Multicultrual Teaching - Essay Example

Multicultural Teaching Thinking in a multicultural manner refers to the ability of accepting the truths that exist and how to perceive about others through different visions. In order to think in a multicultural manner, a society, such as the United States where different cultures have existed need to be thought about. Diversity has been experienced by the nation since its creation when different people from different cultural backgrounds started settling in the region. Previously the nation has been recognized as the land of whites, but with the passage of time the notion of white majority has simply faded away and has been replaced with majority of the minorities.

This is because those who are recognized as the minorities within the nation have far exceeded the once perceived majority of the whites. For example: during the period of 2006, around four states of United States were experience a majority of the minority population including the 75% of the minority that that were residing in the area of Hawai’I (Landis, 2012, p.22). Due to this change in the structure of the population, organizations from different industries need to accept diversity in order to operate successfully and benefit from elements that come with such a diverse population size.

Multicultural societies experience immense challenges and these challenges are even experienced by teachers in the educational institutes of United States. Teachers in these educational institutes need to be culturally competent in order to cater to the needs of a diverse population of student. Cultural competency refers to an individual’s ability to deal with people from different cultures. In order to become culturally competent, teachers in the United States need to undergo training and develop knowledge, skills and abilities that are necessary to teach a multicultural class room.

Culturally competent teachers are those who realize the differences in cultures of students and then design their teaching patterns accordingly to help students from different backgrounds in gaining better understanding of what is being taught. They need to accept and respect the differences among these students in order to provide them with facilities which help them learn. In order to teach a multicultural classroom, teachers need to implement various strategies in order to remove the barriers created by multiculturalism and to promote learning and development of all at the same time.

In order to teach a multicultural classroom, teachers need to provide team based assignments comprising of team members from different cultures. Such exercises help students learn cultural differences among their peers and they learn how to respect them and how different individuals from different cultures think. Teachers themselves need to be empathetic towards their students and learn about the cultures of different students and teach them accordingly (Ehlers, 2013, p.9). They need to use different questioning methods while dealing with students from different cultures.

While asking questions, teachers will have to get involved in high quality interpersonal communication which will include paraphrasing and restating the questions in order to help students learn what is being taught. Students may not get involved due to their cultural differences; teachers need to promote their involvement in lectures and different educational sessions. ReferencesEhlers, C. S. (2013). Handbook of culturally responsive school mental health advancing research, training, practice, and policy.

New York, NY: Springer.Landis, D. (2012). Handbook of ethnic conflict international perspectives. New York: Springer.