Teaching Culturally Diverse Classrooms

America now is a very culturally diverse nation; most of the minority and immigrant population lives in cities, which indicates that the public school classrooms in urban areas are full of versatile cultural identities. According to the 2000 Census record, minority and immigrant populations has grown in increasing numbers, and most of those people live in urban areas and attend public high schools; also, the level of residential segregation still remains as high as in 1990, which proposes new problems for immigrants and minorities. Monocultural schools are very rare and the global society is very multicultural; it is very logical to prepare students in schools to enter this diverse society (Le Roux 48). Teachers are largely responsible for what and how students learn. It is important to educate and establish respect in students by helping them become aware of the cultural and ethnic diversity that exists in the United States so that they are prepared for the real world, after school. "The imbalance between the racial/ethnic population become more disproportionate and the composition of the teaching force remains predominantly white, middle class, female"(qtd in Growe 208). Teachers are not adequately prepared to educate culturally diverse public classrooms in urban areas due to their monolingualism, cultural homogeneity, and the lack of knowledge, respect, and awareness of languages, cultural differences, and different human beings. The U.S. Department of Education found out that 38.8 percent of public school students were minorities. Eighty percent of the teachers surveyed felt unprepared to teach a diverse student population. Teachers do not understand the psychology of a student and what the student experiences within the boundaries of his or her culture, so generally they focus on the external behavior and are forced to impose punishments following the regulation (Holloway 90). Research has been conducted and the study showed that, "Latino students perceived that teachers ' actions escalated disciplinary problems and believed that administrators used unfair and discriminatory practices"(90). Educators will never be able to teach students if the students perceive them as being racist. The degree to which education for cultural diversity is realized depends on the teacher 's attitudes, knowledge, and behavior. They make the mistake of mismatching their own life experiences and professional training. Le Roux realizes that an increasing diverse school population encounters a mostly middle-class teaching force that is inadequately prepared to manage the reality of diversity in schools, and that is due to lack of knowledge of diversity (46). He also states that some teachers make the mistake of generalizing about particular ethnic groups and cultural groups, as a result of being exposed during training to information about culture; that is very dangerous in itself. Educators also focus mostly on general characteristics of a group instead in a single individual, and this is wrong because each individual is unique and should not be generalized by culture (Le Roux 46). Many cultural groups are entitled to maintain their traditional attitudes, values, and especially languages; the lack of educational achievement and improvement is sometimes caused by the problem of a different language background. Students with different cultural backgrounds speak different languages and this problem in turn makes the students realize their racial differences and use them as an excuse for the lack of educational achievement. The number of students who spoke a language other than English at home rose from 6.3 to 13.7 million in the last twenty years according to the U.S. Department of Education. There are also students with different cultural barriers that achieve academic success despite having to learn another language (Campbell 32). While schools do maintain bilingual programs, there is no "special instructional program outside the mainstream curriculum." The other problem is that most of the teachers are monolingual. In the article, "A Knowledge Base for Cultural Diversity," Growe mentions that it is very important for a student to come in contact with educators who share the same language and culture and that a lack of teachers from diverse racial/ethnic groups creates conditions that do not help to improve a successful multiracial society and excellence in education (208). Miller, the writer of, "Teaching and Learning About Cultural Diversity," also realizes that minority teachers will automatically be more successful than nonminority teachers working with minority students (346). The schools ' administration must hire a multicultural staff instead of having the statistically mostly white, middle-class teachers. There is an example that Zhou gives in his article, "Urban Education," about a student that brought his parents to a parent-teachers conference. The teacher was puzzled by the smiling faces of the parents when she told them that their son has not been coming to class. The teacher didn 't know that the student interpreted the words in a positive manner and told his parents that he has been so good that the teacher decided to give him a vacation. Zhou states that language problems have a negative impact on a student 's school life and those difficulties in understanding teachers and expressing themselves lead to discouragement and boredom, which in turn leads to cutting classes and dropping out. The main problem in having to educate a culturally diverse population in urban public schools is actually not knowing how to educate students of different cultures. "We have a reality of culturally deficient educators attempting to teach culturally different children" (qtd in Le Roix 46). The concern is that all students are taught the same way with the same approach and what educators do not understand is that "minority students are, by nature, less likely to be successful in school," and there is "some formulaic methodology that can be employed" to teach those students in ways different from teaching nonminority students (Miller 346). Educational practitioners, scholars, policy makers, and political figures in attendance participated in only limited conversations about teaching in multicultural environments such as the ones that exist in urban public schools (Cross 203). Urban public schools are primarily attended by students from various racial minority and immigrant groups. In "Learning or Unlearning Racism," Cross, who is the author, states that in the last thirty years urban schools have become "intensely made up mostly of students of color" and continue to increase with multiculturalism while America 's teaching force is becoming increasingly white. "Currently approximately 85.6% of public school teachers are white, with increasing numbers" (203). Also, the educators who teach the white teachers are also predominantly white. Cross believes that there are is an "enormous gap" between teacher educators, teachers themselves, and who they will teach (the white teachers do not expect to teach multicultural classrooms); it is very likely that this cultural and racial gap results in a "significant detachment of White teachers educators and White teacher education students from children of color." This detachment has very serious consequences to what and how multicultural classrooms will be taught and how these white teachers will "experience in their profession" (204). About ninety percent of the teacher preparation programs in the Unites States follow the traditional curriculum that includes the basic teacher courses such as liberal arts, methods and student teaching, but what these teachers learn, "does not reflect social reality and is therefore derelict in preparing them to function in s culturally pluralistic and global society" (qtd in Cross 204). There are also problems in classrooms about teachers being perceived as racist and prejudice because of this lack of knowledge about the differences in cultures. In "How White Teachers Perceive the Problem of Racism," Kailin did a survey and a questionnaire with about 220 teachers in Lakeview, a public high school, and found out that "White teachers operated from an impaired consciousness about racism" (724). There are also arguments made that having concern for teaching diverse populations is not necessary. Some people believe that schools should not be involved in promoting cultural identity; this identity should be developed at home and in community. Multiculturalism conflicts with equal opportunity, freedom of association, and personal growth of an individual (Feinberg 124). However, Jonathan and Campbell argue that there are important and justifiable reasons for taking national identity seriously and that there are personal and professional advantages of cultural adaptivity, such as teachers having more control and respect over their classrooms (37). Another argument is that teachers are highly educated in handling culturally diverse classrooms; that there are many courses offered to teachers so that they learn about these difficulties. Growe reasons that there are national standards that encourage training programs to include diversity, but school administrators and teachers are not adequately prepared to maintain a multicultural environment (209). These classes that educate teachers about cultural diversity are "grossly inadequate, or in many instances, non-existent" (Le Roux 47). Cultural diversity plays a major role in the public school system of America. Each student learns differently depending on culture, language, and traditions. The problem in these classes is that teachers are not acceptably prepared to teach these culturally diverse populations. The educators are primarily monolingual and cannot relate to the recent immigrant students that have a hard time learning the English language. Teachers also to not understated cultures and how each individual of a specific group behaves and works in school. The lack of knowledge in educating multicultural classrooms makes it hard for the teacher to educate. There are measures taken to make teachers more aware to there concepts, but there are still troubles in handling culturally diverse classrooms.

Works Cited

Borman, Kathryn M. Ethnic Diversity in Communities and Schools. Stamford: Ablex, 1998

Boutte, Gloria S. Resounding Voices. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000

Campbell, Anne. "Cultural identity as a social construct." Intercultural Education. 11.1 (2000): 31-39

Feinberg, Walter. Common Schools/Uncommon Identities. New Haven: Yale University, 1998

Goodman, Diane J. "Difficult dialogues." College Teaching. 43.2 (1995)

Grove, Roslin. "A knowledge base for cultural diversity in administrative training." Journal of Instructional Philosophy. 29.3 (2002) 205-212

Holloway, John H. "Managing Culturally Diverse Classrooms." Educational Leadership (2003)
Iseke-Barnes, Judy M., and Njoki Wane N. Equity in Schools and Society. Toronto: Canadian Scholars ', 2000 Jonathan, Ruth. "Cultural diversity and public education: reasonable negotiation and hard cases." Journal of Philosophy of Education. 34.2 (2000) 377-393

Le Roux, Johann. "Effective Schooling is Being Culturally Responsive." Intercultural Education. 12.1 (2001) 41-50

Miller, Howard M. "Teaching and Learning About Cultural Diversity." The Reading Teacher 55.4 (2002) 346-347

Zhou, Mih. "Urban Education: Challenges in Educating Culturally Diverse Children." Teachers College Record. 105.2 (2003) 208-255

Cross, Beverly E. "Learning or Unlearning Racism: Transferring Teacher Education Curriculum to Classroom Practices." Theory Into Practice. 42.3 (2003) 203-209

Kailin, Julie. "How White Teachers Perceive the Problem of Racism in Their Schools: A Case Study in "Liberal" Lakeview." Teachers College Record. 100.4 (1999) 724-750

Cited: Borman, Kathryn M. Ethnic Diversity in Communities and Schools. Stamford: Ablex, 1998 Boutte, Gloria S Campbell, Anne. "Cultural identity as a social construct." Intercultural Education. 11.1 (2000): 31-39 Feinberg, Walter. Common Schools/Uncommon Identities. New Haven: Yale University, 1998 Goodman, Diane J Grove, Roslin. "A knowledge base for cultural diversity in administrative training." Journal of Instructional Philosophy. 29.3 (2002) 205-212 Holloway, John H Iseke-Barnes, Judy M., and Njoki Wane N. Equity in Schools and Society. Toronto: Canadian Scholars ', 2000 Jonathan, Ruth. "Cultural diversity and public education: reasonable negotiation and hard cases." Journal of Philosophy of Education. 34.2 (2000) 377-393 Le Roux, Johann Miller, Howard M. "Teaching and Learning About Cultural Diversity." The Reading Teacher 55.4 (2002) 346-347 Zhou, Mih Cross, Beverly E. "Learning or Unlearning Racism: Transferring Teacher Education Curriculum to Classroom Practices." Theory Into Practice. 42.3 (2003) 203-209 Kailin, Julie