Fostering Intercultural Harmony in Public

Fostering Intercultural Harmony in Public School Settings

The United States used to be known as the "melting pot" of the world, but this appellation is perhaps no longer as accurate as it once was; indeed, the American landscape has assumed the characteristics of a "tossed salad" that has a common salad dressing binding it together, and that is about all. In an increasingly multicultural society, it is not surprising, but it is alarming that racial and ethnic divisions among various minority groups in the United States have been manifested in a wide variety of contexts, many of them inherently violent. Clearly, ignorance and stereotypical views concerning other cultures extends across all virtually every racial and ethnic group; as a result, violence among minority groups has been a source of increasing concern for policymakers at all levels throughout the United States. Indeed, the 1992 Los Angels riots involved, at least in part, blacks fighting Korean-Americans; the 1991 Crown Heights riots in New York involved African-Americans and Jews; the July 4, 1993, violence in Washington, D.C. was between blacks and Latinos; furthermore, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Arab-Americans have been added to the mix as well (Pattnaik, 2003).

Rationale. In response to these disturbing and often violence outbursts of racial and ethnic strife, initiatives designed to facilitate intergroup understanding and harmony among minority students from different groups have received an insufficient amount of support from teachers, administrators, and parents (Pattnaik, 2003). In fact, "The Condition of Education, 2002," by the National Center for Education Statistics (2002), did not even include children's intercultural attitude, knowledge, and skill as representing an important part of their "learner outcomes" (Pattnaik, 2003). In this regard, Brawarsky (1997) emphasizes that "in general, the number of research studies in the area of intergroup relations has declined considerably since the 1970s, yet the need for such study is probably greater than ever" (emphasis added) (p. 7). Given this dismal state of affairs in the nation's public schools, identifying effective alternatives has assumed even greater importance. Although multicultural curriculums has evolved considerably over the past 25 years or so as educators have attempted to address the needs of their multicultural classrooms in an increasingly diverse and inequitable society and interconnected world, much remains to be done today (Merryfield, 2001).

According to Ihator (2000), the increasingly globalized nature of the business world has created the need to be able to identify, study and understand the worldviews, mindsets, and habits of global publics in order to effectively communicate. In this regard, "Communication styles and meaning, as well as realities, as perceived by individuals are culturally induced," he says (p. 45). Students are going to require a sufficient amount of knowledge about the languages and cultures of other countries in order to effectively communicate with members of those societies; in fact, even in countries where English is spoken, the pattern and meaning of the English language may be different because of the cultural influence. As a result, fluency in language alone may be insufficient to community effectively with people in other countries; to accomplish effective communications, this expertise must be combined with the knowledge of the culture of the native speakers (Ihator, 2000).

Alternatives to Resolution. While educating the nation's youth about the peoples of other countries is clearly an integral part of becoming an informed citizen, particularly in the Age of Information, teachers are frequently either too busy or uninformed about how best to approach the subject to make any substantive progress. Nevertheless, the existing approaches are insufficient to address these needs. According to Ihator, the current approaches to educating the nation's youth about other people and countries are woefully inadequate to meet the needs of a multicultural society competing in a globalized marketplace:

superficial approach of learning about food and festivals of minority cultures will not be sufficient. Schools need to change some of their existing practices (such as tracking and homogeneous grouping) and instead implement an issue-based, action-oriented curriculum that encourages minority children to reflect upon, and fight to change, policies and practices that threaten intercultural understanding. (p. 205).

In his essay, "Knowledge Bases for Diversity in Teacher Education," Smith (1999) reports that there are some timely alternatives that can help teachers in a multicultural classroom, but most public school teachers are unprepared for such a task. Smith recommends providing "monocultural" teachers with a comprehensive curriculum that will better prepare them for the real-life settings they will undoubtedly face in the public schools, but these initiatives will naturally take time and time is running out for many educators desperately searching for an effective approach to providing multicultural instruction. Because resources are by definition scarce, it is therefore vitally important that whatever initiative is developed take advantage of the best that is available for this purpose; one such cost-effective but highly appropriate approach is discussed further below.

Detailed Lesson Plan to Promote Cultural Harmony. Perhaps one of the most effective methods of providing multicultural educational opportunities in public school classrooms today is through a WebQuest. A WebQuest is defined by Downey and Milson (2001) as "an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Internet" (p. 144). The WebQuest approach provides access to online primary sources, a structure for evaluating those sources, and teacher supervision in identifying appropriate and relevant content (Downey & Milson, 2000). In a WebQuest project, the teacher selects websites and then creates a Web page that serves as a guide for students to follow through five stages: 1) Introduction, 2) Task, 3) Process, 4) Evaluation, and 5) Conclusion (Downey & Milson, 2000); these steps are discussed further below.

Introduction: provides key background information and should motivate students with an intriguing question or problem.

Task: describes the final product expected of the students. The final product may be as elaborate as an oral presentation using PowerPoint, or as basic as a poster depicting the students' findings.

Process: gives step-by-step instructions for completing the task, as well as the list of resources needed to complete each step. Students are provided with links to Internet resources selected by the teacher, as well as a list of additional off-line sources needed to complete the task. WebQuest resources might include government or educational websites, online searchable databases, e-mail addresses of experts, and sources physically available in the classroom.

Evaluation: explains how learners will be assessed on their final product.

Conclusion: summarizes the main goals of the activity and encourages additional investigations on related topics (Downey & Milson, 2000, p. 144).

For the purposes of a multicultural WebQuest exercise, then, the class would be separated into groups of approximately 3-5 students each, with each group being assigned a particular country with general instructions to develop a comprehensive analysis of the country's people, culture and lands; the WebQuest guidance will be left especially nebulous at the outset to allow for flexibility and ingenuity on the part of the student groups, although an outline will be provided to help guide the research process. Each group would then describe the results of their research and WebQuest results in an oral presentation to the class with their salient findings. Teacher-designed certificates of accomplishment could be distributed to all participants, and the winning team would receive a token prize.