How should teacher deal with multi-culture classroom?

How should teacher deal with multi-culture classroom?

The racism in school has been underestimated. Discrimination in schools was despised, in this article demonstrates some students did not get the attention from teachers because of their different cultural backgrounds. Teachers do not pay attention to their emotions or culture, so they feel helpless in school. In fact teacher should consider students’ culture background and believe every student were capable of academic success that in order to improve their educational outcome and increase their confidence (Ladson.G, 1995).

  Especially the Arab-Australians students believe that even if they discuss highly emotional issues with their teachers, they would not get a response from the teacher or mercy. They feel very lonely and eliminating, and questioned where they would fit in. Commonly these students with different cultural backgrounds are minority in school, thus many teachers choose to ignore their difference, which led to them feel disappoint about school and lose confident of themselves. For example, female students of Islam despair of their turbans and the boys as suspects by the police due to their identity which make them feel distrust. In addition, because of their parents speaking little English, it is difficult to help their children in their studies. The project conducted by Deakin's Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights was sparked by reports about cultural tensions in schools (Cook.M, 2006).

The project is focusing on communication between students, schools and parents. The purpose is to improve the current problems of racial discrimination in school and help minority students out of anxious. This includes employing a cultural diversity facilitator to help parents understand the education system. In 2005, 79 per cent of students said relations between ethnic groups were good or excellent compared with 48 per cent in 2003 (Cook.M, 2006). The number of parents who said they were interested in and supported their children's education grew from 19 to 54 per cent during that period after the communication between teachers and students. Obviously, if teacher understand the students culturally, teacher would have better relationship with students. Better relationship help teacher guide them better in studies and make them feel they are involved. Therefore it is important that teacher treat every students equally and understand them culturally is helpful for teaching. 

Australia is a multi-cultural country, and as a teacher in Australia, they are faced different cultural backgrounds students in the classroom is a very common event. In my point of view teacher should not directly choose to ignore this small part of the population in class. When teachers treat the different culture background population in school, they should believe all the students were able to reach academic success and see students as unpredictable group, always in process of knowledge. Teacher also ought to saw all the students as members of the community, whatever their culture or identity is (Ladson.G, 1995). So as to teacher help multi-culture class process successfully in school. 

Reference:

1.     Cook.M (2006), Racism in schools 'underestimated', http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/racism-in-schools-underestimated/2006/05/26/1148524893047.html review 27/10/2013

2.     Ladson.G (1995).Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, American, American Educational Research Association, p478 http://aer.sagepub.com/content/32/3/465 27/10/2013