Nonverbal communication and culture. Identity, stereotypes and prejudices, страница 64

From our discussion of these representative educational systems, it should be clear that culture dramatically affects the learning process. What the culture teaches exemplifies the culture's unique history and traditions.

Cultures also differ in how they teach – lecture versus interaction, cooperation versus competition, silence versus noise, active versus passive, textbook versus recitation, and the like. Even the status of teachers and the esteem in which education is held are reflections of a culture's values, beliefs, and prejudices.

Multicultural education

At present, the world is experiencing a major population explosion. The projected world population in 2025 is 8.3 billion people. The schools in the United States, which is a highly multicultural country, have been greatly affected by the combination of population and immigration increases. In California public schools 1 out of 6 students was born outside the United States, and 1 in 3 speaks a language other than English at home. The Los Angeles school system now absorbs 30,000 new immigrant children each year.

Goals of Multicultural Education

Regardless of culture, educational systems must prepare people to become useful, functioning members of society. This, of course, is an evolutionary process: As society changes, so must the educational systems. Educational systems must continually adapt to the ever-changing needs of the global marketplace and develop students to fulfill the needs of society.

The challenge of education in the United States is complicated by two factors. First, the American educational system is based on the idea that as many people as possible should have access to as much education as possible. This, of course, means that the educational system must be designed to accommodate all levels of student ability and all areas of interest. The second factor is increasing student cultural diversity. Historically, the classroom culture has been an extension of mainstream American culture. Its values were those of independence, individualism, and concern for relevance and application. Many students whose backgrounds are different from the dominant culture experience a difficult time adjusting to this classroom culture.

Fortunately, schools are adapting to the increase in student diversity. Teachers, administrators, and parents are coming to recognize that as classrooms in the United States become more diverse culturally, it is important for both teachers and students to understand some of the cultural factors that affect learning. Many schools now routinely teach the experiences and values of many ethnic cultures.

Multicultural education teaches that human communication is often dependent on one's knowledge of culture. In this approach, teachers and students gain cultural knowledge and this information can enhance appreciation and sensitivity of students' own as well as others' cultures. This enhanced view of culture can help change misconceptions of culture that at one time may have caused miscommunication between members of diverse cultures. A successful multicultural classroom is one in which students and teachers understand each other in their communicative interactions.

Approaches to Multicultural Education

Multicultural education must recognize the cultural diversity of students and the effect that diversity has on the learning process. In the classroom setting, both learning styles and language diversity affect how students learn and participate in the educational process.

Learning Styles

Aristotle once wrote, "To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men." Although learning may be natural to humankind, all people do not learn in the same way. There are diverse styles of learning that affect the way in which a learner learns and processes information. Preferred learning styles differ among people and from culture to culture. The way students in one culture learn may not be the way students of a different culture learn." The strong link between culture and learning is evidenced by research indicating that culture and ethnicity have a greater influence on cognitive style than does social class.