MULTICULTURAL CONTENT AND MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES

MULTICULTURAL CONTENT AND MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES

My school is an International Community School and has students and families from over 50 countries. We work on the school mission that says “Learning and Leading in a Collaborative Culture.” This mission helps teachers, administration, students and parents to stay together as a family.

A community as diverse as this presents a complex challenge: In a place with so many different values and belief systems, what role should an educator play?

It is important for me as an educator to have a cultural awareness of the students’ lives and backgrounds. Without this awareness, my sensitivity and compassion for each child would not be able to develop, one of a classroom teacher’s most important roles is to help students develop the critical thinking, collaboration and self-reflection skills necessary to foster a better society. Having multicultural content in lesson plan helps to make students feel inclusive, it brings out student’s voice and makes them see their self in the learning process.

How lessons in Math can reflect the diversity of my community, region, country, or world.

Writing letters or alphabets could be different in different regions or countries, but most countries write numbers in similar ways except for few countries.

Teaching math in my school is not difficult when numbers are involved because most students seem to have good prior knowledge of numbers. Now teaching addition and subtraction of money, students may be a little bit confused especially students who do not make use of dollars or cents.  Trying to make connection between student country’s currency while teaching addition and subtraction of dollar, for example, my Nigerian student who is used to the naira and kobo as denomination, I would ask her to tell me a bit of the currency. Some of the things she could say will be that Nigeria uses “Naira and kobo” for measuring amount. When she says that 100 kobo make one naira, at this point I will be able to connections relating this instance to dollars. If 100 kobo make one naira, 100 cents make one dollar, just as it is 100 to one in naira, the US dollars has similar as the naira. If the sign ‘#’ is used to represent naira, ‘$’ is used to represent dollars, I would let students from this country that we are using their currency for illustration to know that what change in the case of naira and dollar is just in the signs. I would ask a question like this: If Grace has #670. 40k and buys a shoe for #300. 12k, how much will she have as change. When student gives answer to this question that has her country currency, she will be understand that with dollar and cents nothing changes because they share the same unit of 100 to one, what will only change is the sign. The Naira and kobo sign will be replaced with dollar and cent sign and the solution still remains the same.

Teaching students to make word problems involving addition and subtraction of money, to connect to students’ culture or background, using examples that involves some things students do in their culture or country is a good way to make students to feel that their culture is appreciated and it makes them feel happy and show sense of belonging. 

Examples like:

• It is Saint Patrick’s Day next week Tuesday and Ms. Charlotte wants to buy a green shirt and a green pair of shoes, she has $461 but the two items will cost $530, how much more money does she need to complete for the payment?

• Pia wants to go to the temple on Holy day for prayers, she wants to buy a new sari for the celebration, she had $89.88, she quickly ran to a sari shop, she bought the sari she wanted and was given a change of $40.22. How much did the sari cost?

Using celebrations or names that students are familiar with that applies to their culture or country is good way I would use to teach this content as it makes students to begin to imagine themselves in the word problem. Using multiple perspectives demonstrate universal human experiences across cultures and celebrations that occur around the world. By learning about my students’ lives outside the classroom, I am more prepared to work with them in the classroom.

A rationale for why it is important to introduce students to multicultural content and multiple perspectives.

It is important to introduce students to multicultural content and multiple perspectives because the process helps to create a safe, acceptable and successful learning environment, students will feel at home while learning they will show sense of belonging. This approach strengthens cultural consciousness and intercultural awareness and prevents prejudice and discrimination. Students develop positive self-image and identity, and this allows students to show multiple perspectives and ways of thinking. An overall view is that it gives students an equitable education opportunity.

Being able to see and understand multiple perspectives in not just beneficial in math.  More than that, it is important to learn this skill to be successful in basically any part of your life. Introducing students to multicultural content and multiple perspectives, students will begin to feel safe and encouraged, teachers can help students start asking the right questions and then participate in ways that are purposeful and productive.

How I will know that students are developing cultural competence in my classroom? 

My school works with the CCSS, the curriculum is from America.  So, students need to develop some level of cultural competence just to understand the curriculum, objectives, standards, and so on.  Furthermore, it will be evident that students are developing cultural competence through their interest and skill level in particular money and other units in math throughout the year.  Some students may relate better to some units than others.  Overall, though, it must be a major focus on my behalf as a teacher to assure that students fully understand the similarities and differences between money in their countries and American. Talking with individual student one-on-one to address any misunderstandings and using resources like videos or pictures when necessary are a couple of ways that I will make sure students are understanding and becoming more competent throughout the school year. Use of regular formative assessment and summative assessment that will help to ensure understanding is also important.

As a teacher, once am able to foster a learning environment that enables thoughtful discussions with a variety of opinions and perspectives, they can facilitate conversations about real-world issues that affect students’ everyday lives. Students will be able to recognize real-world problems and critically engage with these issues.