By Camille Jackson for Tolerance.org
Creating an atmosphere of inclusion should always be a priority for schools, but for many of us, it can be a perplexing task. Although teacher diversity is at an all time low, our student population is becoming more and more diverse.While we want to create an inclusive classroom for both teachers and students, there`s been little discussion on how to do that.
How do we make sure that all students feel valued, respected and represented in the classroom?
Recognize The Need For Change
In Teaching to Transgress, famed author and professor Bell Hooks writes, “If the effort to respect and honor the social reality and experiences of groups in this society who are nonwhite is to be reflected in a pedagogical process, then as teachers – on all levels, from elementary to university settings – we must acknowledge that our styles of teaching may need to change.”
Begin With Respect
According to Dr. Irwin Blumer, the department chair at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education, while multicultural education helps students to live and work in a diverse world, it cannot be implemented in a superficial way. A multicultural curriculum must feature more than just “heroes and holidays.” As elementary school principal Shawn McCullough says it must move beyond “a sombrero in the front office and taco Tuesdays.”
Once respect has been established, Blumer says it can lead to “open and honest discussion about race and racism in this country -- a topic we tend to shy away from.” Christine Rose of Students and Teachers Against Racism explainsin her paper, The Indian Student in Public Education, that when Native history is not included in history class, “Native people are denied closure, as well as the respect and encouragement to succeed in mainstream academics.” She explains that ignorance of these issues can lead to blaming the victim, instead of fostering compassion and understanding. She also encourages multicultural educators to be respectful of and sensitive to the cultural differences, learning styles, and the desires of Native parents, as well.
Talk About It
Ongoing dialogues throughout the year help administrators, teachers, and students speak openly and honestly about respect, the social climate and how to break down barriers in their schools. The Southern Poverty Law Center sponsors Mix It Up, a national campaign to identify, question, and cross the cultural boundaries that separate groups of people. Each year on November 16, the Center coordinates a national event during which students and faculty make new friends by sitting at a different table for lunch. Not only they break down social boundaries, but cliques, and isolation, as well.
According to Beverly Daniel Tatum, President of Spelman College in Atlanta and author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (Basic Books, 2002), professional development courses can help teachers to address the issue. “In order to increase teacher comfort, we need to talk about [race] -- and not in a blaming way," says Tatum. "We are all the products of our socialization. The idea is to help people, in a constructive way, look at what messages they got growing up…It’s important to be able to say we all have participated in reinforcing the cycle [of racism] and we all try to interrupt it.”
Integrate Multiple Voices
It’s important for educators to ask why the accomplishments of people of color have been missing from the classroom. So many voices have been muted over the years. Tatum says it’s inevitable for teachers who look at a subject area in an inclusive way to run into racism. But when you include them in the classroom, your students will find your lessons, and the world, much more multidimensional.
Make A Commitment
As principal of Georgia’s Gainesville Elementary School, McCullough has molded his school into one of the highest performing majority Hispanic schools in the country, a remarkable accomplishment considering 93% of the student body is impoverished. McCullough attributes his school’s success to the teachers “fundamental commitment to each child’s success and professional accountability.” Whether it means working until 7 p.m. or holding parent/teacher conferences on a Saturday evening when parents are home from work, the school staff is there.
Gather Resources
Teaching Tolerance, a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center targets teachers looking to make sense out of a multicultural curriculum. The magazine offers teachers tools for educating diverse classrooms and promoting equity and justice. By visiting the Teaching Tolerance website, teachers can order classroom activities, kits and handbooks, and curriculum on subjects ranging from the civil rights movement to respecting physical differences.
Take Responsibility
Principal McCullough, a national keynote speaker on diversity issues, says extraordinary challenges, like incorporating multiculturalism in the classroom, require extraordinary people. Having a multicultural curriculum is not about what activities you do or about having a diverse staff, he says. It’s about responsibility -- and not just for teachers. All educators have a responsibility to challenge the status quo. Blumer adds “a principal has to be skilled enough, knowledgeable enough, and some would say, courageous enough, to get the issues on the table.”
