A multicultural education

As our children head back to school this month, we welcome the opportunity for a fresh start: new supplies, clean buildings and teachers who are rested and reinvigorated.

But in our hearts we also carry a nagging fear. Will this be yet another year when black children are disciplined, suspended and expelled at rates exceeding all other groups? Or will this finally be the year where we start to bridge the cultural discontinuity that occurs when children of color seek to be understood by predominantly white, middle-class teachers?

During the past 30 years, there has been a great deal of inquiry and research into the question of how to foster an environment in public schools where children of all races and cultures can succeed. The discussion and activity surrounding the issue has resulted in greater sensitivity among educators to the subject, and yet, if you asked a group of veteran teachers to define multicultural education, why it is valuable, and how it works, there would be a wide range of answers.

Over the past four years, I chaired the first national advisory panel on multicultural education. Social scientists and educators from across the country met and reviewed 30 years of information on the topic. We started with the questions, what do we know about education and diversity, and how do we know it? From this accumulated research, we were able to distill 12 essential principles about what constitutes a complete multicultural curriculum. We expanded on these principles in our final report, "Diversity Within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society."

Diversity Within Unity provides a roadmap for educators concerned with improving race relations in their schools. It starts with dispelling the idea that by scheduling Black History for February, a school has adequately addressed the needs of education and diversity. We call this the "tacos on Tuesdays" approach. What we need instead is to infuse multicultural thinking into all aspects of education.

The consensus panel divided the principles into five categories that address major issues in K-12 education reform: teacher learning; student learning; intergroup relations; school governance, organization and equity; and assessment.

Teacher learning focuses on the need for training programs that include the influence of race, ethnicity, language and social class on student behavior.

Student learning discusses the need for all students to have equal opportunities to learn, meet high standards and participate in extracurricular activities. Student learning also contains the principle that curriculum materials need to be fully and fairly presented, exposing the author's background and the context in which their work was developed.

A clear example of the latter principle is contained in the concept of the "westward movement," studied in every survey course of American history. Students should be taught to ask whether the phrase really describes what took place. The experience was certainly not a "westward movement" for the Mexicans, who moved north, or for the Sioux, who only wanted to stay put and be left alone on ancestral land. Students today are sophisticated enough to understand the complexity of knowledge, and only respect materials that encompass the whole truth.

The intergroup relations category focuses on bringing students from all cultural groups together through opportunities to join in shared interests. Efforts should be made to help students acquire the social skills needed to interact effectively with young people from other racial, ethnic, cultural and language groups. Emphasis should also be placed on the values shared by virtually all cultural groups, such as justice, freedom, equality and peace.

School governance, organization and equity calls for decision-making to be a widely shared, collaborative process, and for all public schools to be funded equitably, regardless of their location.

Assessment requires teachers to use an array of culturally sensitive methods to test student knowledge and social skills.

Every effort was made to keep Diversity Within Unity a practical, useful document that educators will keep and refer to on a regular basis. For example, the panel included a checklist for teachers and administrators to use to determine the extent to which practices in their schools are consistent with the essential principles.

The methods recommended in the report are not difficult or costly to implement. Many school districts in our region are already introducing them in their own diversity training programs, including the Everett, Federal Way, Marysville, Northshore, Seattle and Tukwila public schools.

The most recent census data show that the U.S. population has become increasingly diverse, and all indications are that this trend will continue. Consequently, we can no longer afford to treat multicultural education as a sideshow to "real" learning. We must approach it as core curriculum — as essential to our children's education as reading, math and science. Only then will our schools be able to forge a common nation and destiny from our tremendous mix of students.

Dr. James A. Banks holds the Russell S. Stark Chair and is director of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington. He has written or edited 18 books about multicultural and social studies education. Copies of "Diversity Within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society" can be downloaded at: depts.washington.edu/coe/news/DiversityUnity.pdf.