Since it earliest days, the United States has always been a nation of multiple cultures. Interestingly, for all the many positives that multiculturalism has provided the nation, for most of the its history, multiculturalism has been a reality that has been hidden or kept secret. Nowhere, has this been more evident than in the nation’s educational system and how the goal of education policies has chosen to educate it youth. Indeed, rather than discussing or informing students about the multicultural aspects of the nation’s history; the educational system focused mainly on certain and specific aspects of the majority culture, namely the impacts of European Americans history, culture, and tradition. While this was never a correct policy choice in the first place; in a globalized world that is shrinking every day, the nation’s previous mono-cultural education policy is even more misguided today than ever before. Indeed, in a time when increased understanding of the world has become a necessity rather than a luxury, the United States will need to rely, more ever than before, on its multicultural roots if it wishes to remain a leader in the world. The most effective way to accomplish this is to reform the education policy to emphasize rather than disregard multicultural education (Banks, 1999). A multicultural education here refers to an educational policy that highlights teaching students multiple historical perspectives. A multicultural education will help to decrease racism, prejudice, and discrimination in how Americans both consider one another as well as people from nations around the world (Darling-Hammond, 2002). In addition, a multicultural education will lead to increased findings of commonalities and mutual interests with other nations that can be exploited to solve problems that face all humans everywhere
The primary manner that a multicultural education can “combat stereotypes and prejudicial behavior” is through the careful drafting and implementation of an educational policy that focuses on multicultural studies (NAME, 2016). The implementation, for example, of a national policy to teach history from a multicultural perspective. The inclusion, for instance, in a section of American history that a teaches about the exploits of the “Tuskeegee Airmen”, the African American Army-Air Force unit that fought in Europe during World War II. The inclusion of such a section would facilitate increase the cultural awareness of students by eliminating of misinformation and misguided pedagogical theories by telling as complete a story of a specific event from as many perspectives as possible. In addition, it would help to promote feelings of pride and honor among the African American students in the class, and illustrate an example of how a minority group that has historically been perceived to have had no influence on American history, in fact, has had a tremendous and constructive impact (Miller, 2016). At the least, it would lead to respect for the role of African Americans as a productive part of American history and therefore a decrease in discrimination and prejudice based on a one-sided expression that they only relevant impact of African Americans in U.S. history was as athletes and musicians.
Conversely, some have argued that the fact that a multicultural education attempts to recognized most if not all the groups that make up American society and emphasize each group’s worthiness pulls works to pull the nations apart rather than bind the nations together (Gorski, 2006). To be sure, anti-multiculturalism proponents claim that allowing a recognition of one or two groups today will result in demands by other groups for recognition tomorrow. As each group demands more recognition and the rights associated with their recognitions, the more likely that each will develop increasingly separatist attitudes and behaviors. Ultimately, an increase in separatist behaviors will lead to decreases in tolerance and a splintering of the community into rival camps that talk over rather than to each other.
In essence, a bilingual education should lead to the development of positive relationships through the development of an understanding that”: there are other cultures which are as equal to one’s own, helps to increase one’s appreciation of the fact that there is more than one way to accomplish a goal; and that the way that one traditionally undertook to accomplish a goal is not necessarily the right, best, or required way (Reich, 2002). This should help to allow students to examine their own beliefs and attitudes, and increasing their mental flexibility in not necessarily agreeing with another’s point of view or cultural but at least respecting it.
Multiculturalism is the nation’s hidden secret. Nowadays as the world is increasingly growing borderless, America multiculturalism has the potential to assist the nation like no other country. In order to make full use of it multiculturalism, however, The U.S. must begin providing the young with a multicultural education. A multicultural education will allow the development of cultural and intercultural awareness that is necessary to limiting racism and discrimination and allow for the finding of common interest that will result in positive consequences for the world.
References
Banks, J. A. (1999). An introduction to multicultural education (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2002). Learning to teach for social justice. In L. Darling-Hammond, J. French & S.P. Garcia-Lopez (Eds.). Learning to teach for social justice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Groski, P. (2006). The unintentional undermining of multicultural education: Educations at the equity crossroads. In J. Landsman & C.W. Lewis (Eds.). White Teachers-Diverse Classrooms: A Guide to Building Inclusive Schools, Promoting High Expectations and Eliminating Racism. (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Miller, M. T. (2016). A tribute to military pioneers. Retrieved from http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=BH_Tuskegee
National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). (2016). Definitions of multicultural education. Retrieved from http://www.nameorg.org/definitions_of_multicultural_e.php
Reich, R. (2002). Bridging liberalism and multiculturalism in American education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
