Multicultural education and culturally relevant teaching Essay

Diversity in the classroom promotes the importance of individualism and values the person no matter what their beliefs or background is. Diversity is a term that can have unique meaning, depending on the usage. I believe all student have the potential to be successful. I also believe that not only you should you learn the basic curriculum in the classroom, you should also learn about diversity of the students that's in your classroom. However, diversity is a major issue in our classrooms today.
Multicultural education and culturally relevant teaching is the answer for diversity in classrooms. Multicultural education is define as an education that is designed and shaped by several cultural perspective (HDE 2015). It was an educational movement built on basic American values, freedom, justice, opportunity, and equality. (CITED) This movement was created to challenge the diversity that is rapidly growing in America. The importance of multicultural education is at an all-time high. Multicultural education helps kids develop a positive self-image. It offers student am equal educational opportunity, while a combats stereotypes and prejudicial behavior. Our curriculum in Texas stresses how as Americans, we all stand united, bringing our gifts to share at the table. Not only does a multicultural education teach kids how to better interact with and respect the rights of others as they grow older, it also teaches them to look for solutions and ideas from other cultures.
The importance of culturally relevant is teachers creating a bridge between students' home and school lives, while still meeting the expectations of the district and state curricular requirements. In my future classroom, I will teach were every student is learning the material. In order for me to do that, I must first incorporate relatable aspects of kid's daily lives into curriculum. According to Gloria Ladson-Billings , culturally relevant mean a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes." Once a child feels comfortable on how I teach, talk and discuss the lesson plan, he/she will be more willing to learn the context. A teacher should not have to teach two different teaching methods based on race. We shouldn't have to teach the black kids one way than teach the white kids another way. All student should be taught in a way were they can relate to the information so they can retain the material.
The role for me as a teacher, is to ensure all my students are learning the curriculum to fit there learning style. Encourage student participation and go beyond text book. I also believe that teacher are not only responsible for academics, but also molding our students socially and culturally. My student role would be to respect each individual first. Secondly, I would need my students to find the best learning styles so he/she can learn. I as a teacher would utilizes the background of my classroom to teach the lesson plan and methodology. In order for schools to be successful, our kids have to be successful.