Multicultural Education: How to Teach Culture without Encouraging Stereotypes

What is Culture? Culture is not just holidays, clothing, and food. Unfortunately, when we look at how teachers teach culture in the classroom, it is exactly that. We read a quick book about the Chinese New Year, discuss the ways Native Americans dressed during the month of November, and celebrate Cinco de Mayo by listing all of the Mexican foods we like - guacamole, anyone? Although holidays, clothing, and food are a part of culture - there is so much more. I spent a summer in Bangladesh while I was still in college. Before that, I had only been out of the country two times and they were both in the Western Hemisphere. It was amazing to live in an entirely new culture. We wore salwar kameez and scarves to cover our front in order to be appropriate. I was not allowed to look men in the eyes as a sign of respect. We could not show the soles of our feet when sitting down, which was a struggle for me since I had never thought about it before. Our food was incredibly spicy, and although most of my friends couldn’t handle it, I was able to impress everyone by eating the peppers and spiced sauces. The roads in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, were so packed that we witnessed several accidents every day. Once it took us two hours to drive seven miles because of the slow moving traffic. The house where I stayed always stopped for “tea time” in the afternoon, serving chai with cookies. I’d hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day, ringing through the city. Why did I tell you all this? Because when I returned, if you asked me to teach about the culture, I wouldn’t know where to begin. How do you take a whole country’s values and pack them into a few forty minute lessons? How do you simplify them for children to understand without watering anything down?

The Importance of Teaching Culture Now more than ever, students are able to access different cultures through technology in the forms of social media and television. However, these examples of culture are always oversimplified and often generalizations. World events that these children may see on the TV show military conflicts, radicalism, and natural disasters. Students hardly ever experience true examples of culture. For example, over the last few years, everything I ever heard about Syria was bad news. Reporting on bombs, wars, and deaths filled my TV. Then I learned that over 10,000 Syrian immigrants were coming to the United States. I realized, with so many Syrian children coming into our school systems, other students would not have a good impression of them, based on the news filling our TVs and radios. Syria, although war torn, also has some great people, traditions, and culture. There are Syrian artists, athletes, and leaders that can be admired. Students should hear the good, along with the bad, in order to be unbiased and welcoming of any new students coming to the school. You see, students need to see that there is more to this world than them. So many students are filled with a self-absorbed sense of entitlement that they don’t even realize that there are other countries, other beliefs, and other interests. Just because someone doesn’t look the same, talk the same, or pray the same, doesn’t make them bad or dangerous or unlovable. Children need the chance to learn how to engage with people of other cultures in a respectful way. The more children experience diversity, the more comfortable they will be with it. We can empower students, from early ages, to speak up against racism, accept all worldviews, and prevent cultural stereotypes.

Staying Away from Stereotypes Most teachers want to have a culturally aware classroom. Unfortunately, many teach it in a way that causes more harm than good. I have seen so many “cute crafts” that regard creating a popsicle stick teepee while learning about Native Americans. The problem with this is that it’s a generalization. Depending on the tribe, Native Americans lived in longhouses, wigwams, adobes, plankhouses, and, yes, teepees. But to only teach students about teepees limits the fullness of how different the Native American tribes are. There are even generalizations that may seem like a compliment. Make all the kids’ mouths water with talk of spaghetti and meatballs, pizza, bread, and lasagna, and give a “compliment” to the Italian culture by saying that “all Italians are good cooks!” That’s a compliment, right? We love Italian food, right? Until an Italian student goes home and asks his parents, who don’t like to cook, why they aren’t good cooks like every other Italian. It makes people feel as if they are not keeping up with the cookie cutter impression that the world has for their culture. I’ve heard many people say, in a good natured way, how smart students from India are. What happens if an Indian student is struggling with a concept or is having trouble moving onto the next reading level? Instead of treating them like any other student who is struggling, we hold them up to what we believe they should be like, wondering why they aren’t fitting into the box we created for them. It is really a dangerous thing to generalize in any way, especially if you are teaching the students to hold onto these same cultural expectations.

Going Deep for All Grade Levels I started off discussing how culture is more than just food or clothing. So then, how do we effectively teach culture? This will all change depending on the grade level and subject you teach, but let me promise you, even young students can go deep and comprehend the beauty of differing cultures. Students can study other countries’ governments, constitutions or lack thereof, economies, and famous landforms. Students can compare and contrast religions, track weather patterns, and discover how animals adapt to their land’s climate. Students can read folktales from different countries and discuss similarities and differences, as well as compare the current exchange rate between the American dollar and other countries’ currency. Students can read biographies on immigrants from all around the world. To go back to the beginning, it’s not bad to read a read aloud on the Chinese New Year. In fact, some of my favorite stories are about the Chinese New Year celebration. However, if that’s all you do, you are not effectively teaching the Chinese culture. China has a wide variety of different landscapes, which could be a great Social Studies lesson. China also has many endangered animals, such as the South China Tiger that has 0 still living in the wild and less than 100 living in captivity, which would be a great lesson for Earth Day. There’s nothing wrong with discussing the ways Native Americans dressed or where they lived, as long as you are capturing the fact that there are hundreds of tribes that all differ in various ways. Instead of making popsicle stick teepees, create a map that shows where each type of house was found, or create a Venn Diagram to compare two different tribes. Discuss how Native Americans lived off the land and encourage students to make up games using things found in nature such as sticks, grass, and stones. Grind flowers and mix with water to create your own paint. Discuss the folktales and stories of how the world was made, according to different Native American tribes. There is also nothing wrong with discussing food. Students will probably feel more motivated to talk about food and participate more in your lessons if you’re showing pictures of yummy food! However, we don’t want to make any generalizations. If you have a Chinese boy in your class, don’t assume that his favorite foods are Chinese dishes. If you have a student from South America, don’t assume all she eats is Spanish dishes. Young students could sort food into categories such as bread, meat, soup, dessert, etc. Older students could compare what different countries have for breakfast. Students could even bring in a recipe or write a how-to on their favorite foods. Instead of focusing on meals, you could find what each country’s largest crop is and design a project on that.

What Can We Do? It is impossible to teach about the landscapes of China, the different Native Americans tribes, Day of the Dead, Chinese folktales, the agriculture of Italy, and endangered animals in Australia. We barely have time to teach what is in our curriculum, let alone make a unit on currencies around the world. Take what you’re teaching and add real world examples from around the world into it. If you’re learning about supply and demand, discuss agriculture and factories across the world to see where we get some of our favorite items. If you’re teaching about biographies, tell about Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada or Malawian engineer William Kamkwamba. If you’re teaching hours of daylight, talk about Reykjavik’s longest day consisting of almost 22 hours of daylight. In small ways, show the students that the earth is big and ready to be explored. Show them that the world is overflowing with people who make a difference. It is our job to make sure that students see examples of great leaders from different countries, different races, and different genders. Students should create stories, art, music, and dances, inspired by other culture’s. Students should feel so comfortable and knowledgeable about other cultures that they are able to contribute to this world’s fight for justice among all races, ethnicities, genders, and religions. Students should look at a culture and see more than just a type of food, more than a unique article of clothing, more than just a stereotype, and see the real people, with values, beliefs, and a rich history to explore. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACE EBL5091 Jessica Lee DePasquale October 26, 2018