Reader Response
Multicultural education
is a concern in modern America because we attempt to educate all people
and not just those who are native to the land. In the past, America
has been called the ‘melting pot,’ but it has been proven that not everyone
has been made to fit one culture. Instead of the ‘melting pot,’ we
should be considered a garden salad. A garden salad has individual
pieces that make it better: lettuce, tomato, onion, croutons, bacon pieces,
cucumber, and shredded cheese. The salad dressing holds all the pieces
together. The constitution is the salad dressing of America.
The book
stated the goals of multicultural education to be the following from chapter
eight:
1) Recognition of the strength
and value of cultural diversity.
2) Development of human rights
and respect for cultural diversity.
3) Legitimation of alternate life
choices for people.
4) Social justice and equal opportunity
for all.
5) Equitable distribution of power
among members of all ethnic groups (Sleeter & Grant, 1999, as cited
in Jacobsen, Eggen, Kauchak, 2002, p. 229).
Cultural diversity
must be acknowledged within the classroom and the rights to an education
must be respected. Students should learn to respect and understand
the backgrounds of other students and their culture.
Cooperative
learning is a wonderful tool to enhance learning in the classroom and take
the focus off of teacher-centered instruction. Students can utilize
their strengths and strengthen their weaknesses. There are four main
types of cooperative learning strategies: peer tutoring, STAD (Student
Teams Achievement Diversions), group investigation, and jigsaw. Jigsaw
appears to happen most naturally when students are asked to work together.
Students often will divide the work amongst themselves in order to get
the work completed. I found group investigation to work well with
problem-based learning and especially with science topics. STAD is
a great idea to measure each student’s contributions and attainment of
knowledge rather than the whole groups. This next year, I look forward
to implementing STAD in my classroom.
Mastery learning
is a wonderful concept, but I am concerned about a few things. First,
how is a teacher to cover all of the material that is called for by TEKS
if some of the students are always behind? It would be difficult
to cover the large amount of material required to be covered. One
could only hope that there would be lessons that none of the students would
have trouble with. Then, the students who have mastered the skill
would either finish all the objectives early or would be forced to take
on more enrichment assignments. Most of the students I have worked
with consider extra enrichment activities to be punishment for doing good
and they think it is not fair. To implement this, I would have to
use those who had mastered the assignment to peer tutor other students
or plan activities for the next lesson that they think would be fun.
Inclusion can put a lot of pressure
on teachers who already are dealing with large class sizes. Some
teachers may have five special education students in the classroom at a
time. Special education students deserve and education that is meaningful
and has other students to work around, but at the same time it is necessary
for the student to leave the room for content mastery. A student
may have to see the special education teacher for additional help when
material is difficult to understand. There are a variety of modifications
that can be made to classroom material to accommodate the needs of a special
needs student.
Technology can
help with meeting the needs in the curriculum of a special needs student,
by allowing basic skills to be taught through an adaptive computer program.
Not only are they good for helping special education students, but also
they can help with teaching materials, as a research tool for the student,
and to provide tutorials. There are a number of adaptive devices
that can be used to help the blind and to help those who have visual deficits
to use the computers.
Not all students learn the same
way. Dunn and Dunn believe that the environment, physical stimuli,
and structure need to change based on the needs of the student. Howard
Gardner took this one step further and said that there are eight basic
intelligences and students learn best in their intelligence. For
teaching, this means that teachers must be aware of the various learning
styles of the students and adapt the lessons to fit the needs of the child.
I truly believe that we need to adjust the way we teach based on the needs
of students, but at the same time it is necessary to help students who
are weak in areas to grow and experience new things.
I relate this
to my experience with my own students. My students are predominately
at-risk low-income students and they have a variety of learning styles.
In my class, I want students to learn in the best way they can. I
put my students into collaborative learning groups and allow the students
to decide which approach they are going to take on a particular topic to
present to the class. Some students will write, others will draw,
others will reflect in a response, some come up with a skit or a song,
and then others will do a historical perspective. My students come
up with something that best fits their learning, but I have them present
in order to spur on additional learning of new ways of thinking.
Sometimes the cooperative groups have a variety of learning styles in them
and this allows the students to show their strengths and strengthen the
areas of weakness.