Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: De-emphasize Differences. I was recently assigned to the middle school in the Warren School District. The district serves a community that had once been an all-white middle-class enclave, but has recently become more diverse in its ethnic makeup. I am very interested in multicultural education. I instituted the use of dialog journals in my adviser group, telling the students that they can write anything they want. Some journal entries cause me concern. Warren Jackson, an African American, complains that my emphasis on African American culture embarrasses him. Gail Smith, a white girl, writes that her parents object strongly to her affection for Warren Jackson and that she is considering suicide. My problems come to a head in my first meeting with the principal. The principal suggests that I decrease his use of small groups, that I abandon my dialogue journals, and that I de-emphasize the multicultural aspects of my classes. He suggests that I emphasize similarities, not differences. I don't know what to do. I do think that my methods have some value but I cannot go against my principal. Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) When it comes to multicultural education, there should be a happy medium between studying difference and similarities. If all we focus on is differences, then all students will think is that everyone is different from them and that they have nothing in common. Same problem would occur if you just focused on the similarities, then you would miss our on the rich uniqenesses of each culture. To help achieve this, you should have activities where students have to draw topics out of jar and discuss the topic with a random student in class. The topics can range from how many relatives you have to what holidays you celebrate. The whole point would be to setup situations where students would have conversation with other student in the class that would not have happened before. Something that I dont understand in the topic is how Gail's journal is tied to a problem with discussing multicultral education. Her issue seems to be a problem between her and her parents. That problem is one that you should contact the councelor immediately about too.