Teaching cultural diversity through classical foundations and intrinsic motivation

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Teaching Classical Foundations for a Modern-day Topic Today’s educational environment is characterized by the need to identify ways for helping students grow as global citizens. The rapid technological advancements and increased globalization has necessitated teaching students to develop as global citizens. Teaching students regarding international issues and encouraging them to embrace a different perspective about the world is increasingly important because of the increased interconnectivity of people. Such teaching approaches enable students to develop necessary skills to communicate with people from diverse nationalities, cultures, and traditions (Sutcliffe, 2012). This process is also important and beneficial since it enables the younger generation to identify huge opportunities that are brought by diversity and the richness of various cultures across the globe. While the need to help students develop as global citizens is recognized by the various stakeholders in the education sector, teachers are faced with challenges on the most suitable approaches for teaching a modern-day topic. Additionally, teachers are faced with the need to enhance student motivation and develop interest for the topic into existing curriculum. One of the approaches that can be utilized to achieve these goals in teaching the classical foundations for a contemporary topic. As teacher, I could teach about culture diversity and its classical foundations in social studies. Teaching about the early beliefs and the modern issue of cultural diversity will help students appreciate the richness of the various cultures worldwide and easily embrace the numerous opportunities brought by diversity. Through this process, students will learn to appreciate that culture and cultural diversity is an issue that has its foundation in the history of humanity. Students will understand how cultural issues have faced different societies from time to time and how diversity can be utilized as a tool that promotes societal growth and development. Learning about culture and cultural diversity is an important modern-day topic in social studies because of increased globalization and rapid technological advancements. The classical foundations or early beliefs would shape students’ understanding of the usefulness of cultural diversity in today’s society. However, the teaching process would require developing intrinsic motivation, which is crucial towards promoting effective teaching and learning. Building intrinsic motivation will help in teaching the classical foundations of the modern-day topic of culture and cultural diversity since it promotes student commitment that eventually generates results in comparison to external motivations (Palank, 2015). In essence, the role of intrinsic motivation in this effort/process is encouraging student commitment, which in turn generates better learning outcomes. Once students become committed to the learning process, teachers are more effective in their roles and easily achieve the respective goals and objectives of the curriculum. In addition, intrinsic motivation helps students to demonstrate the desired behaviors in the classroom, which in turn enhances their learning outcomes. As part of enhancing the learning outcomes and achievements of students, teachers should build interest for the topic into the existing curriculum. One of the measures for achieving this is demonstrating the link between early beliefs and contemporary ideas regarding the topic. For instance, the classical foundations of culture and diversity should be linked to modern-day issues relating to the need to embrace diversity in an increasing interconnected world. Secondly, the learning objectives for this topic should be designed in a manner that reflects contemporary ideas to help demonstrate its applicability to modern world scenarios. The other aspect would involve utilizing modern teaching strategies to provide instruction regarding the classical aspects of the topic. This would help in ensuring that students remain attentive and are attracted to the foundational beliefs on the topic and its modern ideas. References Palank, D. (2015, September 2). Strategies to Build Intrinsic Motivation. Retrieved February 27, 2018, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/classroom-self-persuasion-david-palank Sutcliffe, J. (2012, November 5). Why Global Awareness Matters to Schools. The Guardian. Retrieved February 27, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2012/nov/05/global-awareness-schools-education