EDF 1005- Reflection 3

I believe my elementary and secondary education was pretty "multi-cultural." I attended Hialeah Elementary school and Miami Springs Senior High. Both schools had an array of different students, you were able to find all sorts of elasticities in my school. For this reason, my schools taught us of all cultures. We would celebrate Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, holidays of all religions, such as Kwanzaa, Christmas, or Hanukkah and learned about many cultures. I feel that most of my teachers did a good job incorporating culture into our lesson plans. My French class was the most multi-cultural class. We were able to participate in dances, of not only from France, but just about any culture you can think of. We always had food in the class of different cultures. She also brought an array of guests. The most interesting of all, though, is a man who was a political prisoner in Dubai. He spoke a language that was illegal in the middle East in which you can easily be killed just for speaking it. I forgot the name of the language but he taught us some phrases and showed us that the language was illegal because back then whilst they were having genocide, their enemies spoke that language so they banned it. This is the only class that I feel used the contribution approach. It got everyone interested and involved! In a way, we were able to experience these cultures first hand, without even leaving the class room. The instance I just spoke about is a contribution approach, and I would love to have been able to see that in my elementary school and in the rest of my classes in high school. Assignments and lessons can be boring at that age, and it doesn't give as much insight as actually having an experienced person of the culture in which you are learning about there to show you. I would also like to see some more of the transformational approach. I plan to be a History professor because I have a passion for teaching truth and beauty. Most of History is written by the winner, however, you don't get to hear much about the other side. For instance, when the Christopher Columbus and the Europeans arrived at America, the Native Americans welcomed them and invited them to settle land without killing, in turn, the Europeans destroyed most of them and yet, it is the Native Americans who are called "savage" in our History books. It is important to show the student the truth and not just what the winner says. I think a bit of all approaches, the contributions approach, the additive approach, the transformation approach, and the social-action approach (which in a way already combines the transformation approach), should be used for a perfectly multi-cultural class.