Page 4: Multicultural education more important than ever

A concept that many preach about. We need to have more diversity in our school. 

But where is the action to back up those obvious claims? Seemingly nowhere.

According to culturalinfusion.org, the number of international immigrants rose to 271 million in 2019, a huge jump of 122 million in 19 years. 

With all these cultural groups in the U.S., we should be learning about them in school. But we’re not.

How many times have you walked through the hall and heard someone who wasn’t black say the n-word, someone who wasn’t gay say the f-slur? A whole lot, I would imagine.

There’s so much diversity in our school. If we were taught young to be empathetic to others and their differences from us, our world would be a much better place. Wars between those differences could be so easily avoided by just talking about how we can learn from each other. 

Most of what we learn in social studies and sociological classes is about white people. 

Why don’t we learn more in-depth about the Trail of Tears or Civil Rights movement? We should learn more than one week about these things because they have a huge impact on different communities and cultures.

Multicultural education is important in school because of how many kids are kept away from real-life problems.

I can recall many times talking about things such as kids being kept at the border and many did not know what I was talking about. Everything is politicized, and many parents think sheltering their kids from outside problems, such as struggles they don’t deal with that other kids do, will help them.

Doing this is harmful to not only them, but other students, as well. 

Multicultural education allows for students to learn about their peers’ cultural differences and celebrate and appreciate them rather than berating anyone different than them. It allows them to flourish in a wildly expanding and changing world.

It doesn’t even have to be about race, either. Religion, sexual orientation and gender identity are all topics that are neglected. 

We can learn to accept those different from us, all it takes is proper education and compassion.