Episode #23 Get On your Multicultural Educational Journey

On today's episode  I wanted to share some really actionable tools and steps that you can use in your classroom to promote multicultural education.

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Transcript

Now, teachers, we have that love of learning and sharing other cultures and other ways of life. But we don't know how to get started. And here I am today to help you get on your multicultural educational journey. So in today's episode, I'm going to give you some really great examples that you can turn around and do in your classroom today. I am a fifth-grade teacher, and I have been an educator for well over a decade. My biggest passion is multicultural education. 

And I wanted to share some really actionable tools and steps that you can use in your classroom to promote multicultural education. When students go into school, they need to have that sense of belonging. They need to feel that they are being represented in a culturally appropriate and culturally responsible way. You can do those in a way by promoting posters, people, real people with a flesh tone, not purple, blue, or orange, and saying we all are the same. You need to have things that are real and human. And to accomplish those things, you need to make sure that the posters, signage, decorations, and books actually have human qualities because we are all human beings. 

When we keep going to our classroom environment, make sure that you set up your classroom for that community peace. Now, culture doesn't necessarily have to mean ethnicity. Some people love to share their race with others. And some people might not know what their cultural background is, and so on a way of sharing your culture can be for everybody who can share their family's way of life, their family's traditions with the classroom. And when you do things like that, it really opens up that conversation of getting to know your student as a whole. Now, teachers, I know we are very hard workers. We love working with our young people every single day. And when I'm asking you to do next is to take it up a notch, I want you to invest the time in getting to know your students, even more, getting to know their families. I can't tell you how many times I would be in the classroom setting and understand my students. I'm asking them about their favorite games they play and asking them about a recipe they would like to share with the class's favorite foods. Usually, what I love to do at the end of the school year is we do a showcase where students had studied their origin or where their families say that their heritage comes from. And then, we try to write up and find a recipe that comes from that particular background. You could say, Oh, yeah, that could not go well. What if my student is adopted and doesn't know. And that's where I say when you're talking about culturalism, you are trying to find out the family's way of life as a whole. So if that student is not identifying with their adoptive families, or maybe that student doesn't know their particular heritage. 

You can always make sure that they could pick or talk to their families first and say, how do we go about this so that the student doesn't feel alienated or left out. Another way that you can incorporate multicultural education is project-based learning. I can't tell you how much I love a good project. Now, you could do it when you're talking about historical events. You could do it when you're talking about current events and have students come up with a news skit, or they could do a project poster or a Google slide presentation. It doesn't matter the topic you're trying to do. But make sure it's fun, and the students have buy-in, and when you get them to get their creative juices flowing. A lot can go so far in trying to impact your students positively. Word to the wise, when you have your students studies specific context in events, make sure that your educators have vetted out the resources you're going to have them look through and make sure that the sources you find are accurate. They depict that event through the lens of the group he wanted to show. So, for example, when I do my Age of Exploration unit in my Social Studies class, I always have different viewpoints of what was going on at the time from other groups. So, for example, when we are talking about the European contact coming into the Americas, I always have a lot of hands-on resources for my students to understand the perspective of the indigenous people and their reactions and the impact it had on them. And then, I also talk about the Africans that were enslaved that came over. But before I do that African slavery unit, I always start with the ancient African kingdoms, Songhai, The Great Zimbabwe.  I wanted my students to know that Africans had domains. They had universities, well before European contact, that is so important, especially in American classrooms. We always start off the jump with slavery, then civil rights, and then the present day. We always have these holes. Students are always asking about these multiple groups of people and why we don't know what was going on there. Because we all existed at the same time. But we also need to teach the multiple lenses of what happened in those historical events. And that can go with current events as well. Now, when you're talking about current events, I also want you to vet your sources. And make sure before you show anything to your students that it has been looked over by yourself, your team, and your supervisor, just to make sure that you have that understanding of how you're going to relay when it comes to sensitive matters that information. Another thing to educators, as a parent, I'm a parent of two wonderful boys. I always want to make sure when I'm talking about the historical context that my parents in my classroom know what material I will be discussing. Now, with that being said, I would have a letter written with the permission of my supervisor, my principal, and have that principal, look over what my context is before I do the lesson. I feel like parents sometimes need to prepare their children before they go into these educational curricula. I feel like parents always have the right to opt out. It is not up to us educators to say why we aren't there. We're talking about the kind of attitude. As an educator and as a parent, the heads-up method always goes well. No one wants to be caught off guard with surprise. And when you are a member of that group, that will be harmed in the context or, you know, treated in an upsetting way. Parents need to understand what they're planning on doing, and then it's up to them to decide what they feel is best for their child. I'm so happy that you are here on this multicultural educational journey with me, everyone. And I just wanted to say make sure you click on the following video to watch and learn more about my multicultural educational practice and what I use in my classroom. I would love for you to hit that subscribe button. And if you like more information and order my lesson plans, that is right here for you. Go to my website Jebeh Edmunds.com. Take care.