There are many programs that support the call for help in elementary schools in East Oakland, I will explore an after school program that I have been hired to teach art and build literacy skills this spring semester.
The Girls Incorporated of Alameda County is a nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire all girls to be strong smart and bold. Girls Inc. offers academic enrichment activities, skill building programs, and counseling services to girls and their families. Most importantly, Girls Inc. encourages girls to attend college and build future careers (Girls Incorporated of Alameda County).
I am involved in their GIRLStart daily after school literacy program that teaches girls from first to third grade. Girls are specifically chosen to be in this program due to having weak reading and writing skills or have a below reading grade level. Many girls that attend GIRLStart speak another language, live with parents with a high school degree or lower, or come from low-income families.
My job is to build confidence, spark their imagination, and invent self-identity
through written language and craft. The arts and multicultural education go hand in hand in many projects and assignments that they have done. For black history month, the girls created African masks and performed an African tale on stage for their parents. To celebrate Cesar Chavez’s birthday, the girls traveled in three classrooms that each had an activity. The first classroom had a read aloud, in which an instructor read the history of Cesar Chavez. In the second classroom, the girls learned about Mexican culture and food. Last, the girls participated in a collaborative mural project (they painted a scene of Cesar Chavez). Overall, the girls had a broad understanding and experience of teamwork, diversity, culture, celebrating achievements, and the creative process.
The significance of the role and impact that educators have one their students is remarkable. Knowledge is not the only element that longs to be practiced and discovered; relationships among teachers and students are profound. There should be a learning mechanism in the classroom where knowledge bounces off from the instructor to the students and visa versa. I interviewed my retired high school art instructor and asked about her views and experiences of art playing an important role in multicultural education.
“I had the most wonderful experience as an after school program Art instructor. I had to teach a Hmong (Southeast Asian) class. Even though they couldn’t speak English, I realized that art is a universal language and that teaching this class was very possible. They valued education and wanted to improve their English. Instead of making fun of each other, they were into peer support. They didn’t know their alphabet, so I would teach them something in addition to art in their assignments. For example, we would talk about shapes, draw the shapes, and then have an art project around that. I would set up the ABC’s in capital, lowercase, and cursive letters. They would do a calligraphy project around that. Some are graduating this year and are big success stories, as they will continue their education in public and state universities.
In my regular classrooms, I teach art with historical references. I expose my students to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, European painters, Japanese printmaking, African masks, and texture assignments for Hmong kids. I love it when I am able to connect my students to these artists because of culture similarities and backgrounds. Every nine weeks I change the seating arrangements, in case a student has never befriended another student of a different culture or background.
Whenever I make an assignment about them, they enjoy it more. The world is all about them. If you hook kids with what they are familiar with, you can inspire them and explore that” (Susan Thompson, retired art educator).
Sue Thompson is an excellent example of a teacher that is “being asked to treat their students as potential active learners who can best learn if they are faced with real tasks and if they discover models of craftsmanship and honest work” (13). Students thrive when they feel safe and loved, that is why the importance of attentiveness and sensitivity to their culture and family background is needed from their educators.
Multicultural education is the answer to the questions of, who am I and where do I belong? The objective is finding self-awareness and understanding the nature of other human beings from all over the globe. Teaching students from a global perspective will enrich their education and lives. As they are exposed to more cultural differences, pupils are prone to be more open and have a broad understanding of the world around them. “For students living in a rapidly changing world, the arts teach vital modes of seeing, imagining, inventing and thinking. [They] are the ones likely to come up with the novel answers needed most for the future” (Winner). Art as an active tool in multicultural education is seeing the world as a whole instead of broken pieces of puzzle; the future is waiting for a society cultivated with multiculturalists.
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