by Motavenda Melchizedek
The time has come to bring more fully to the table the unresolved issues resting within our society’s relationship to itself. We cannot co-create a healthy larger culture while we are openly cruel and unloving to parts of ourselves. The strengthening national dialogue on multicultural education is a sliver of a lens we can hold up for self-examination and use to reflect and magnify our own consciousness about where we are now, where we have been and where we are headed as a nation.
There is not much structured support established to facilitate the practical applications this movement calls for and this can cultivate resentment toward the concept of multicultural education as a whole. A lack of emotional support and pragmatic help in areas such as altering curriculum and attending to more respect and inclusion of the cultural values, symbols and histories, and language skills of others, along with addressing the complexities presented with the legislated inclusion of children with various disabilities into the general classroom, seems to be obvious and unaddressed.
We can do better to achieve equality in so many areas called to the forefront through the language of multicultural education. Banks and Banks point out, “Schools with more low-income students are more likely to have teachers who are not certified at all or who are teaching out of their area of certification” (Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives, 6th Edition, 2007, 93).
There are growing pains as we stretch to face ourselves and our histories upon the common grounds that educational arenas gather us onto. With the movement toward conscious multicultural inclusion in the classroom comes challenges. Some teachers express frustration at the notion of yet even more work and accountability being added to the already growing burden of the rising demands of heightening educational benchmarks and achievement standards. Self-examination of personal biases in areas of religious beliefs, ethnic and cultural values, class distinctions and gender inequality is not always easily or eagerly undertaken. In theory, it sounds noble and good. But, when we are forced to make changes to structures and behaviors that favor and empower some at the expense of others, those who have benefited must give up what they may have erroneously become convinced they were entitled to all along. Many will hold on tight for as long as they can to what they have come to think of as their birthright and inheritance. This is even more deeply true when acceptance of denied misdeeds is part of the conversation.
I recently watched the T.V. show “No Reservations”, which follows a writer/poet chef as he travels around to different lands and, with the help local friends, is taken through doorways into the private riches of the precious lives of people from different cultures. I watched in fascination from a far off distance, thinking, “I bet that dish tastes unbelievable. I wonder what that texture feels like? And, wow, I long to luxuriate in the depth these places reside in.” What a gift it is to be invited so deeply into these personal sacred places built so thoughtfully through time. This man is welcomed always because he comes to the world of others humbly and with great respect. I could not help but think, “America is so shallow still.” So much of what we have created here is about exclusion and dishonor and entitlement for some via the victimization and desecration of others. These issues are brought directly and blindingly into the light as we move to embrace multicultural education.
There is so much to behold and to enrich us as we turn to honor those among us, for we are all sacred, no matter what we have been told. The stranglehold of elitism that accompanies the minimizing of our fellow man is no good for anyone and multicultural education is a way to alleviate much harm and to call to account pervasive injustices which have accompanied our creation of this country through time. This is an opportunity, a place, where we can see just where we who live now, as well as our ancestors, have faltered. And we can make things right that are terribly wrong. This is chance to grow to be better individually and collectively while we make better and more equitable the world of education for everyone involved. There are untold riches we can all partake of as we turn in honor toward our fellow man and take the next step forward together in kindness and respect.