Question
How can you introduce different cultures when you are in an area that is predominantly one culture?
Answer
I think you've got to know your audience first. You've got to know where you're at and what's acceptable for your program. As a teacher, if you're hesitant to add in other cultures, I say start small. You might start with adding a couple of books to the bookshelf. Once those set in, maybe you add a couple different baby dolls. Then after that, you can add some multicultural food boxes that you bring from home. Do it a little bit at a time so that the kids aren't shocked and so it’s integrated more naturally. For me, I think honesty is the best policy and I'm kind of a straight shooter. I would send a letter home to the parents and say I don't know if you know, but exposing children to different cultures and different groups of people is best practice. It's best for their development. Here's what we're going to start doing in our classroom. If I got some flack back from that, I would just really try to make sure that I was educating parents as far as why it's important. You might try to do some parent training. You might send home informational leaflets or something like that so that they could understand the purpose behind it and that it's not just for nothing. It's not just to do it, but that it's really serving a purpose. If you have parents that are hesitant from a race viewpoint or something like that, you might approach it from the visual discrimination point. We're really working on a skill called visual discrimination and this is going to help your child later with reading and writing and arithmetic and all of those important things. Sometimes approaching it in that way will help parents welcome it.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Diversity and Cultural Awareness, by Natasha Crosby Kile, MS.
