Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education/Multiculturalism/Minorities

The term minority doesn’t apply to one particular group or class of children. In other words, minority doesn’t always pertain to Hispanics, African Americans or females. Who are the minorities? Webster’s Dictionary defined minority as being lesser in size, amount or importance. Minorities in a classroom setting can be classified as the group of children who are smaller in size or amount than all other groups in a classroom. If the majority of the students in a particular class have no psychological disorders then the child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the minority. If most of the children in the class come from homes in which the parents are heterosexual and married then the child whose parents are homosexual will be considered the minority. If one child out of a class of thirty-five children has behavior issues then the child with the behavior issues becomes the minority. Therefore, the term minority can be applied to ethnic, academic, gender, and social disparities. Although minorities can be categorized as lesser in size or amount, minorities should never be thought of as being lesser in importance. Nonproductive thoughts regarding the significance or importance of minorities must be suppressed for teaching to be effective. Suppressing negative thoughts involves laying down invisible barriers (Rodriguez & Zozkiewicz, 2007). Invisible barriers are thoughts that lead to a reluctance to teach, being judgmental, being fearful, being prejudicial, creating stereotypes, discriminatory acts, etc. Three specific ways to lay down invisible barriers involve educating teachers, faculty and administrators on how to teach minorities, making allowances for the training’s application or intervention and rendering continual support at the district level to schools as the schools make the necessary strides to incorporate the strategies necessary for diversification.

Ways to Cope with Minorities
Education should target two major factors: 1) teachers need to be prepared to meet the needs of a wide variety of diverse learners and 2) teachers need to create an environment for the children that builds a stronger transition from school to university or school to the workforce (Rodriguez & Zozkiewicz, 2007). Both factors are vital in establishing intrinsic values in the children which can be carried through primary and into secondary education. Many children around the world drop out of school because they believe that on the job training is more important than a formal education (Wikibooks, 2007). The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislature adopted a strategy to ensure all students successfully completed primary and secondary education. NCLB pushed schools to develop curriculums for their students which contained “hands-on, minds-on activities that [were] socio-culturally relevant and tied into the everyday life of the learner” (Rodriguez & Zozkiewicz, 2007). Apparently, the orators of the NCLB legislature realized when children adopt healthy intrinsic values towards their own education then high retention rates are theoretically obtainable. For this cause, many schools are creating multicultural workshops and diversity training for their teachers. Attendance is generally mandatory and the courses are usually offered annually (Bremerton School District Community Forum, 2007).

Application and Implementation of Strategies Learned
Meeting the needs of a wide variety of diverse learners or minorities does create “challenges, tensions, and risks” (Rodriguez & Zozkiewicz, 2007) for the school. Newly appointed Principal Scott O’Neill relates some of the challenges he encountered during the early phase of diversification. Lincoln Elementary School experienced an increase in Hispanics over a period of six years. The Hispanic community was now equivalent to the Caucasian community. English speaking Hispanics did not create a challenge for Principle O’Neill, as a matter of fact, in the academic year of 2003-2004, 82% of Hispanic third graders passed the state’s test for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in mathematics. In comparison their Caucasian counter parts AYP score in mathematics was 85%. The achievement gap remained considerably close in other academic areas of study, not to mention, the achievement gap remained considerably close for all other ethnicities enrolled at Lincoln Elementary School (Salmonowicz, 2007). Hispanics were no longer the minority; however, English for Speakers of other Languages (ESOL) became the new minority. Principle O’Neill felt the tension from parents and teachers regarding the school’s non-English speaking students. The parents were fearful that the lesson plans would be tailored to meet the learning needs of ESOL; therefore, objectives for the state’s standard of learning (SOL) requirements would never be met. He recounts a concerned parent inquiring whether or not to disenroll her child from Lincoln Elementary because she feared the school would slide from “good to worse” (Salmonowicz, 2007). He had to constantly reassure all parents, including ESOL parents that standards for learning would not be compromised. Principle O’Neill discovered many of his staff were even far less supportive of the new plans towards diversification, statements were made like, “They don’t need to be here,” “I can’t teach them,” and “I’ve got Hispanic kids and they don’t speak English” (Salmonowicz, 2007). Unquestionably, the teachers perceived the school district had set them up for failure. The teachers, faculty and administrators of Lincoln Elementary soon found themselves putting into practice the diversity training they had acquired. Principal O’Neill used the text book lectures to some degree but he desired to look to the larger municipalities, like Chicago, Boston, and New York City for real time solutions (Salmonowicz, 2007 ).

Support at the District Level
The district must continue to provide training to educators, as well as, to parents on diversification. The training for parents can be as simple as forwarding an advertisement about a scheduled community event built around a socio-cultural theme, like Asian Heritage or Ramadan. Additionally, school districts can afford the schools the latitude for hosting speakers during family night or PTA meetings to address socio-cultural topics of Rap music, homosexuality, My Space, etc. The training parents receive prevents students from being prematurely dis-enrolled from a school because certain misnomers have generated throughout the community regarding a particular minority group. School districts can also sponsor community forums to educate parents and family members about programs geared to assist minorities. Understandably, the district must provide a considerable support through appropriations. Mansfield School District demonstrated through its foreign language program the kind of financial support needed for diversification to work. In Mansfield all grades from second through fifth learn Spanish; sixth graders have the option of learning Spanish, French, German, or Latin; what’s more important Mansfield committed a substantial amount of funding for the recruitment of minorities in their school system (Braccidiferro, 2005). The school district of Mansfield, Connecticut demographics contains an overwhelmingly stable population of white middle-class Christians, yet the citizens of Mansfield realized the importance of maintaining an environment where those with dissimilarities feel appreciated.

Conclusion
While growing up in northern New Jersey, Shamim Patwa recalls how isolated she felt as the only family from India (Braccidiferro, 2005). How should we think about minorities? Consider, the isolation felt by Ms. Patwa, the child with ADHD, the child with homosexual parents, the bully, or the ESOL students. “Since, the concept of education is a global constant, a global right and a global need” (Wikibooks, 2007). The job of teachers should be to care for all students, yet recognize students are individuals, as individuals the assistance offered must be tailored to each child’s specific need. Teachers’ attitudes regarding meeting the specific needs of all children, including minorities is not a new equal opportunity concept. If parents, teachers, faculty, administrators all work together then meeting the specific needs can be accomplished because “we shared the responsibility” and “made it happen” (Salmonowicz, 2007).

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