Dear ESL Teacher,
As discussed earlier this year we need to incorporate more multicultural education for teachers in order to be more knowledgeable when incorporating multiculturalism in our everyday classroom environment. The elementary team propose that staff be given the opportunity to participate in professional development programs at the beginning of the next school year. This will allow staff to learn how to improve the understanding of multiculturalism within the school. If teachers can prevent discrimination, bias and related bullying by teaching and discussing multiculturalism in the school positively, it will make a great impact on student learning. Thus far, the school has not had many issues directly linked to issues of discrimination, bias and related bullying. The elementary team believes we should work hard to further maintain this. Students come from different countries and we must acknowledge and teach about all of their respective cultural backgrounds.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXX
Post:
You will provide specific ways to support and assist with the issues presented. You will gather resources and ideas and write a response to your colleagues on how you will rectify the issues. After conducting research what ways can you come up with so the staff can learn more about multicultural education? How does collaboration promote change? What are some strategies to promote collaboration?
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There are a number of ways for teachers to incorporate multiculturalism in their school. Before moving into multiculturalism though, its important to establish a SAFE environment in classrooms. the multiculturalism materials that teachers may bring into classrooms will raise questions by students (or comments), it will be important for students to know how to respond when hearing something they may not fully agree with. I have produced a class visual that can be put up in a classroom for students and teachers to reference in these instances. Find the free download at the link here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/SAFE-Classroom-Poster-4262425
After establishing a SAFE classroom, students understand that there is a way t conduct oneself when surprised by discussions, etc. The teacher can than begin to incorporate materials, news articles and other aspects of culture into the class. In regards to geography, it is quite necessary for students to not only look at Canada, but other parts of the world as well, why not incorporate some of the places that students come from (if not from Canada). History, that is a subject that is not built around one country, many countries were apart of that and can very well be incorporated or compared to Canada at different times based on the development of the two countries (if the country become a country after Canada).
As a staff it will be difficult to really learn about multicultural education because you need to have a leader, more than that you need to have someone who has experience in travelling to places that are potential places your school may have students from. Celebrating a student's culture is great, however some schools sometimes go overboard and miss the point when celebrating a particular culture in their school This goes back to cultural appropriation (as some of my coworkers had put it). This could look like the accidental cultural faux pas (or association) that all Japanese kneel before their meal and love eating sushi at every meal. This might not be something YOU believe, but there are schools and teachers who have done things like this and although, no one is negatively pointed out, over time, observers think to themselves, "well, that probably wouldn't be very enlightened to do now".
The school would best be inviting parents, community members, or volunteers to come in and share their experiences in other cultures. If the school has the resources to do so, they could host an event for the staff after school (or as a professional development activity) in which they are learning about a culture (as decided based on the situation) so that they themselves could host an event that promotes multiculturalism at the school. This could even be a note sent out to parents, "if you have a particular culture other than that of Canada that you practice regularly through the year and are willing to come to a PTA meeting to discuss how you celebrate your culture as we are looking for the various cultures in our school for a celebration of nations".
These are thoughts and things I have tried in general and in different circumstances with the staff at our school. Success, failure, people still have a good time. Cooking, eating, chatting, taking pictures. Have those three things and even if you don't learn how to say "hello" in a different language, people will still recognize how awesome the event was.
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