Teaching multiculturalism. Teaching the classics. Teaching the students.

Teaching multiculturalism. Does it inevitably lead to student appreciation and tolerance? The world has changed. Urban schools of the United States have long experienced the multicultural aspects of incoming populations. The teaching wisdom was first to ignore other cultures and fuse the students into a working community is through a learned, shared somewhat mythic American Culture…”I only regret that I have but one life to give to my country.” Then the educational pendulum swung to the other side, splintering in the effort to include all cultures. In all this, rural areas of our nation seemed untouched, populated with the same Dutch, German, English or Scandinavian groups that had arrived centuries before. Now multiculturalism has reached the rural areas as new immigrants from Vietnam and Thailand have found themselves in Iowa and Oklahoma. Populations from Myamar and Palestinians have found themselves in Alabama. Mosques and Buddhist and Hindu temples join the churches and synagogues. The smells of curry and lemon grass flavor the air which long smelled of grits and potatoes. This is the world our students occupy. What to do? Should we abandon the shared American culture of Johnny Appleseed and Daniel Boone and fill our students with a clutter of politically correct multicultural fodder so that we “build their self confidence?” My answer is what I did in 35 years in the classroom. I used classical European literature (“the cannon”) to bind the students into one cultural community and then, when they had discovered the shared voice, thoughts and passions of Greek myth, Greek drama, Shakespeare, and other powerful English, British and other literature in translation…then, I turned to the multicultural world. Students gain self confidence when they achieve understanding and skills that are challenging and engaging. I had given them the basis of college education should they follow that route. They enjoyed a last chance at the “the classical culture” if they were on their way to non-college occupations. (And there was a basis to return to if they decided later in life to attend college. (Please don’t tell me that college professors, with their Phd level thinking would recognize the need to explain a passing reference to Apollo or Plato or Shakespeare. The ability to apprehend classical references are an assumed prerequisite to college) And what about the multicultural curriculum that has become the fashion? The assumption is that reading a story or poem from a Black American, Hispanic, Asian, West Indian or African will ring with self-recognition for every student. It has been my experience that this does not happen until students have bought into the process. As a friend of mine has said “ You can assign or you can teach.” You can assign a piece of literature or you can lay the groundwork so that interacting with that literature becomes a real experience with lasting reverberations. I once took over a Multicultural Lit class that had been formatted as an African American Lit class by its impassioned teacher. The students had read many pieces of Black Lit and were in the middle of “The Autoiography of Malcolm X” when their teacher was offered a higher position and left. I entered, somewhat daunted by what I, a white woman could say. I was also aware that I had been one of the few to take the first Black Lit elective class at my high school. (I will never forget the pain of coming in the day after M.L.King Jr. was shot. I had nothing I could possibly say; everyone else was bitter or sobbing.) I was surprised that the students were relieved when I replaced that ardent and approachable Black teacher. “Why?” I asked them. The Dominican girls responded loudly and articulately. (This is when I learned to discern and respect the differences among Hispanic cultures.) It turned out that these girls had felt disenfranchised by the previous teacher’s choices. They also did not feel they could approach him as he was so filled with his own convictions. I quickly found and purchased a class set of the Dominican writer Alvarez’ book “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent.” That particular class had found their lives. They excitedly told me of the difference between their lives in DR with gracious homes and servants and the difficulty in adjusting to the little cold apartments of Washington Heights. Like the Garcia sisters, they were suffering the surprisingly unpleasant experiences of coming to the United States….the cockroaches, the grime, the danger. Their parents had come to offer their daughters and themselves a chance at a better life. Refugees from terror or hungers experience America one way. These girls, as many others, find a new world where no one has time to share a quiet coffee, glass of beer or glass of wine with relatives and friends, as the sun goes down. It is a cultural shock of loss not gain. My success in the classroom was a mixture of really looking at that class and luck. It makes me think that each teacher would have to have the freedom to find the books that resonate with his or her group and argues against lockstep curriculum. And yet, a shared curriculum the builds skills and shared literary experiences is the most powerful educative tool I can think of. That is why I suggest cannon first and multiculturalism second. Both have good reason. One without the other misses all the chances of socialization and appreciation that students need and deserve. By the way, the legend says that John Chapman was born in Mass in 1774 and planted more than 10,000 square miles of orchards. He started in Penn and walked barefoot with a saucepan on his head and spread the word of the importance of apples in people’s diets. He died in 1845 at the age of 71 in Fort Wayne Indiana. (Ag Mag Apple and agricultural magazine for kids (www.myamericanfarm.org) Now THAT says a lot about the American Spirit of individualism serving the community. No, he did not kill the Native Americans nor cohabit with his wife’s half sister who happened to be his slave. I don’t care if he is a white man of obviously Anglo background…he is a mythic hero …of the right stuff… for all students.