Post by Acer on Jul 27, 2005 9:04:42 GMT -5
At 19 years old, it has been about 10 years since I have stepped into an elementary school classroom. For some of you it has been 6 years, for some 4 years, and for a few of you, maybe even just a couple of years. The point is, very few -- if any of us, have experienced multicultural education first-hand.
To quote James A. Banks' An Introduction to Multicultural Education - Third Edition, "Multicultural education is a reform movement designed to make some major changes in the education of students. Multicultural education theorirists and researchers believe that many school, college, and university practices related to race and ethnicity are harmful to students and reinforce many of the ethnic stereotypes and discriminatory practices in U.S. society." (Page 1)
That's only a short explanation of what multicultural education truly is. That's the first paragraph of the book, and there are thousands following it. To simplify all of these paragraphs, multicultural education is customizing education to suit all ethnicities. Its goal is to unite the youth of America, and to better educate Blacks and Mexicans.
The method to achieve this goal is through customization of lesson plans. Supporters of it want teachers to be able to repeat sections of their lessons in Spanish. They want ebonics to be recognized as a language, and accept it in schools while helping black children learn proper English.
As with any argument, there are two sides to this one. And wouldn't you know it -- in this one, it's liberals and conservatives.
Liberals are typically for multicultural education. They primarily argue using the statistics of black and mexican drop-out rates.
Conservatives are typically against it. They believe in a "survival of the fittest" setting of schools, and say multicultural education will divide the nation.
You go now. What do you say?
To quote James A. Banks' An Introduction to Multicultural Education - Third Edition, "Multicultural education is a reform movement designed to make some major changes in the education of students. Multicultural education theorirists and researchers believe that many school, college, and university practices related to race and ethnicity are harmful to students and reinforce many of the ethnic stereotypes and discriminatory practices in U.S. society." (Page 1)
That's only a short explanation of what multicultural education truly is. That's the first paragraph of the book, and there are thousands following it. To simplify all of these paragraphs, multicultural education is customizing education to suit all ethnicities. Its goal is to unite the youth of America, and to better educate Blacks and Mexicans.
The method to achieve this goal is through customization of lesson plans. Supporters of it want teachers to be able to repeat sections of their lessons in Spanish. They want ebonics to be recognized as a language, and accept it in schools while helping black children learn proper English.
As with any argument, there are two sides to this one. And wouldn't you know it -- in this one, it's liberals and conservatives.
Liberals are typically for multicultural education. They primarily argue using the statistics of black and mexican drop-out rates.
Conservatives are typically against it. They believe in a "survival of the fittest" setting of schools, and say multicultural education will divide the nation.
You go now. What do you say?
