For the purposes of summary-related assignment I have decided to concentrate on the issue of managing teacher’s work in multicultural environment, so that he/she can meet the needs of every student irrespectively of student’s background and cultural peculiarities. To analyze this issue I have selected to summarize the article by M.L. Fuller (1994), published in the Jounral of Teaching, called “The monocultural graduate in the multicultural environment.A chellenge for teacher educators”.
Topicality of the topic, highlighted in the article, is called forth by current globalization and related migration trends, which cannot be underestimated, when considering the trends of education’s development. The purpose of the article lies in, first of all, emphasizing importance of cross-cultural skills for teachers, and, secondly, providing those, engaged in the education of future teachers with necessary knowledge and methodological basis to convey them cross-cultural skills. Critical areas, included in the article, are concerned with the way teachers approach diverse population of the class, what they teach and how they manage to group students (Fuller, 1994). All the areas above are considered in terms of the only focus, namely, the shift in needs, which can be currently observed in contemporary classroom.
The most important issue the author highlights lies in the fact that while classroom population becomes more and more diverse, the population of colleges, which are busy with preparing teachers to their future activities, is not subjected to considerable changes. In other words, multicultural classrooms are currently managed by monocultural graduates. To my mind, the author had not only singled out the issue in very clear terms, but also suggested efficient remedy to it, which is aimed at helping introduce practices necessary for approaching multicultural population of the classroom, into curriculum and activities of teachers’ educators, so that college graduates get more detailed vision of issues, which can stem from diversity of pupils, and get aware about the teaching practices, which can help them facilitate intercultural communication both between students and between students and teacher.
Concluding I cannot help once again emphasizing importance of the issue, raised in the article, due to the fact that proper cross-cultural competences of teachers serve as a basis for being able to manage serving students in terms of multicultural environment.
Works cited
Fuller, M.L.”The monocultural graduate in the multicultural environment: a challenge for teacher educators”. Journal of Teacher Education, 45 (4)
