very valuable point about processing time for students in the third application.
Today, we had a very interesting class on multicultural education. Many terms used in the class such as facilitating, scaffolding etc really caught my eye. However, there are were a lot of issues discussed in this context such as how to assess students if there are language barriers in such a diverse class. What I would like to add to that would be that its not imperative for every multi-cultured class to have language barriers. A good example could be that of a university in India like IIT, where its one of the most prestigious universities in the technology field in the world and my main focus here is to tell that it's really hard for an average student to get entrance into that university due to the tight screening process of applicants. Therefore, in such cases where the screening process in language and other technical areas is very tight, there I think a multicultured class might not have to face the language barrier. A few of my applications would be:
1)Relating to ethnocentrism, I think I should be able to express this to many people around especially around me I know a few people who are stereotyped with the fact that a person is well educated if he/she knows good english which is wrong. Even in a few universities in Thailand, there used to be a concept in the teacher's minds earlier in time that the foreigners would probably score better in their classes than the locals do. I'm glad however, that that concept is actually gradually diminishing.
2)Equity and equality, differences in them which I'm sure many people around don't realize that there is a difference between them. However, in many cases I think implementing equality is a bi more simpler than implementing equity. Sometimes, equity could also be seen as unfair in the perspectives of some students and teachers as well and that concept could also be linked to favoritism. However, if I do need to use the concept of equity pedagogy I should be able to clarify my intentions to the ones with doubts without any second thoughts.
3)Talking about interdependence, yes the world is at a point where everyone is more or less connected to each other. However too much of interdependence also has its drawbacks, such as it reduces the country's independence. Also if we're talking about simple trading of goods for example, then many a times the production of similar goods in the importer's country is discouraged which therefore reduces the job opportunities for a few jobless people. What my point is that if we're relating to education, then let's say if students in Thailand get good access to resources such as textbooks, journals etc from the US, and the teacher is supposed to teach from the book compiled in the US. Here, the parents send the students to an international university/school cause they want their children to be on par with the globalized world. However, while the teacher is teaching the content from that textbook I mentioned earlier, there would be many chances where the different theories taught cannot actually be practiced in Thailand. And since students don't complain about it, such a curriculum gets repeated every year. And students are more encouraged to know more about US for example than about Thailand. Also since anyways all the resources are available easily from the US market, this reduces the tendency for the Education department to actually get local textbooks in English published as it's much easier to get it from abroad. Just imagine, if the country had it's own books, it's own high standards for the curriculum in english not only in thai, then in terms of education the country's progress could have been substantial. That was just a small example, however the growth in education quality obviously do arise from many other factors as well.
-Laxshmi S.
Very good, in particular the point about being careful with texts from other countries with applications that may not match the local context. This is something we must be wary of as educators.
@ Laxshmi...
I really liked your example of the unversity of IIT which has a tight screening process, i guess this shows us how we are actually getting into the globalized world and where language is not a barrier anymore.
Yesterday’s class was very interesting, and I really enjoyed the stories which Dr. Andy told us based on his experiences to illustrate some of the key issues or concepts of multicultural education. Multicultural education has four dimensions: curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice. As a teacher, I have been conscious about being equal and fair to all my students, but I have never thought of the difference between equality and equity in education before. Therefore, today’s discussion made me really think about the importance of equity in the classroom. Equity is different from equality in a way that equity meets need of students even if it does not give equal treatment to all the students. It also means giving equal opportunities to develop “the intellectual, social, and personal growth of all students to their highest potential.” I agree with Laxshmi’s comment on her reflection that equity might be seen as unfair and that some students might think the teacher has favoritisms toward a particular student. However, as she also commented, we, as teachers, need to be able to explain why we encourage educational equity and how important it is in the classroom.
3 applications
1) We need to change the level of support we give to each student depending on student’s level (scaffolding). For example, I teach Japanese to Japanese major students at university. Some students have already studied Japanese for 3years at high school, but others have never studied. For the first year students, there is a big gap between these 2 groups, but we have to teach them in the same class from the first year. Instead of expecting them to learn all the same, I think it is important to consider the difference and difficulty which some students might face and to give more support to meet their needs.
2) Peer teaching is also a good way to cope with students with different levels of abilities and therefore I think it encourages educational equity in the classroom. It lets students to help each other and advanced students can also benefit from it. My fellow teacher often use “peer response” in his Japanese academic writing class. Students are paired up and they correct mistakes and give advises to each other after writing a composition or essay in Japanese.
3) In order to promote educational equity in the class, we need to think about not only students’ ability but also students’ backgrounds, culture, and educational history. These things really influence their learning. When we have students from different cultures, we need to recognize their differences and adjust how we teach depending on each student’s need.
Thank you!
Chie Katsuda
Reflection # 6
First of all, Welcome back Dr. Andy, it was great to see you after three weeks.
Yesterday was a very interactive class and I really liked the concept of multiculture education and how important it is in this era. We also discussed alot about ethocentric education which is a contrast to the topic. There was another great discussion about language being a part of a culture. It is not in our hands to say which language or culture is better than the other but we sure can come up with one single language setting it as a standard and medium of communication with other people around the world.
Another interesting topic was about the question asked to us in the beginning of the class "If we as teacher are not delivering knowledge anymore, than what are we doing?" Some of us came up with terms like facilitating and scaffolding. Which I feel is very important to have these as a characteristic for a teacher. Teachers are looked upon as people who help others through their process of education, and we should be able to guide them in the right way.
3 Applications:
1. Create an awareness about Ethocenticism: In my culture as an Indian, We do come across such behaviour and mind ste that what we are doing is the right way, but I would like to create an awareness that there is no right or worng, but we should provide the best that we can to our students, keeping in mind their cultural background.
2. Make one day as a Multicultural day where, students would dress and bring food or major distinguishing item in their culture to share with everyone.
3. Mutlicultural competence: Being a teacher I have to understand what are the major keypoints in different cultures, If I don't have the backgorund and I say something which might actually offened some students, as those things might not be appropreiate in their culture. I have to reform my lessons in a way which is appropreiate to all students and it also helps them in understanding it well.
Manpreet.
Multicultural education is important issue, and it doesn’t matter whether we teach in international schools or bilingual schools; every teacher needs to be aware of multicultural education because our students come from different background. Sometimes when we talk about multicultural education, we focus too much on cultural differences and language barriers that we tend to forget many of our students, who speak the same language and live in the same country, are alienated in schools because they are confused between the expectations of the home, school, and their peers. Jimmy Miller’s case in the text book is the clear example of students speaking the same “language”, living in the same country, and experiencing the same “culture” but they feel out of place in our classrooms, because of the differences in the family background. Jimmy Miller is a Scotch-Irish immigrant so he is as white as many of his classmates in his school. Although he speaks English, he was punished for speaking in his dialect and not “talking right”. I’ve seen many of the students have same experiences like Jimmy Miller. Multicultural education will help teachers “to achieve the intellectual, social, and personal development of the students.”
Applications:_
1) Students must be dealt with on an individual level. We can’t expect equal outcomes from all the students regarding their achievement. We need to find out the reasons behind inequalities in students’ achievement, and we can adjust our schools, our subjects, and our understanding to create equity in education. We can also educate the parents to understanding that grades do not always reflect students’ learning.
2) Try to get to know the students and accommodate my instructions and assessments as much as possible to meet their needs.
3) Be a role model to the students that we need to embrace everyone regardless of differences in our racial, sexual, social-economical, or religious background.
Zarni Lwin
Yesterday's class (07/07/10) was extremely interesting. We talked about multicultural education and its importance.
My 2 cents :)
I personally love the concept of multicultural education and I do agree with it. I believe that all the kids should be given equal opportunity to develop to their full potential. No matter where the children come from, no matter what their background is - they should all be given the same opportunity.
But...in my opinion it is difficult to implement and I think it will take quite a long time before we can see some changes. Mentality of administrators, parents and teachers need to change. Multicultural schools / classes are a great idea but teaching in such environment (students from different backgrounds, with different abilities in one class) is really challenging. Time a teacher gets to teach his / her subject is limited yet the content needs to be covered. With a multicultural class this time will have to be divided between students who are good and those who struggle with the subject.
I have nothing against such classes (multicultural) but then the curriculum needs to change content-wise as well. If we ask teachers to teach in such a diverse environment we can't expect them to cover the same amount of content they could cover before. Another thing we need to consider is finances - the size of classes needs to be reduced so a teacher has less students and can give each of them more attention.
Applications:
1. As an administrator I should allow students of different abilities and background in one class but I should make sure the number of students is less so teachers have more time to give to each individual.
2. As an administrator/teacher I should explain to the parents the importance of multicultural education. I should explain why all the students can benefits from being in a multicultural classroom.
3. As a teacher I need to make sure I help each and every student regardless of their background and abilities.
Thank you,
Marcin Kempka
I thought some of you might find it interesting:
International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (IJTLHE)
URL:
http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/index.cfm
@jinxin
I do agree with your 3rd application but it does not work for all the subjects. When teaching subject such as Maths you have not much choice but to cover as much of the curriculum as possible. You can't forget about the students and their abilities but many times you will find yourself having to move on even though there are still quite a few students who do not understand the topic.
Reflection #5
Yesterday we talked about multicultural education, particularly ethnocentrism and its effects on education. I do sincerely believe that it’s an uphill task teachers are up against because culture is such a complex issue. We may be able to get people to know about other cultures and perhaps even get them to understand and accept the other cultures but it is almost practically impossible to level the cultural play ground for education purposes, especially where language is involved. As mentioned in class, the teachers may be successful in terms of equality but equity will remain an elusive dream to chase.
The most interesting part yesterday was review session of the previous weeks. I liked the “sage on the stage” analogy, this is something Thai learners have a big problem with, they believe a teacher is a- know -it -all being and must provide all the answers.
Applications
1. As a teacher in Thailand, I should be able to understand the Thai culture in order to effectively deliver.
2. Will endeavour to have my students understand that teachers have moved away from by being providers of knowledge to being facilitators.
3. Will encourage my students to go out there and search for information by themselves and not to depend on me as their sole source of information
Hi there everyone...It was nice seeing Dr. Andy again! and not only that, the discussion about multicultural education brought us unaware of so many things."If we as educators are not delivering knowledge to our students anymore, then, what are we doing?". I raised my hand and said," we act as facilitators'. In my mind, it similar to what Mr. Andy is doing in our class, he facilitates, assists and equipt us with the knowledge, he asks us questions, even doing some 'scaffolding'(changing the level of support),in the sense that, he adjusts the amount of guidance to fit his student's current performance in the class. Actually, this is my first time to experience to be with people having different nationalities,even having a 'falang' teacher and it's very interesting that you come to learn so many things from them, culture, values, etc. but to sum up, in the classroom, we try to connect with one another. I guess, the same thing in an International School, where teachers build interdependence among their students. I think that this is very critical to some political countries, that sometimes they forget about the connection of all of these things in EDUCATION, as teachers, it is very important that we see the impact of what we're doing in the classroom. We should be able to look at the ethnic group that we're assigned to teach. I think, if we would be open to this, then, education in a multicultural setting would be a successful one.
Thanks and see you next week. I want to watch the suggested videos and maybe write some comments about it later.
(Very interesting!)
Critical Issue: Educating Teachers for Diversity
(Audio file available/Text transcript)
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/presrvce/pe300.htm
Thanks,
Ms. Evangeline
Welcome back Dr. Andy ! Great discourse on Wednesday night, however I particularly liked the parts on multiculturalism such as equity vs. equality, the anecdotes on your own experiences in teaching Mexican students and the different student case scenarios in the handout.
Some of the applications of the above that I will use in the future are:
1) Help promote cultural awareness in the classroom by generating interest in the different cultural backgrounds of students via multicultural activities.
2) As an educational administrator, provide extra support and guidance for teachers who are not familiar with multicultural classrooms and teaching styles.
3) Evaluate my own actions and decisions in the light of multiculturalism and improve administrative processes in my school to avoid falling into the trap of ethnocentrism.
Kind regards,
Dr. Murat Kiymaz
Wow, this just gets better and better, doesn't it! I really appreciate the way you are sharing and commenting on each other's work, as well as the high quality thought processes evident. Some of you point out the challenges of muticultural education and circumstances in which it may not apply or may not work or content restrictions will hamper the effort. I welcome bringing forward these challenges as well; and feel that by giving our differences airtime, we can better understand and work with each other. Consensus, if it stifles valid counter arguments, is not always a good thing. I also would like to thank those of you who have taken the time to find and make some additional resources available here. See you in class, Best Wishes, Andy
Further to my comment about dissension and differences. I have just finished reading "The War Within" a book by Bob Woodward about the last years of the Bush administration. For historical perspective, in the last portion of the book, Woodward, interviewed Robert S. McNamarra, who was the Secretary of Defense for President Johnson during the last phase of the Vietnam war. McNamarra, now in his 90's, discussed how he had come to disagree with the war, and felt that the terrible loss of life was not worth it, given the foreign policy goals of the US at the time, and that the US should have gotten out much earlier. But he said, out of loyalty to President Johnson, he kept quiet. He now says he realizes he did a disservice to Johnson, the Amercian people, and the world. Had he and others voiced their concerns, thousands, perhaps a million or more, lives may have been saved. So, repeating myself: Consensus, if it stifles valid counter arguments, is not always a good thing.
Week six reflections and thoughts,
In my opinion, lesson of week six;multicultural education, was a great challenge for the education system of the whole world because there is impossible to have only one culture in a school because of human rights. Therefore, curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice become the need for the school. The school has to become cultural pluralism.
Application,
1) As for principal or administrators, they have to think about curriculum for multiculture and othres things in the school.
2)As for teachers, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice are very need for them in the teaching area.
3)As for students, they have to know the value of different culture because they have to study not only from the school but also from the world.
The topic Multicultural Education which we discussed on Wednesday night is very fanstastic and significantly important to the schools where many ethnic diversities are attended in modern education era. Multiculturalism is the critical problem that many schools,especially international schools, are confronting currently. In order to manipulate this heated problem, initially we must know vividly the meaning and goal of multicultural education. Multicultral education is focused on visions of all humans being to live in greater harmony with each other and with the environment systematically. The pivotal purpose of multicultral education is to annihilate the racism and other isms and to promote the opportunity of the ethnic minority as well as socioeconomic disvantaged students. The following are my applications to tackle with the problem of Multicultralism.
1. we must require a level of frankness in order to get good relationship.
2. we must accept respect for human dignity and universal human rights as a fundamental value.
3. we must be able to consider alternative viewpoints ( our own as well as those of others).
I was really looking forward to this class on multicultural education as I feel it is a highly debatable topic and one of most teachers’ concerns. I found several things important in this class: for some I have a different point of view, others I agree with and lastly for my application I would like my fellow students to try this activity in their classroom.
Equity in the classroom has made me realize that we do treat our students based more on equity than equality. This is simply because we know our students are different in terms of personality, capability and development. We can’t treat them all the same all the time; we need to nurture them according to their needs.
Regarding what you said about George Bush and his speech “America is the best country”. I agree with you that he is ethnocentric but this term ‘the best’ is used quite often and it does not necessarily have to be on an ethnocentric basis. Using the term ‘the best’ to describe a country in my point of view is simply to inflict a sense of pride in its people. I agree with what you said but if I had heard that statement from him or even from the king of Thailand I would not have thought of it in an ethnocentric way. I think this is because of the culture here. In Thailand, there are people of different cultures who live and work together in harmony. There might be conflicts and problems but at end they respect each other. So, to say ‘Thailand is the best country’ would simply be to enforce a sense of love and pride in oneself towards their nation and people. Or maybe I’m just naïve.
However, on the other hand, racism is clearly a part of the Thai society. Thais are more partial towards foreigners and look down upon their own people. This racism is passed on from parents to children. Even young children have strong opinions about people of different races. I have tried the following activity with grade 2 and grade 4 students and have seen surprising results. I would like to share this activity with everyone as a means of changing their opinions and forcing our children to think for themselves before they judge others based on their skin color.
1.List down 5 random countries; try to select those where we can see a great difference in races. Try to pick countries which the students in the class do not belong to. For example: Switzerland, Japan, Laos, Nigeria, America, India and Vietnam.
2.Ask students to describe the people from those countries. Accept all answers both positive and negative and state them on the board. Do not react towards any kind of feedback. Once it has been done for all countries, you will surely see a more positive reaction towards countries like Switzerland, Japan and America and a negative reaction towards countries like Laos, Nigeria, India and Vietnam.
3.Ask students if they agree to things mention on the board. Go one country at a time and ask them to explain why they think so. Most of their explanations will be based on what was told to them or what they experience at one time. At this point ask them ask them if it was fair to judge a whole country if they only visited it for a few days or met a few people. Provide them a direct example by saying if an American walks into the school and sees the children eating spaghetti that mean the whole of American should believe that every single person in Thailand eats spaghetti. This is merely to point out the fact that one cannot judge an entire country based on one or few people of that country. Ask the students to think for themselves and not to judge people by their color or nationality and to believe in what they see for themselves and not form opinions based on what has been told to them.
Hi everybody check out Reshmi's suggested activity. Andy
Welcome Back Dr.Andy! This week's multicultural class was very interactive and i personally feel like i learned a lot of new terms like the 'zero sum game' and 'sage on the stage'. Teacher's role today play a very different role from the past, we no longer delivery knowledge and spoon feed. The roles are moving to giving guidance and facilitating. Another interesting topic that was brought up in class was Vygotsky's Scaffloding and the importance of peer learning. Teacher's should always be adaptive to change in order to keep up with the globalized world.
Application:
- Recognizing the importance of learning. As a teacher we should always encourage our students to keep learning without us formally delivering the knowledge.
- I would encourage my students with different background to share either culture with each other, so that they would be the minimal discrimination. As a teacher i would not be bias with any student no matter what their ethnic group might be. This way students would take teacher's as a role model and follow.
- Scaffloding technique such as the use of language and play should be added to their cirriculum and dialy classroom activities.
Navnita Charucharoen
As Dr. Andy mentioned in a part of his lecturing on Wednesday, now we are leaving in a globalized world in which all the actions taken are interacting with each other and having consequences in the future of the others.And as an example to this he mentioned about the approach of Thaksin that although he was saying that he was really sorry for the loss of lives in Burma due to the political issues, he was still giving support to the army economically which leads to this chaos. So we must be aware of the consequences of our actions and behaviors if we really want to keep living peacefully and in a better life quality on the only Earth that we have.
So as a science teacher I want my students to be aware of the consequences of their actions and behaviors on Earth.
1)Plan a trip to one of the polluted beaches of Thailand and get students to realize the bad effects of littering carelessly.(As bad smell and dirty environment)
2)Assign a homework to the students to search the unwanted effects of using Fossil fuels in energy production.
3)Arrange a discussion with my classes about the alternative energy sources that can be used with a less damage on Earth.
Thanks
Gaye Sadic
Neet, sharing cultural traditions amongst students is a great way to enhance mutual understanding in a diverse class. Maxidex, what about helping with a beach cleanup provided safety precautions are taken fot the students?
Yes Dr.Andy you are definitely right with your idea which I missed before. Being aware is not enough, we have to take action!!!
Gaye Sadic
Hi, Reshmi, you posted a very good activity. I like your activity. It can definitely makes students to aware and correct their wrong conceptions..
We talked about Multicultural Education in four dimensions; curriculum reform, teaching toward social justice, equity pedagogy and multicultural competence. We mainly discussed the issues of ethnocentrism and equity versus equality. I got precious knowledge from this discussion. In Myanmar, there are many different major and minor ethnic groups, so that I must practice and know which hypotheses to apply in practice with no bias, discrimination, and prejudice.
- Teachers must strengthen critical thinking in each ethnic background culture and direct student compared with global education.
- Teachers must have awareness of the diversity of societies in which students live and make clearly understand of equity and equality to help effectively students. Since I was in high school, I had encountered with racism in peer. I felt under-motivated and my grades were terrible. Hence, I, as a future teacher, need to identify each race culture in individual, in order to balance in learning and students must be fully motivated by both teachers and peer.
- For me, attitude is the most important thing in a teacher. The students will response what kind of my attitude on them. I mean the issue is love, not performance. Teachers teach or direct student from the bottom of heart, so there will be no bias, sexism, prejudice, etc.
Thanks.
It's true, Ms. Hnin, as you point out, that your attitude will always show through. Dr. Covey stated this very well when he said, "who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you are saying."
First,I was nice seeing Dr.Andy again.And the discussion about multicultural education.I believe that school is purpose built and represents a modern vision of how education should be delivered to all students in equity.Somehow I like Dr.Andy asked the question that If teacher are not delivering knowledge anymore,what are doing? educators should assists,direct and inquiry learning or using scoffolding( help the level support)to students.They will be facilitator.Not only these things to develop education,but the most significant is understanding concepts of multiculturalism.We can use curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, Multicultural competence, and teaching toward social justice.
Applications:
1. It is important that students need to share their individual culture with community of multicultural students.Students may learn about another country through activities, food, poem, song, dance and history.
2.To provide special course in multicutural education for teacher who is not familiar with his or her environment or it might set up this program in inset day ( first semester of each year in meeting )
3.last one, it's for myself. I aware that we must consider culture from each other country. I should have more tolerant and accepting of different from their background also. It can helps to produce less conflict when meet with cultural differences.
Thank you
Ms.Rossakorn
Last week class room discussion was very interesting to me. The subjects were similar to our class room environment as our class consists of students from different countries. Topics like the “zero sum game” and “sage on the stage” were really interesting . Another part including discussions on curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, and multicultural competences were very informative. Multicultural education is actually related to the classroom where different culture and races are represented. Consensus building, respect and fostering culture pluralism with racial society are important consideration for a teacher. As teacher or a school administrator we have to be aware of multicultural educational environment to help students learn and live in a multicultural society. Culture and culture diversity are also most important to teacher because they influence student’s lives.
Here are some applications which we can involve in our teaching.
1. School Administrator have to arrange and train teacher on “Multicultural Education for teacher” to motivate teacher to understand their students and involve all of them in learning. This type of programme helps teachers to recognize, accept and affirm cultural diversity.
2. As a teacher we have to understand and be aware of student’s culture, we have to recognize each student from which background they come from and have to acknowledge and respect their culture. We have to talk about their culture while teaching the subject like social studies and provide them the environment for them to open up and talk about their culture. This way all students can feel that they are part of the class and participate more in the classroom activities.
3. Highlighting importance and value of different languages is very important in a multicultural setting. Language itself has a deep root in their culture. We have to support various languages the students speak for example in primary classes we can let them sing the nursery rhyme in their own language. We may have to give more support to the English language learning classes as well. We have to guide the students personally and even if it needs repetition many time till all students understand clearly.
With these applications we can enhance the student leanings.
Anjana
Some facts what I have observed from week six are four multicultural education approaches-curriculum reform, equity pedagogy, multicultural competence,and teaching toward social justice. In the previous part,Dr.Andy's examples were very apparent to see the difference between equity and equality. Moreover, culture pluralism, culture diverse or difference, and independent word, which I have observed also in that day class, created my new scenes in order to consider and recognize my particular environment.
Applications:
First, As a teacher, knowing the multicultural education approaches apparently is one of the most important to assist the teachers in education field and society handling the multicultural class, as well as the different assumptions among not only our students but our neighbors also and to encourage the learners effectively, on the other hand.
Secondly, it is the point to be in harmony with our particular situations by respecting others' culture or beliefs, because we come from different countries and even the same country, different background.
In the future, finally, these approaches will help me to be a better educator in a school or in an organization.
With best,
Aye Aye Khaine
"Week six discussion" brought a lot of ideas that mainly on the question "Why is multicultural education essential today?" The answer is clear enough as a student said to look the e.g of our ed6007 Educatinal Foundation, Wednesday class because in the next 5 or 10 or 50 years, there will be the rates of the class like the above completely increased in all the countries in the world.
Here I would like to apply;
-as an admistrator,there should be cleared the case like Jesus Martinez on pages 8-9 before let him enrolls the class.
-as a teacher,he/she should be aware the class backgroud before transfering his/her methods.
-to be a teacher or administrator in any type of school and any time is hard but not impossible.
Markokee Mark.
Reflection:
Dr.Andy talked about zero sum games that we have to find the suit space to develop students.Dr.Andy gave a question that if teacher are not delivering knowledge anymore , what are we doing? In my opinion, teacher has to delivering the experiences to students how to survive in our world.
Nowadays,sage on the stage is not an appropriate model in our times today. And we talked about three themes of multiculture education :Cultural Pluralism, Culturally diverse and Interdepentdent world. Thus, Dr.Andy talked about Ethnocentric - national or race 4 parts
- curriculum reform -bias
- Equity pedagogy(how we educate) - climate(fairness in class) + content
- Multicultural competence(level of understang culture)
- Teaching toward social justice
Three applications
1. I will focus on the multicultural students that I will treat them in equally.
2. I will try to understand each culture that can help me to teach students in the right way and I will know the reason why different students have different behavior.
3. I will try to get along well with every students whoever they are I will understand them.
Hello Dr. Andy and everyone,
Thanks everyone for your contribution to our class blog. I agree with Dr. Andy that our reflections and comments are getting better and better. Not able to be present in class physically but are able to read your reflections is as if I am there in class especially the week 6 reflection. Thanks for helping me keeping up with our class discussion. I treasure it dearly.
Sr. Rose
Reading the multicultural materials, week six reflections, and video clips that Dr. Andy suggested (Stand and Deliver and Freedom Writer), it brings back memory of my own. I was once a student in a multicultural school environment where African, Caucasian, and Vietnamese studying together. Similarly to the movie, "Freedom Writer", each had their own group.
I was just starting to learn English at the time. An elementary African American teacher whom I always respect,remember, and grateful, Ms Linda. She is a very dedicated teacher who always caring, listening, and interesting in our backgrounds and using every teachable moments to teach us. She is my first teacher who believe in me and help me to believe in myself.
If you have not seen "Freedom and Writer", I recommend that everyone should watch. It's such a powerful movie and a good tool to introduce to students about ethnocentrism and multicultural education.
Applications:
1. Journaling could be a powerful tool to help me better understand my students --give my students opportunity to write their thoughts, feelings, or asking questions in their journals. Give my shy students that don't feel like asking question in front of everyone a chance to express themselves.
2. An insight that I got from the "Freedom and Writer" is that the value of a dedicated teacher is the one who care about whom they teach, try to understand the backgrounds of my students and their stories. --I can do this by keeping a close contact with parents, previous teachers, and their classmates.
3. Teaching in an International School or Bilingual school is also like having a multicultural class. Students came from different ethnic and backgrounds and families. Therefore, I need to always have high expectations for each individual regardless of their ethnicity. Everyone should have an equal chance. Not only for ourselves but also for students to be aware of each other difference in backgrounds and cultures, religion, and learn how to respect differences.
Last week's discussion on the case for multicultural education was meaty for me. There were alot of interesting stories that came out of it and alot of good points as well. Like some of my fellow students, I particularly liked the story of the Mexican student that got into Dr.Andy's face all the time. It was interesting for me to see how Dr. Andy utilized his understanding of the culture to manage the class.
Having said that, I think that multicultural education is important - even if one doesn't think it is relevant in his context. I think that it is important to teach our students understanding of another culture and for us as teacher's to understand our student's culture. My application are as follows:
1) I teach in a fully Japanese kindergarten. We celebrate Japanese festivals every year but we also celebrate western festivals like Halloween, Christmas and Easter. Next year we plan to have a day where we celebrate Filipino culture as well. Then in the followsing year we plan to hightlight another country's culture and so on in the following years. I think it is important to teach the children to be aware that there are other cultures out there as well.
2)As a teacher to Japanese students I should take steps to understanding Japanese culture more. My fellow teacher's do help me already but if I can further my understanding on my own (via books, documentaries, articles... etc), it would lead me to a better understanding of my students.
3) Lastly, I would like to touch on something that was said earlier in class. While we were discussing how the "sage on the stage" model was not relevant to education anymore, we mentioned something about giving space for students to develop. In other words room for failure so that we can help them develop. I never thought of associating the word "failure" with education before, but I've come to realize that we as humans learn from making mistakes. Furthermore, I find that it is true that knowledge is so much more accesible nowadays that we cannot be that "sage on the stage". However at kindergarten level this may not be the case. I think that children in that level need more direction and teacher's need to be more like a parent.
For me, I teach, ESL to Japanese Kindergarteners. This means that I really have to guide them in the writing and reading. I also need to give them room to try it out for themselves so that they can develop it. What I do with my lead teacher is we give them worksheets, play games with them, and work one on one with them in their reading and writing. We allow them to make mistakes and then work to help and support each one.
We have learned a lot about the multicultural education and also the role of teachers in this information era. Teaching with direct instruction is not an appropriate teaching model in our time. As you said that struggling is one of the best way to learn even though this is very hard way sometimes but students can gain the knowledge more. actually our class is already multicultural classroom. There are students from different countries with different culture and many differences but we learn together, work together as a group and learn from each other.
1. when we teach the students we should use combination of direct and indirect instruction to make the students in active learning rather than passive learning and also they should have hands on activity so that they can involve in it and will never forget waht they have done.
2. As a teacher, we should understand about the background and culture of students so that it make us easy to handle some kind of difficult situation inside the classroom such as students' behavior, attitude etc.
3. We have to use the different kinds of teaching method to reach all the students in different levels to support their needs.
Language is a carrier of culture. This is really true and something that really registered in my mind as I reflected on Wednesday’s class. I had the opportunity to grow up in a Multilanguage country (Malaysia) where I need to learn at least 3 major languages (English, Malay and Chinese) in Elementary School and Secondary School. In addition, we speak dialects at home with our parents and grandparents too. Malaysia is truly a multicultural country as we are formed of 3 major races (Malay, Chinese and Indians) and 10 other races. I was educated as a child that respecting other’s culture is so important that all races can live peacefully and harmoniously under one roof. I understand more about other cultures while learning their languages. It is sometimes not easy to do that due to the diversity and differences of values taught in different culture. However, when we try to stand in other’s people shoes and understand their cultural practices, it is not difficult to recognize that all cultures originated from one root, which is to shape an individual to be a better person as well as appreciating life.
As the world is moving towards the direction of global village, it is essential for “villagers” in this global village to realize, recognize and respect the diversity of culture in all ethnics groups. Multicultural awareness is then becoming a significant subject to be taught in family, school and community. I learned to respect others’ culture at a young age because of the environment that I was living. I learned from my parents, teachers and adults in the neighborhood as how they were respecting and recognizing others’ culture practices. In my opinion, we, as adults (whether is teacher, parents, auntie, uncle, cousin and etc…) should be a good example to the children as Children See, Children Do.
Therefore, my application for this week will be:
(1) Create a learning environment to encourage multicultural awareness in the classroom. For example, having culture day where students to presents something interesting about their culture, bringing some local delicacy as well as organizing cultural activities such as dance, songs and games.
(2) Encourage students to find a pen pal from other countries and try to foster an international friendship from there. Students are able to practice their writing, reading skills and creativity too.
(3) I love to learn new languages. Therefore I will try to devote some spare time to learn to speak, read and write Thai as I am now living in this land and I really want to be able to understand more about this place through watching the TV programs, reading their books and listening to their songs.
This week, I learn that "Sage on the stage " is not appropriate model in our time.In Malticultural Education, there are 4 parts 1.Curriculum Reform,2. Equity Pedagogy,3.Multicultural Competence and 4. Teaching towards social justice. If teacher is "sage on the stage" person it's hard to change, hard to reform. We need to understand student's cultural and background. Moreover, language is a carrier of culture.
Applications
1. As a teacher, we try to know each student's background and understand culture.That can help me to teach students in the right way.
2.Try to find student's need in their learning and give help in term of students need.
K. Hkawn San Mai
I'm very happy to see Dr.Andy again,I'm very intereseted in your class.this class we have talk about multicalture education ,there are four dimensions of multiculture teaching that are curriculum reform,equity pedagogy,multiculture competence and teaching toward social justice.In this class,I like the equity and quility issue.at first ,i can't understand what's the different of these and what is real equity.I think it's very useful for teacher to teach right way.
application:
1)make sure the ability level of the students and find what is their weakness.
2)use different way to help the students find their confidence and develop their potential.
thanks
zhangya
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