Education in a Multicultural Society

In Education in a Multicultural Society: Our Future’s Greatest Challenge Delpit asserts that we must know our students and their cultures well in order to be good and effective teachers in diverse classrooms.

Agree:
I really appreciate how Delpit starts this essay off, by saying “The question is not necessarily how to create the perfect “culturally matched” learning situation for each ethnic group, but rather how to recognize when there is a problem for a particular child and how to seek its cause in the most broadly conceived fashion.” I feel that this statement reflects the need to focus on students within a system that is struggling to meet their needs. It helps answer the question of how do we learn what we need to learn in order to teach in a diverse classroom, we do it by learning from our students.

Argue:
One statement that I struggle don’t quite agree with is “They must also learn about the brilliance the students bring with them ‘in their blood.’” I get the idea behind this, that we as teachers must be able to recognize that brilliance comes from all skin colors but maybe I am too steeped in myths of meritocracy to agree with things being “in our blood.” While I agree with the sentiment I also believe that we should celebrate our students learning and accomplishments because of their individual growth and Learning. We shouldn’t think of our students learning well in spite of their race, but we also shouldn’t think they are learning well because of their race. Delpit addresses this in another section of the same essay, in talking about positive stereotypes made of Asian students, so I’m sure she sees the nuance here, but I feel uncomfortable with talking about ability to learn being “in our blood.”

Action:
A statement that calls me to action is “When teachers do not understand the potential of the students they teach, they will underteach them no matter what the methodology.” When I think about kids being “undertaught” I feel anger. The inequity riles me up, it just feels so unfair. And especially when I think of this inequity being caused by thoughtlessness and bias I am driven to work against it.

I also have a question… In this essay Delpit talks about the harm that teacher education programs do in not preparing their students for working in diverse classrooms. She talks about how hearing stories of failure just backs up ideas of low potential. Obviously, this book has become a major resource for teacher education programs since it was written so my question is: What does Delpit think of current teacher education programs like ours? Has there been an overall change in how teacher education addresses these issues in the time since Delpit wrote?