Overview

Educator and author, Parker Palmer wrote a book called To Know as We are Known. The title says it all: In order for our students to learn, they must first be "known." Their stories, their personal experiences, their learning styles, their intelligences, their lives within the context of their family and culture must be known or "seen" by peers and teachers, alike.

We began this course with the idea of "developing a sensitive eye". Here, that sensitive eye is vital. We do not engage in the "doubting game" of tearing down or tearing apart in order to make our students visible. We engage in the "believing game" - we "listen to, affirm, enter in." The "sensitive eye" we develop as educators (and the "sensitive eye" we help our students to develop as learners) becomes the receptor for "knowing" about the history, culture, and individual identities of each of our students.

Every country in which Teachers Without Borders does its work says the same thing - we must define the term "multicultural education" in detail, and know the features and strength of culture in order to be effective teachers for the new millennium.

Here, we begin with our first definition:

Multicultural education is the ability to appreciate and "know" all learners.

Making Students Visible

Here are some concrete ways to help students become "known":

TALK AT THE TWB LEARNING CAFE:

What are ways in which you help students to become "known"? Read what others have said. Add your thoughts. Join your global colleagues in conversation at the TWB Learning Cafe, by clicking here.

The Larger World

Once students are known for their individual identity/culture, they will be able to develop a larger identity for the community in which they live; then their country/culture; and, finally, they will feel themselves connected as a citizen of this earth.

There is a Field

At the root of most discord in the world is the stagnant, unilateral mindset that "my way is the right way." Author Kurt Vonnegut writes about this in his science fiction novel, The Sirens of Titan. One of Vonnegut's characters talks about a "chrono-synclastic infundibulum" (a made-up word) for an imaginery place in the cosmos that is the opposite of the "my way is the right way" mindset; rather, it's a place "where your Daddy and my Daddy are both right," says one of his characters. Or, as Rumi, the thirteenth-century poet, says, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there."

Whether it's Rumi's "field" or Vonnegut's "chrono-synclastic infundibulum" each are talking about a place in the mind where we are receptive, a place where we have developed a "muscle" for "holding the space for seeing multiple viewpoints all at the same time." In Hindi the word is drishtikona, and it implies that one does not have to relinquish one viewpoint for another, rather multiple viewpoints can be held and understood, simultaneously.

This larger, multi-dimensional space is the place we need to be in - in order to listen to, to appreciate, and to celebrate the multitude of individual, family, societal, and global cultures that we encounter in our students.

From Seeing Comes Dialogue

The image at the right challenges us. With our physical eyes, we can, at best, bounce quickly between seeing the "Old Woman" and the "Young Woman." From an airplane, however, we can see all of the villages "at once." Likewise, in our multi-dimensional, mind's eye - that imaginative field of Rumi's or Vonnegut's "chrono-synclastic infundibulum" - we can see the plurality all at once - and we can hold the paradoxes all at once.

From this bird's eye/airplane view or view from our "mind's eye" we can begin to "see" and appreciate pluralism; we begin to make room for listening and for dialogue.

Anne Michaels writes in her novel, Fugitive Pieces, about a character who looks around and sees a world falling apart and out of sync, and realizes that what is needed is to "make love necessary ." In our times, we might also add, "to make multi-dimensional 'seeing' necessary." This is at the heart of multiculturalism.

Suggested Reading:

The Compassionate Listening Project

(online)

HOW TO GET TO THE NEXT MODULE:

Usually, you just click "Next" to go to the next page. When you finish a section, however, (as you're about to do when you finish reading these two paragraphs), you need to click on the "Outline" button, which is on the bottom, right-hand side of the page. Look underneath the blue bar and click on the word "Outline."

When you click on "Outline," a screen will come up that will show you the outline for Course 4. Look for the next section to read and click on the first topic in that next section. For example, when you get to the outline now, look under the next section called "Multicultural Education" and look for the first topic in black lettering called "Overview." Click on "Overview."