Multicultural Education in a Socio-Political Context - Assignment Example

Multi-Cultural Lesson Plan Introduction “A teacher's failure to consider the integration of race, social class, and gender can lead to an over simplified or inaccurate understanding of what occurs in schools and, therefore, to an inappropriate or simplistic prescription for educational equity and excellence” (Grant & Sleeter, 2003 p. 64-65). Teaching in multicultural Australia is largely different from the times that Australia was populated by predominantly white Europeans. Today’s multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious population in the continent requires new, inclusive models of classroom practices and curriculum changes. A lesson plan has been revised with achieving the goals of multicultural education and the plan given here includes both the original version before inclusion and the modified version after including modifications to suit multicultural education. In the subsequent portions, the justifications for the included modifications are explained. Lesson Plan Subject: English Grades: 2-3 Learning Objectives: Identify the features of a narrative, sequence of events in the narrative, and identify the main characters and the main turning points. Subject: English Grade 2-3 Stage:1-2 Lesson Title: Fairy-Tales - Cinderella Introduction to Narratives (Cinderella) Concept: Responding to Narratives – Understand the link between language and images to recognize the manner in which emotions and expressions are linked. Previous Learning Children should recognize to words and images understand and recognize different sounds and basic words in their native languages and/or English. Unit Objectives • Children will learn to listen contextually and relate words with pictures and understand emotions and actions conveyed by the words through narratives. • They will learn to recognize sounds and pronunciation of words (phonological awareness). • They will listen to the narrative in pairs to develop meaningful word-letter relationships through simple games. Writing action words like ‘work-ing’ ‘sweep-ing’; simple questions like ‘how many step-sisters did Cinderella have?’ Resources Whiteboard, Pictures, Images of Cinderella, working, dancing, dressing, the magic wand, pumpkin, mice, stage-coach, prince, palace, and words in large font sizes to match the pictures; story of Cinderella with graphically illustrations and short sentences in each page that develops the narrative; Bright coloured Animations and simple appealing music with rhythmical patterns in multimedia form. Teaching Period: 1 lesson with activities and multimedia games. Totally 2 periods. Teaching Sequence: first create curiosity through teaser questions on kings, queens and palaces; then narrate/read the story page by page to establish the link between sounds, words, and images. Reinforce by repetition and related- activities like role-play. Assessment Questions Who is Cinderella? Did she have a mother? Who helped Cinderella go to the King’s party? What time did the spell break? How did the prince identify Cinderella as his maiden? Assessment Activities: 1) One set of children each holding picture of words like ‘swabbing’, ‘dancing’, ‘stage-coach’, ‘prince’, ‘palace’, ‘mice’, and another set holding words spelled to match the picture – a third set of children will identify the words and match the pictures. 2) View multimedia/animated version of Cinderella with music; 3) Role play – step-sisters, step-mother, Cinderella, Fairy-Godmother, and Prince. Time Content & outcomes Instructional strategies Assessment Individual/Group Attention Areas Resources 5 mins Introduction to Narratives Draw the students out by asking them about magic, fairy tales, kings, castles. Also explain that Aboriginal Australians had elders to lead their communities rather than kings and queens. ESL Student comprehension of kings, queens, castles. signs of interest, attention. Possibly show Chinese/Asian castles, pictures of royal people to students of Asian origin. Gently address Aboriginal and Asian ESL students to include them and kindle participation White Board, pictures of various castles, kings and queens 5 mins Questioning session Asking questions to ESL students Looking out for expressions of eagerness Picture Books with images 15 mins Interactive Session with students reading, explaining the narrative and showing them appropriate pictures Read page by page explaining feelings, and expression, looking, encouraging recollect by repetition. Also explain how narratives have similarities despite differences in religion and culture – Cinderella (assumed Christian) whereas Yeh- Shen Buddhist and Asian Empathy and appropriate responses, from students. understanding names, and key points in the narrative; giving ESL students more time to reseh-pond. Repeat story twice and slowly ensuring that all sections of ESL and English native speaker students alike understand the key features of the story Book, some information on “Yeh-Shen” who is the Cinderella of Chinese Literature (Louie,2007) 20 mins Animation Cartoon watching Session Interactive multimedia with small recollect questions Pose the questions on multimedia and get children to answer the questions orally Participation of students; students right answers to simple questions like how many step-sisters. Re-read the narrative to aid total recall and involve ESL students on the meanings of words DVD/ DVD player CD on Cinderella 20 mins Cinderella Game matching words and pictures by sections of students Divide the students into 3 sections, one section words, second with pictures, third section to pair words and images Faster linking of words and their pictures and quicker recall by pairing correct pictures and word pairs Inducing ESL students to make an attempt Encouraging group activities and discussions among themselves to aid better understanding Enlarged Pictures and Matching words, students 20 mins Writing practice Writing spellings on the board and giving exercises like fill-in blanks to aid recall of names words and linking with the story Also include some words like Gender feminine and their translations in Chinese for better connection Spelling small easy words faster, remembering sounds and pronunciations clearly Group activity making classmates correct spelling of other classmates to reinforce learning of Spellings and forming good writing skills Book, pencil, white board 20 mins Role Play by students Involve boy students of all nativities and languages to play various characters like Cinderella, step-sisters in order to avoid gender and race discrimination or partiality All sections of students understand indignity through role play Group Activity Discussions between students on how the role play can be closer to the story Preparation for role play Class room Context: The hypothetical class is located near Sydney and has 25 students, with 10 boys and 15 girls.  They are all between 7 and 9 years of age. The class includes two Aboriginal Australian students. There are 4 ESL students who speak native tongues at home, from China, Japan and  Vietnam, who require some language support. As speakers of native languages these ESL students have difficulty in understanding English, and are not very familiar with written English. Rationale of Changes: Multicultural Characteristics in a Socio-political Context The changed cultural context of classrooms in Australia challenges teachers to appropriately support student learning by being culturally-sensitive to their needs and help them achieve their full potential (Burridge, Buchanan and Chodkiewicz 2009, p, 69). To ensure cultural-sensitivity, I choose to follow Nieto & Bode’s (2008) definition of multicultural education in a socio-political context, wherein the form is ‘elastic’ and flexible, and includes both the concerned communities and the process of education (2008, p. 7) because it is relevant to today’s culturally diverse Australian scenario. As such the revised lesson plan is an endeavour to incorporate the seven typical traits of multicultural education given by the researchers “antiracist, basic, important for all students, pervasive, education for social justice, a process and critical pedagogy” (Nieto & Bode, 2008, p. 44). For example, as an antiracist measure the chosen story is one from one other than the dominant white, middle-class cultures. So as to “systematically include student culture in the classroom as authorized or official knowledge” (Ladson-Billings 1995, p. 483) Aboriginal students and those from Asian origin will be invited to share their stories and experiences as much as white students. Some of the ESL students may appear to be unresponsive, however, it should not be misconstrued as lack of intelligence; rather it should be analysed in the context multiculturalism and reasons examined so as to help the students accordingly (Zhou, Knoke & Izumi 2005). In the event of silence of international students, I shall encourage them to participate in the classroom processes of reading and writing, by having fellow classmates or former students share their stories in similar contexts (Christensen 1990, 38); in this case, I will pose question like, Is it fair to treat Yeh-Shen the way she was treated? What would you do if you or your firned were treated that way? Provoking students to ask questions and think deeply, “help students to understand the difference between an intellectual challenge and a challenge to the authority of their parents” (Ladson-Billings 1995, p. 482). Encouraging exchange of personal experiences, difficulties among ESOL students, in the classroom context has positive effect on student learning (Cummins 1997, Harklau 2000, Christensen 1990). Braxton (2001) reiterates that children need to have an environment wherein they feel safe, secure and respected, in order to prevent unfair behaviours of children amongst themselves. Dividing the students into small groups, I shall give each group a chance collaborate and use their imagination and modify the story of Yeh-Shen as they deem it fit, and play the roles of characters in the story. At the end they have to jointly explain whey the modified the story in that particular way and what the group wanted to convey to the audience through the change. Through role-play, and group activity children have the opportunity to interact with each-other, learn skill-sets from peers, which will help them resolve their differences and understand each other’s strengths, and bond as a team. This will improve the feeling of safety and security in ethnic and linguistic minority children. Furthermore, much emphasis on group activity has been placed in the revised lesson plan, taking into consideration the point made by Braxton (2001) that the positive influence of group in various classroom activities will make the children hear and see each other in a different perspective, with the student example of Philip . Avoiding Race, Class, Gender, Discrimination Lisa Delpit (1988) points to the existence of ‘the culture of power’ in classrooms and that it is imperative for children to develop “critical and higher-order thinking and reasoning skills” (p. 286). Cinderella offers the scope to inculcate precisely such high-order thinking on topics like, cultural values, social equality, class and gendered nature of work in the story. In the lesson plan given above, the interactive multimedia sessions, as well as the teacher student interactive sessions will pose several questions to the students like, Are situations experienced by Yeh-Shen relevant today? Do you think that the likes of suffering Yeh-Shen exist today? If yes, have you seen any? Do you feel that some types of work should be done only by men or women? Why? How different are Yeh-Shen and Cinderella?How are they similar? What would a boy in Yeh-Shen’s place do? What would you do to change the situation? An educated Yeh-Shen be as helpless? Do we have class differences today? How can we change/ overcome our differences? In the last of the five approaches to Multicutural Education, researchers Sleeter and Grant (1987, 2006) advocate the Social Reconstructionist method; this method illustrates a total reconstruction of the educational framework itself, to refer to issues and concerns that particularly involve diverse student groups. This method recommends students to be proactive and challenge the status quo, and unite with other groups with common cause to analyze related issues (Sleeter & Grant, 1987, 2006). Recounting the story of Yeh-Shen and asking some basic questions from the story (abcteach.com, 2004) ensures that the students think on issues relevant to the multicultural set-up like differences and similarities in race, gender, class and so on. Bilingualism – A Resource With regard to ESL and ESOL students, Harklau (2000) points to some educators preferring “a deficit model of bilingualism when discussing students' academic performance” and consider the “students' ability to communicate in two languages not as a special talent or strength but rather as a disability (p. 50). I disagree with this and would rather consider bilingualism as a resource; inducing multicultural/international students to come out with equivalent words for certain English words like ‘gender’ ‘femininity’ ‘masculinity’ ‘labour’ and so on, I shall stimulate connection between the students’ native language and English in a manner similar to Martha Demienteiff (Delpit 1988, p. 293). This way I can amicably and respectfully point out the differences and stimulate learning English by world language students. In the same method, I shall free oral and written analysis by students on Yeh-Shen related topics like helplessness and empowerment and family and security, taking care to gently correct mistakes without ridicule or stigma since, “when more attention is paid to the way something is written or said than to what is said, students' words and thoughts become devalued” (Christensen 1990, p. 37). Conclusion and Reflection The designing of the revised plan has helped understand the amount of care and attention that goes into the making of lesson plans for multicultural education in a socio-political context. It gives hope to build a more equitable and culturally, linguistically, religiously tolerant Australia, which ultimately leads to the strengthening of the society and indirectly achieves the goals of multicultural education. Reference: Braxton, Beverly (2001): 'Creating Classroom Community' In Rethinking our Classrooms, Volume 2 : Teaching for Equity and Justice Edited by Bill Bigelow, et al. Milwaukee, WI. : Rethinking Schools, pp. 163-166. Burridge, Nina., Buchanan, John., and Chodkiewicz, Andrew (2009): “ Dealing with Difference: Building Culturally Responsive Classrooms” in Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.1, No.3, 2009. Pp. 68-83. Christensen, M. Linda (1990): “ Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?” The English Journal, Vol. 79, No. 2 (Feb., 1990), pp. 36-40. National Council of Teachers of English Stable. http://www.jstor.org/stable/819097. Cummins, J. (1997). “Minority status and schooling in Canada”. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 28, 411-430. Delpit, Lisa (1988): “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children” Harvard Educational Review; Aug 1988; 58, 3; ProQuest Central. Pp. 280-98. Grant, C. & Sleeter, C. E. (2003): Race, class, gender, and disability in the classroom, in A. J. Banks & A. M. Banks (Eds.). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc pp. 65-83. Harklau, Linda (2000): “From the "Good Kids" to the "Worst": Representations of English Language Learners across Educational Settings” TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 35-67. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)Stable. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3588096. Ladson-Billings, Gloria (1995): “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy” in American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 465-491. Louie, Aai Ling (2007): “Yeh-Shen: The Chinese Cinderella” [Internet] Available at http://www.myseveralworlds.com/2007/08/02/yeh-shen-the-chinese-cinderella/ Nieto, S., & Bode, P. (2008). Affirming diversity, The Sociopolitical context of multicultural education (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. NSW Department of Education and Training (2005): Statistical Bulletin: Schools and Students in New South Wales, 2004, Planning and Innovation, Department of Education & Training, Sydney: NSW. Sleeter, C. E., & Grant, C. (1987). An analysis of multicultural research in the United States. Harvard Educational Review, 57(4), 421–445. Sleeter, C. E., & Grant, C. (2006). Making choices for multicultural education: Five approaches to race, class, and gender (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Zhou, Rachel Yanqiu., Knoke, Della., & Sakamoto, Izumi (2005). “Rethinking silence in the classroom: Chinese students’ experiences of sharing indigenous knowledge” International Journal of Inclusive Education Vol. 9, No. 3, July–September 2005, pp. 287–311. Read More