Multiculturalism in Schools

The education that I received in Japan, and the systems they worked off of, is a bit different from the school system in the United States. However, I am sure that the school structure and curriculum have been gradually changing in Japan since I was in elementary and secondary school. When I think about my elementary and secondary school years, however, I really do not remember if multiculturalism and diversity were really integrated into the curriculum and school structure. We did not have minorities or even an ESL class (well, we had English language as foreign language at secondary school that every student was required to take). What I can remember about multicultural education was through learning about world geography, but students usually listened to the lecture passively which not promote discussions to develop multiculturalism.

There were a lot of classes offered related to other countries at my university as well, but they were not mandatory. The courses that I was required to take for my major were all English language classes, since my university was foreign language school, so students did not need to take any culture related courses, such as “Study on American Culture (I don’t know how I can translate the course name right).” So when it comes to multicultural education, it seems better not to study in Japan, but in other countries, such as the United States. However, since my university received numerous students from all over the world (The large number of international students made my college one of the most diverse in Japan), a lot of students who were passionate to learn other cultures had many opportunities to interact with them.

One of the required reading materials, Multiculturalism in School Curriculum, written by Waxler, was very interesting to read and it made me think about how I should integrate multiculturalism in school. He said that we can teach a variety of perspectives and cultures on a given curriculum in a student-centered classroom that inspires active learning and also increases standardized test scores. I strongly agree with multicultural education because our society becomes more global, and the changes should be reflected and integrated into the curriculum and school structure, but not left separated. However, I was very surprised when I first came to the United States and realized that there were a lot of American nationals who do not know world geography and history, but are familiar with American history. Considering Japanese people have a lack of nationalism, I think it is good thing to know about ones own country, even though multicultural education has been brought into schools. Multiculturalism is ideal for promoting understanding and respect for other cultures and people, but we need to be careful and thoughtful about how we integrate this into our education.