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head: MULTICULTURAL PROGRAM EVALUATION

Multicultural Program Evaluation

Ryann Whitney Hydeman
Multicultural Issues in Teaching EDCI 755
Kansas State University
Be Stoney
July 3, 2015

MULTICULTURAL PROGRAM EVALUATION

Multicultural Program Evaluation

Introduction
At the beginning of this class and from our first couple discussions, we were wondering how we
could get our hands on all the knowledge and information about different cultures and ethnic
groups. There was a great idea mentioned about having one big resource book where all the
knowledge and information of all the different cultural and ethnic groups could be available first
hand. As I still think this would be an awesome resource to have for finding out the content on
cultural and ethnic groups, I am realizing how valuable our very own textbook is from this
course. This textbook is a phenomenal resource for how we take that knowledge and information
about different culture and ethnic groups and expose and teach it to all our students in our
schools. This book provides us guides as to how and where to have multiculturalism in our
curriculum and implement it into our teaching. I feel that knowing the guidelines for
multicultural education is more crucial than worrying about exactly what the content is on
different cultural and ethnic groups. By having a plan of how you are going to create
multiculturalism in your curriculum needs to come first, than learn about the knowledge and
information on the different cultural and ethnic groups. As I read through the curriculum
guidelines for multicultural education, I found the top three guidelines that I believe our school
needs improvement in to becoming a more multicultural school: guidelines 1, 4 and 20.
Guidelines 1.0 - 1.5
According to Banks (2006) in chapter one of our textbook, in multicultural education that, for it
to be implemented successfully, institutional changes must be made, including changes in the
curriculum; the teaching materials; teaching and learning styles; the attitudes, perceptions, and
behaviors of teachers and administrators; and in the goals, norms, and culture of the school (p.

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3). If teachers and schools districts want to strive for the common goal for multicultural
education as Banks (2006) stated it, to reform schools, colleges, and universities so that students
from diverse racial, ethnic, and social-class groups will experience educational equality (p. 3),
then schools and teachers need to immerse various ethnic and cultural groups in everything they
do: assembly programs, classrooms, hallways, cafeteria menus, counseling interactions,
extracurricular programs, et cetera. Banks (2006) said it perfectly, Teaching about various
ethnic and cultural groups in a few specialized courses is not enough (p. 316). In the school that
I teach, we as a school do not immerse ourselves, our classrooms, or our hallways into a
multiculturalism environment throughout the whole school consistently throughout the year,
keyword being consistently. We do some things throughout the year to show diversity in
different areas but I do not see diversity daily.

However, through sports, extracurricular

activities, and after school programs, I believe we are striving to be multiethnic and
multicultural. These activities are open to all students and demonstrate teaching about diversity
in many different ways. Our librarian of the school does a nice job striving to find a variety of
books and media resources about different cultures, ethnicity groups, and even books in different
languages. In our school I really think that having multiculturalism in the curriculum is up to the
teacher in each classroom and is not a district wide standard. I think the school districts should
support and promote teachers to include multiculturalism in their curriculum lesson plans. I
cannot speak for all teachers but as a collective, I do not see much diversity being introduced into
their curriculum. I see small amounts of multiculturalism being taught in their curriculum in
some classrooms but I do not see/hear it consistently. Some teachers teach about different
cultures and ethnic groups through novels, technology, or current events. I saw one teacher who
had her students make foods from another country and dined in the same manner as they would

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in that country. As the students learned a lot and loved this lesson plan, unfortunately I do not see
this kind of diversity a whole lot in our school. Our hallways are filled with sport events posters,
trophies, no bully signs, character values, art, et certa, there is a little but not a whole lot of
diversity going on in the hallways. According to Banks (2006), Multicultural education clearly
means different things in different disciplines and areas of study (p. 316). I believe our school
demonstrates multicultural education in some areas of studies but not in all areas of studies. And
just like everything else we do in life, we as teachers can always strive to be better in what and
how we teach. So in the areas that we might be demonstrating diversity, I believe we need to
strive to do it more consistently and to do it better. And as for the areas that multiculturalism is
absent, we need to create a plan of action to be a more diverse and multicultural in school. Now
knowing the guidelines to creating a multicultural environment in the classroom and in the
schools, I think that we as a school, can start having conversations about multiculturalism in the
curriculum and collaborate to finding how to teach diversity through racial, cultural, gender, and
social-class. We need to integrate this diversity in our curriculum and demonstrate it through our
bulletin boards, have conversations with our students and make and effort to providing students
with diverse experiences. Specifically, in my class (Computer Science) I would like to
implement virtual field trips as well as having my class communicate and share with another
class from another country about each of their cultures. I think learning through their peers about
different cultures can have a big impact and be very successful amongst the students.
Guidelines 4.0 - 4.6
Another guideline that I believe our school could improve on is continuing staff development
programs. In order for teachers to implement multiculturalism into the curriculum successfully
teachers must be trained to do so. How are teachers suppose to teach a topic/subject that they

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have little to no knowledge on. They could try but are likely to be unsuccessful and/or provide
misguiding information. Banks stated (2006), The attitudes, behavior, and the perceptions of
classroom teachers have a significant influence on the social atmosphere of the school and the
attitudes of students (p. 85). With this being the case, it is crucial that teachers are trained on
how to handle their attitudes, behavior, and perception on different cultural and ethnic groups in
front of their students. As we talked a lot about in our discussions, we want our students to
collect the information and facts and then develop their own attitudes, ideas, and perceptions
about different cultural and ethnic groups and not be persuaded one way or the other by their
teachers. As humans it is easy to let our emotions play a part in teaching certain topics and not
allowing our students to have the opportunity to think for themselves. Multicultural education
training needs to happen both in pre-service and in-service with teachers and staff. I would like
to see our school provide more multicultural training and professional development
opportunities. I am on our Curriculum and Professional Development Committee, I think this
would be a good place to bring this idea up and see if we can get the ball rolling to providing the
training/education that is so needed. We are all life long learners but enable to do that we need to
be proactive in creating opportunities for development.
Guidelines 20.0 - 20.4
The third guideline that I believe our school needs improvement on is studying ethnic group
languages and developing literacy in at least two languages. One of our speech teachers teaches
our students sign language but only to the class that has the student who is deaf and uses sign
language to communicate. This is certainly a step in the correct direction but maybe expanding
teaching sign language to the whole school and not just those twenty students in that one
classroom. For speaking different languages, these are not taught until high school in our district.

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In our district, high school students visit our school and teach Spanish to elementary students.
This might not be the best way to teach the Spanish language but it is in good intentions and
good effort with the resources that are available. It is good that they are learning from their peers
but when you are learning another language and their culture, it is more powerful to come from a
native of that language and culture. Learning a second language is more than just being able to
speak it. Leaning a second language requires students to understand, speak, read, and write
(Banks, 2006). According to Banks (2006), Research indicates that a schools rejection of a
students home language affects the students self-esteem, academic achievement, and social and
occupational mobility. Conversely, a schools acceptance and use of a students home language
improves the students self-esteem, academic achievement, and relationships among students in a
school (p. 334). This upcoming school year, I would like to do a survey at the beginning of the
year to see who speaks a second language, other than English. In my computer science classes I
will then find a way to apply their language and their languages culture into our curriculum
through technology.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our school is far away from being a complete continuous multicultural school but
has the intentions of wanting to become a multicultural school. If we can improve the three
guidelines talked about in this paper; total school environment, staff development programs, and
literacy in second languages, we could develop a great foundation for implementing
multiculturalism into our curriculum. We as teachers need to become more aware, spread the
word, start conversations and create opportunities for training so that we can help our school
reform multiculturalism into our curriculum. This is not something that is going to happen over
night but each and everyday, we as teachers, can make sure that we are doing a little bit more to

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get closer to our common goal of becoming a school where students from diverse racial, ethnic,
and social-class groups experience educational equality (Banks, 2006).

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References
Banks, James, A. (2006). Cultural diversity and education: Foundations, curriculum, and teaching.
Boston, MA. Pearson Education, Inc.