Multicultural Education in the Classroom
Is the following in your school, in your child's classroom? Maybe it isn't called
"Passports" in your school, but by whatever name it is known, it is
undoubtedly the same, and for the same goal — the production of a
"world citizen".
When my kids were still in public
school, the grade school did a big, school-wide project called Passports. Each class studied one country in depth
for a couple of weeks, integrating all subjects around it. Then, for a week, the class became that
country and the students visited one another.
Prior to their visits, they had to fill
out a passport application, as much like the real thing as they could make
it. The students were to bring a
photo of themselves, if they could, and provide a
physical description of themselves.
The information requested included birth date and Social Security
Number. I told my kids they were
not to supply their SS number.
Other parents were also concerned and complained. The children were told to just make up a
number.
My girls went through this for two or
three years. Theoretically, this
could be a pretty good activity for learning geography, history, and
culture. Unfortunately, it didn't
turn out that way. After the first
Passports, I quizzed my daughters on what they had learned. My oldest was in 5th grade. Her class was Egypt. She did learn quite a bit about Egypt,
but could not remember learning a thing about any of the "countries"
her class had visited. The only
thing my then second-grader could remember about visiting Egypt was, "They
barter there." She also could
remember nothing about any other class.
I quizzed my second daughter on her own
"country", the Ukraine.
She could not tell me what continent it was located on. She did not know the races or religions
of the people, nor what were their industries and crops. She knew nothing about their history or
governmental structure. What had
she learned? How
to count to ten in Russian and how to write the words for the numbers one
through ten in the Cyrillic alphabet. (Integrated with spelling and
math?) It was basically a
travelogue from the teacher's trip there.
I complained big time about this at the
LIT [Learning Improvement Team] meetings.
(I was an LIT member.) The 5th
grade teacher told me that if all that the other kids got out of his class was
that that they barter in Egypt, he had achieved his goal for the project. "Someday," he told me,
"your daughter will probably have to work with someone from Egypt or
somewhere else in the world. What
is more important, that she can locate their country on a map or that she know
something about that person’s culture?" The principal intervened and said,
"Hopefully, both." I
think he saw I was about to blow a gasket.
They were sensitive about my criticisms
and tried to push the academics a little more the next year. The teachers were asked to send a list
of their academic goals for the program home to the parents. Unfortunately, there was little
improvement. [A side note: That year, they selected Maundy Thursday
of Holy Week for the Passports Parent Night. How's that for cultural sensitivity?]
By the last year we were in the public
schools, my youngest daughter (third one) was in second grade. She had a real flake of a teacher who is
heavily into the whole reform ideology.
She chose Japan for their class and totally obsessed over the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They read
the 1000 cranes book and folded cranes.
She even had them doing bomb drills in class (something I didn't find
out till much later.)
The entire exercise was a colossal
waste of time. It was three weeks
of fun and games. Of course, the
kids loved it! The final straw is
that the teachers responsible for coming up with the idea and organizing it were
given a big award from the district's multiculturalism committee.
Is this really happening? You bet it is!
Marda Kirkwood
Kent, Washington
Three weeks of class time, and if all
that the child learned was that Egyptians barter, that was okay??!! To a parent who believes schools are for
the purpose of educating the child, this is unacceptable. But when one understands that schools
are no longer there to educate, but there rather to condition the child to a perceived
environment, then the above makes perfect sense!
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