The way that my school approaches diversity and multiculturalism is very unique compare to all the schools on our island. We are very open and welcome a lot of foreign students that come from different parts of Asia, such as, Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Philippines, and Taiwan. Throughout the school year, we host a lot of foreign exchange students. We would pair them with our local students and they will be shadowing them in all their classes. Then, towards the end of the day, our students will have a presentation for them on what kind of culture we have here in Guam and in return they would do the same. It is a lot of work for our faculty and staff, however we really see how beneficial it is for the students during these exchange activities. In addition to that, our school has an activity called “International Week” where each class will choose international countries and will have to learn everything about there culture from the way they dress, their history, and what type of food they eat. On top of that, on the last day of the week, they would try to decorate their classrooms as close as they can get to their country and prepare their famous dishes for the judges to try. I really believe that our school is very accepting and by doing these activities helps our students have a better understanding on who they are sitting with in the classroom.

What benefits can you identify in implementing a multicultural approach to curriculum, instruction, and assessment in your setting?

There are a few benefits that I can identify in implementing a multicultural approach in our school. The first thing I can identify is that it really brings unity among our students. But I also will be the first to admit that not all of them are buying into the culture that we are trying to create in our school. But we are very optimistic that one they will be able to understand what we are trying to do for them. By having these foreign exchange students in our school and having a school wide activity helps our local kids understand more about our Asian students here in our school. By understanding them, our local students can make them feel at home and not make them feel left out in the classroom. The second benefit I see happening is that it also gives our teachers an idea as to which style of teaching strategy they can use to help better communicate with our students. It assists our teachers to connect with them and create a level of trust that leads to better communication with each students.

What challenges do you foresee in implementing a multicultural approach to curriculum, instruction, and assessment in your setting?

The one challenge that I see that we come across when implementing a multicultural approach in our educational setting is the language barrier. One thing I see is that the parents of these foreign international students that attend our school literally enrolls their children without any preparation or transition phase from their home country and expect them to excel in the classroom. Many times our educators here at my school have a hard time communicating with them which then leads to them failing the class or falling behind from their peers.

Second post

The staff at Kenmore Elementary School do a wonderful job at implementing diversity and multiculturalism within the school’s curriculum, instruction and assessment. Not long ago, several of the teachers in the school gathered together to discuss having a Kenmore Multicultural Fair. Each grade in the school was given a different country to represent at the fair. For example, the kindergarten class represented Argentina while the 5th grade class represented South Africa. Each educator had a job that applied to the subject they taught. For example, as the Physical Education teacher, it was my job to teach the children a dance that represented the culture of each country. For example, I taught 5th grade gumboot dancing, which is a popular cultural dance in South Africa. Other educators taught them the history of the country, food they ate, art work that was made and famous geographical landmarks found in the country. Each educator spent at least a month of implementing the grades country within their class curriculum up until we had the Multicultural Fair. There were several benefits to having the fair that made a huge impact on the children. First, it made each class exciting for the kids. Because they knew that at the fair, they were going to be able to dress up, perform, and talk about their country in front of the entire school and their parents, they were excited to learn and worked hard in class. Second, each grade had a month to truly learn a lot about the country they represented in several different aspects of life such as sports, dance, food, art, clothing, geography, history and much more. Third, the students were also given the chance to learn about the other countries that were represented by different grades the day of the fair. And finally, the students were able to interact with everyone not only in their class but in their grade as well. There were several days where educators got together and had the grades collaborate in class to learn and practice information together as a whole. Although there were several benefits to having the Multicultural Fair, there were certainly some challenges that needed to be faced. First, it took a lot of time and thought to implement the information necessary into my curriculum that is mandatory to teach. It took a lot of time out of the year so I had to carefully plan my lessons so I didn’t leave anything out. Second, it was incredibly challenging teaching information that even I did not know much about, so I had to teach myself the history of each country before I could teach the children. Third, it was a challenge to discuss each country with each teacher in the school to make sure that the information and presentation was aligned properly for the day of the event. And finally, it was a huge challenge to get some of the students involved in learning about each country. Some did not care or think it was important to learn about other countries, but once they realized how interesting and exciting it could be, they gradually gained interest and interacted very well with their peers. Implementing a multicultural approach into curriculum, instruction and assessment is challenging but after seeing the results of what was learned and how the students reacted too it, it is well worth it.