MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION: ENHANCING INCLUSIVENESS IN THE CLASSROOM

It is important to infuse our teaching and curriculum with culturally responsive teaching activities and strategies. Educators need to become aware of their own culture, values, prejudices and biases in order to become aware and accepting of the cultural backgrounds of their students. When educators practice inclusiveness and acceptance, students become active participants in their classes and in their learning process. The students’ culture, ideas, beliefs are taken into consideration and are part of the curriculum of the class.

In this presentation, we will explain some of the assignments and activities that our pre-service teachers do which helps them develop awareness about the importance of including their students’ cultural backgrounds in their curriculum.

One way of developing cultural awareness for pre-service teachers and for educators in general is to have them write their own cultural autobiography, have their students write cultural autobiographies and share them among each other. This is one of the assignments in our Multicultural Education class in the Teacher Education program where we teach. Writing and reflecting about your life is an important exercise in developing self –awareness and also in becoming more inclusive of all cultures that students bring to our classrooms. By engaging in an exercise of self-reflection of who you are, our pre-service teachers become aware of who they are and how they can use their own cultural background to relate to their students. Another activity that helps develop awareness of our cultural backgrounds and that of our students is writing a poem about “who you are” and “where you are from”. Including information about the students’ culture and their family history and having them present these before their fellow students, makes students feel proud of who they are. This allows them to share their experiences, knowledge and skills with others; transforming the classroom into a community of learners.

For pre-service teachers doing these assignments helps them confront their own attitudes about race, gender, sexual preferences and even religious differences just to name a few. Writing about these attitudes will help them gain awareness and begin to initiate a change in their attitudes where necessary, especially if some of the attitudes may hurt the prospects of the future teacher being able to connect with his or her students. This is one of the objectives of our Multicultural class and with most of our pre-service teachers, we have been able to achieve this.