Multi-Culturalism in the Classroom

With the education reform, ie, systems education, came a plethora of new phrases, one being multi-culturalism or multi-cultural diversity. What is it? Is it just a new name for "melting pot"?

In the classroom, children are being taught that we are a pluralistic society. Plural meaning more than one of something, such then indicates that a pluralistic society is a society of many societies or cultures.

And this is what children are being taught — we are a society of many cultures, of many ethic groups or tribes ... Japanese, Chinese, Pilipino, Asian, German, French, English, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Swedish .... the list is endless, each "tribe" with its own origins and culture.

For instance, Black students are being taught the dances and chants of their "native" African tribe, even though most are more than a 150 years beyond the borders of Africa, even though these children are AMERICANS by birth.

So, German children are being taught their culture; Japanese children their culture; Spanish children their culture; and so on — each ethnic group its own culture from the time when the tribe was "pure". Many schools are now sporting "ethnic" clubs: Spanish Club, German Club ... if you aren't that ethnicity, you can't join. Many will remember that one of the goals of Hitler was a "pure" Aryan society!

What multi-culturalism teaches children is that America isn't a "melting pot" — one society of many ethnicities, living side by side as one culture — that we are a society of many different tribes, each tribe with its own culture.

Should parents be concerned about their child being taught multi-culturalism or multi-cultural diversity? In a word — yes.

A nation will not long stand when it is a society of many cultures or tribes. Multicultural diversity sets one culture against another, as it did in Yugoslavia with the Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. It's called "divide and conquer". Once the various tribes are at odds with one another, it is easy for those seeking power and position (a despot) to walk in and take over as the various tribes consider each other more of a threat than they do a despot.

America or the United States, which-ever one chooses to call it, was established as "One Nation Under God; Indivisible...". We are one nation, one culture, whether we are of German, French, English ... ancestry. Once we became American citizens, that is what we are. We aren't German-American, Spanish-American, or any other type of hyphenated American.

If our nation is to survive as a nation, our children must be taught that we are one society, one culture of many different ethnic people; that we must all live together in OUR American culture.

Lynn M Stuter

Education Researcher

Washington State

© April 2002; Lynn M Stuter

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