Multicultural Education

In the United States, the number of immigrants has been rapidly increasing. In classrooms, you will see students from other parts of the world, such as Asia, Africa, and Europe in addition to those who are originally from America. This has made the modern classroom very diverse. Some may come from countries where they practice similar customs and cultures with those of America. However, there are many things, such as how they think and what they believe, varying from country to country. So when you meet someone from another country, what will you do? How will you feel?

Multicultural education has a significant role in classroom settings in order to answer those questions. It enables teachers to expose students to different values and provides them opportunities to get to know what they haven’t seen before. Through multicultural education, students can learn how to respect people, culture, and values of other countries. I believe that people who are interested into different cultures are very open-minded and welcoming. They are all ready to listen to others, accept different way of thoughts, and do not measure other’s customs and cultures with their own values (although they still compare). All of us should know that there are things that we can not measure with what we believe.

I’m originally from Japan. So let’s say, Japan is mono-cultural, which is opposite of multicultural. Is this true? No, I don’t think so. Japan has been importing many different things from all over the world and has shared many similarities with other countries, such as China and Korea. Even though we have fewer immigrants from other countries, compared to the number of immigrants in the United States, there are many foreigners who practice different customs and cultures. You will see many ethnic restaurants and religious buildings such as churches, shrines, and temples. It has become common to have students from other countries in classrooms compared to older generations as well. When I was a student teacher at a junior high school for a month, for teaching training, I had a girl who was born in Japan but her father was from England. I also had a non-Japanese native speaker who was originally from Brazil. Their classmates were very curious when we had them present their place of origin in a geography session. Students love to know new things, and multi-cultural education can show them how to communicate with other cultures.

If you have students from other countries, you are lucky. Your students are already exposed to different cultures and values, and experience it by communicating with those students from other countries. What should you do if you have none? You may want to invite a guest speaker for your students, or you can give your students a project to research other countries and cultures. It could be interesting and knowledgeable for your students to learn things related to immigrants within the United States as well. Due to the difference of values, however, students won’t understand the unique traditions and customs of other countries. Teachers should explain to them that there are no correct answers when it comes to the way a person lives their own life. That’s what multicultural education is.