MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION 2120

            Being a teacher is more than teaching children how to read and write, but it is also about understanding who they are and where they come from.  Many children come from different backgrounds and it is important for the kids and the teacher to learn about the diversity in the classroom.  One reason you need to know where your students come from is so that you, as the teacher, do not offend them in any way.  When I was in middle school there was a student in my class who was Muslim.  Halloween was around the corner and our class was making pumpkins and talking about where we were going to go trick or treating.  He told the teacher he did not celebrate Halloween and she put him in a desk away from everyone else and he did math problems while the rest of us had fun.  I could tell that he was devastated and all he wanted to do was be involved with the rest of the class.  I think the teacher should have let him know it was perfectly fine that he did not celebrate Halloween and she could have given him another craft to do that would let him still interact with the other kids. 

In my class I picture the room having pictures and descriptions of many different cultures all over it.   I am on the tennis team here at NGCSU and I have had the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and I have loved learning about all the different foods, dances, and clothing from my teammates culture.  A couple of ideas I have for my room is to have a calendar with all the holidays that are celebrated by the students in my class.  Also I have thought about my kids doing a project where they pick one culture that is different from their own and teach the class what they learned about it.