Ed. Journal - 1st Entry of Ed. Journal

The education “tag” starts from the multicultural education class I am taking in spring 2008 and will be continuing since the life journal is a journal of educating and being educated.

Why multicultural education matters?
I am staring blankly to this question for a while multicultural in education is beyond dispute in this mixed culture world.

What is culture?
Culture is not limited by the behavior and product of the people or patterns in people’s life; it is the shared beliefs, feelings and values of a community of people.
From Hiebert, Dimensions of culture:

The misunderstandings of multicultural education or communication are based on ignorance of the beliefs, feelings and values of another culture. The solution is to learn how the other culture works. As a teacher, preparing ourselves as a cross-cultural educator so that when the student in our classroom is from the other culture or minority, teacher won’t show the attitude of “making no sense to us”.

Suppose there is a student in class believes in Jehovah's Witness. The teacher should know the basic religion background of Jehovah’s Witness; have some concept of do’s and don’ts for the classroom activities. If possible, ask the assistant from parents for additional support.

At last, the MCE class is not only for preparing the potential teachers to be sensitive for the students from different cultures, but also preparing the curriculum with a global perspective.