I have developed into a teen advocate over this semester by choosing a social topic/issue that I was interested in, researching and developing a research paper about it, as well as producing a zine that brings attention to my topic. The topic I’ve chosen is Multicultural Education and a few things I want people to know about my topic are: 1) The definition of multicultural education is a progressive approach for transforming education based on educational equality and social justice. 2) Student growth and achievement is greatly impacted by the more diverse learning techniques used in multicultural education as opposed to the traditional way of learning implemented now. The way students are being taught now, they memorizing and learning things that are being fed to them, they aren’t questioning or thinking critically, they aren’t being taught how to interact with others in the adult world. 3)Multicultural education makes for an equal learning experience for all because it gives students a chance to learn about their history and different aspects of historical events that may relate to them. it focuses on teaching students about not just one general perspective of history but history that relates to them and their background. It is helping to break down the textbook bias that has altered student’s views of their abilities. I think these 3 things are important to know about my topic because it gives you an overall view of what Multicultural Education is and how not having it in our schools is negatively impacting youth. At the beginning of this semester of course I knew that humans need food, shelter and water to survive as basic needs, but I wasn’t aware that we also have social needs such as status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness. Now that I have researched my social topic I can see how the education system the way that it is right now is not meeting the social needs of relatedness and fairness. Relatedness will be met through Multicultural Education by students seeing their own cultural history, and teachers being inclusive of multiple cultural perspectives. Fairness will be met because having diversity in the classroom promotes the same quality of education for all students regardless of race.
Education Group: Jackie, Kenneth and Brandon. Click to see their digital portfolios.
My group's final zine cover, click to see the final products.
My social advocate, Deborah Wesner. Click to see her Linkedin profile.