Suggestions to Local School Boards
Suggestions to the local school board for assisting teachers in teaching multicultural students. Data from an open-ended question on Annie Lopez's survey of teachers in multicultural settings.
A mutual understanding of how to meet the student's needs.
A seminar on Multicultural teaching issues and techniques would be very helpful. Possibly a required or recommended course for professional upgrading for certification renewal.
Accept all, favor none.
Acquaint teachers with various cultures if they are new or different.
Address the issues, don't overlook to ignore
Allow and provide for a multicultural multilanguage literature budget. Fund fieldtrips that would allow children to experience other cultures.
Allow more time for professional growth. The Mid-American Union doesn't seem too interested in progressive issues. My mail from them this last year consisted of Xeroxed sheets, listing prices for specials from a teacher's store in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Allow relatives of the child to come and share elements of their culture in class.
Allow and provide more preparation time for teachers.
Allow the teacher to keep the culture of the children alive.
Allow bilingual parents and students to give assistance when needed.
Annual inservice that continues to build on previous information.
As a small school, we have a small budget. It would be great if the conference could give schools, (even on a rotation) a small stipend for purchasing additional multicultural materials, or to keep a library from which we could borrow these materials.
Assistance for more one on one contact.
Assuming that everyone understands all the terminology.
Balance the ethnic level in the school.
Be sensitive to the demands on the teachers.
Be supportive and llowing me to use une ideas to vary learning and curriculum.
Be tolerant and supportive of the teachers.
Be more accepting of differences.
Be patient and be consistent.
Be supportive.
Bilingual training .
Bring in more about cultural facts of the area where the children are from or what nationality they are.
Bring parents in for teacher/parent training.
Bring in educated people who are familiar with the particular culture and give the teacher an orientation of the habits and mind set of the people.
Bring in multicultural speakers
Broader ESL program, budget, and time.
Build up the library with a larger variety of materials.
Buy books, and send me to workshops that address these issues.
California Conference of SDA Education dept should give inservices, training and information.
Celebrate diverse holidays.
Communication difficulties
Conference- wide, sub-urban wide Inservices.
Cultural, food, lesson planning
Culture fair ã show where your background is.
Curriculum is unfamiliar to them.
Dealing with sensitivity issues.
Develop MC teaching as part of the World Geography sections for social studies.
Develop multicultural curriculums.
Develop short 10 minute lessons on specific aspects of each culture, also some ideas for celebrating it.
Example: Bonfire night (England)
Differences in view of women and different views on education- AI was not challenging their child enough
Discuss issues and guidelines on dealing with sensitivity toward other's cultures
Don't make such a big issue of the problem. Treat all equally.
Education of parents in what is the best way to work with their child's teacher and help the child in the learning.
Education and standards throughout Reservation Schools.
Encourage attendance to seminars on the subject. Adapt projects or curriculum which encourages multicultural teaching.
Encourage attendance in teacher workshops
Encourage the common moral (Christian, biblical) beliefs
Encourage activities, reading materials, films and other things to broaden our understanding of other cultures
Encourage our colleges to offer more training in MC relations. Each conference should also have training seminars on MC relations.
English classes for parents.
Equal treatment of each group
Explanations for understanding (limited Spanish vocabulary)
Exposure to inservices, films, lectures...
Facilitate parent / teacher meetings with different ethnic groups.
Find creative ways to involve and show the community ways on how to meet the needs of multicultural students.
Foreign language proficiency classes
Fund videos, conference attendance, boork or magazine purchases.
Funding for materials and library books
Funding for teacher conventions
Get to a financial stability where funds are available to provide need materials.
Getting the faculty to use the same basic strategies in each classroom to build up a value system.
Give credit, help and incentives for teachers to learn Spanish.
Give background of student education
Give opportunity for a person of the culture to speak about their cultural background
Giving practical lessons with different cultures. Show actual experience in classroom settings with different students and how to reach them.
Have multicultural students perform featured activities on a regular basis.
Have some type of program like bilingual or even trilingual.
Have books that lend themselves to multicultural environments. I want my school board to order on a continual basis, books with his educational advantage.
Have teacher training programs that teach history from different perspectives and that as teachers we do the same.
Have Volunteers who will present their culture through pictures or telling about their country, dress, food, money, customs, to help teachers become aware.
Have vespers programs to feature religious music of different cultures.
Have an interpreter come and talk about a particular culture.
Have an inservice for people in the community.
Have professors trained on multiculturalism or experience come to the school and share learning
Have an international food fair.
Have a strong ESL program.
Have multicultural assemblies stressing tolerance and acceptance of diversity.
Have a teacher to help with content mastery, and help with what ever is needed.
Have Bilingual specialists available for resource.
Have literary resources available.
Have an ethnic festival
Have video seminars.
Have a conversational english class.
Have a translator available.
Have training sessions.
Have materials readily available in the library about the different cultures.
Have more multicultural students enrolled.
Have honors classes.
Have more Inservices, we had only 1
Have basic guidelines available regarding cultural preferences. ie: Italians kiss in greeting, some shake hands, etc.
Have programs that curtail to background information on other countries way of education to help teachers in the adjustment period with students.
Have a liaison person work with Spanish families.
Have in services that would be of great benefit to teachers in gaining information regarding customs, etiquette in various cultures, helping to determine the best ways to reach, encourage, motivate and discipline such students.
Have a supplemental Resource box for teachers to go to.
Have more help available, by having more people. It's hard to do everything when alone at school.
Have an international week, broaden and focus on MC
Having a cultural fair.
Help pay for classes on teaching English as a Second language.
Help teacher gain control in assisting multicultural students learn.
Help with learning a foreign language.
Help teachers with strategies to meet each need.
Hire multicultural aides.
Hire more multicultural staff members.
Hire a Spanish teacher. No inservices.
Hire teachers and other staff that are familiar with the students
Hire multicultural staff
Hold additional professional development classes
Hold high academic standards for all. Students will try to meet your expectations of them.
I think the assistance needs to be initiated on a union and conference level.
I would like to see us bring in people of other religions, races for programs.
I think my board members need to learn to be sensitive to differing cultural values.
I need more materials that are already pre-translated.
I am interested in addressing differences created by physical impairments as well as cultural.
In services for schools that have a substantial number of multicultural students.
In a multigrade classroom, my prime need is for Awarm bodies volunteers to help with routine tasks which would free me up to work with individual students who may need more or a different kind of assistance.
Include parent involvement in classrooms, use them as a resource.
Incorporate on a conference level multicultural appreciation and awareness.
Increase awareness of differences, broaden exposure to research regarding multicultural education, increase support of student experiences that are designed to increase understanding of cultural differences.
Inservices on how to relate with parents and students.
Inservices.
Invest in videos of multicultural origin
Invite outside presenters.
Invite trained presenter to conduct home and school awareness programs
Involve parents to work together
It might help if we were given the opportunity to study more, and have multicultural education.
I'd like to see more on cultural events from different people and show how they think.
I've begged for years for more volunteer involvement from our largest ethnic church group, the Hispanics. Then my principal decided we don't need them. I'd change that!
Keep communication lines open.
Keep me informed of ethnic tradition, holidays and customs.
Keep classes at a manageable number.
Keep my class size limited to 12 students. I appreciate having the time to spend with each student.
Keep enrollment as multicultural as it had been.
Keep teachers abreast of all learning opportunities for cultural awareness.
Language courses for teachers if one non-english language is dominant among students.
Leaders have to get along and work together. They have such an influence on the direction and feelings expressed by their constituents.
learn about different cultures in school.
Leave us alone to group students as needed, to ovoid open problems between students yet ease them into working with each other appropriately.
Let us all be aware and open minded.
Let us take sabbaticals to foreign countries.
Let's continue with black history month- Emphasize African American culture.
Local conference can help teachers understand how to successfully listen and talk to parent of other cultures. Help in having awareness understanding differences in different cultures.
Look for positives.
Love the people.
Make other students aware of other cultures.
Make materials available for teaching multicultural issues.
Make it clearly understood to all children that they are of value, that life is wonderful if we foster a positive attitude and that the teacher is there to help support them however they need it.
Make the parents understand that just because their children are different does not mean they are an exception to the rule.
Make teachers aware of using grants for all education system, and how it would affect church schools.
Make sure student has language sufficient to understand and learn materials
Modify curriculum to make it relevant.
Money for school counselors.
More workshops would be very helpful to help with students who are very visual and have difficulty with auditory processing.
More instructional guides and manuals
More help in the classroomã teacher's aide.
More books in the library about different cultures.
More parent/school orientation for large ethnic groups newly arrived in the area as to how to best work together to achieve student success
More funding for additional materials and inservices or workshops.
More materials when presenting different countries in Social Studies units.
More in service training opportunities
More advanced information cultural backgrounds of students when possible.
More multicultural awareness throughout the year and not just at typical or expected times.
More money for extra help or teachers.
Most of the books I used were bought with money from my own pocket. It would be nice for the school to provide for multicultural funds.
Multicultural Inservices and classes
Multicultural training.
Not to allow children to be placed in the classroom if they are new to America.
Obtain resource availability
Offer a multicultural day, and have activities and lots of sharing.
Offer a foreign language class.
Opportunities to take classes on how to get along.
Order and subscribe professional magazines for teachers to read.
Our school could have some of the students of other ethnic groups conduct informal classes teaching their own Anative A or mother language to other classmates.
Parent training on the importance of English speaking.
Parental involvement in the school program, is what I want to see strengthened.
Parents need to be more aware and involved in assisting with planning, giveing and showing artifacts for understanding.
Pay for teachers to attend multicultural seminars.
Perhaps a survey at the beginning of the year filled out by all parents would give teachers an idea of what is expected.
Plan some programs recognizing different cultures.
Pray when finances and donations are extremely limited.
Prepare a handbook written by someone of that culture that explains how the culture feels about specific issues.
Presentations on social awareness in talking to parents
Procure more up-to-date textbooks and hire more ethnic teachers.
Promote multicultural experiences even for single culture schools.
Promote the positive brotherhood of all humanity and this should snuff out racism and discrimination.
Each person is unique and has a unique and intesting background to share with others.
Promote cultural awareness and celebration activities
Provide cultural training by the group you are working with to explain cultural reactions.
Provide classes in how different cultures relate to each other and other cultures.
Provide Internet access, E-mail, Field trips across country, and military schools; workshops.
Provide help so teachers can research on how to deal with differences.
Provide tests in the child's language.
Provide tutoring program to assist with difficulties.
Provide teaching assistants and have proficiency level before entering school.
Provide qualified teacher-aides so teachers have time to spend with individual students.
Provide good literature representing various cultures for both students and teachers to read and share.
Provide more personnel. ESL classes should not have 1teacher to 30 students.
Provide funding for aides.
Provide time for planning multicultural activities.
Provide more education and awareness.
Provide Audio-visual materials presenting other cultures.
Provide more aides who speak another language spoken by other children in the class.
Provide a file of articles/ resources or multicultural issues.
Provide tutors that will spend more time with the students.
Provide a language lab as well as an English room so that a teacher can organize things and teach in an affective manner, rather than walking around with one or two.
Provide classes so parents can learn to speak English.
Provide some way to sit down and dialogue with people to understand their concerns.
Provide opportunity to interact with teachers- multiracial, encourage teachers to teach to the needs of the child.
Provide a room, for listening center, and have tapes of materials to be read by students.
Provide a bilingual aide to assist in small groups or one on one.
Provide library books in the native tongue of the children.
Provide English as A Second Language class.
Provide fellowship time for parents and teachers without students.
Provide a network of support and communication for both students and staff.
Provide ESL instruction to those who need them.
Provide a counselor or pastor for parents.
Provide bilingual aides.
Provide aids or translators for an introductional period.
Provide periodicals.
Provide for teacher assistants who speak the language and could be my bridge to the students.
Provide a list or role models in the community for students to come in contact with.
Provide workshops, money to attend classes locally, and literature on this subject.
Provide more room and space.
Provide accessible information on cutlural information as to how it pertains to education.
Provide funds and time to attend workshops.
Provide assistance to help provide time to assist (give extra help and time for special needs of such students.
Provide more materials like videos and books.
Provide different kinds of materials and encourage participation in multicultural workshops and enrichment activities to help us to know better how to handle the challenges of teaching multicultural students.
Provide separate schools for different cultured students.
Provide materials aimed at the ESL student would be helpful
Provide more time for individualized instruction where perceptions differ.
Provide free materials and seminars
Provide funds for materials. Allow time for special projects.
Provide opportunities to visit other multicultral classrooms.
Provide ESL class for those who need English.
Provide time to work with families of multicultural students. Provide training in specific language/customs of different cultures.
Provide more resources and materials in the curriculum which exposes children to different cultures.
Provide more library multicultural supplies
Provide additional cross cultural activities.
Provide funds for cultural awareness courses or time so the teacher may be adequately trained.
Provide more funds to purchase more culturally sensitive literature.
Provide diverse materials to meet the needs.
Provide history, music, and art materials that meet each culture needs.
Provide and suggest articles, books, inservices. Invite different cultures to address these issues at
teachers' meetings or in bulletins.
Provide an ESL specialist or ESL training
Provide parent classes
Provide continued study opportunities, for example traveling around the world.
Reading difficulty, increasing vocabulary and comprehension.
Recognize differences in learning styles and make provision to meet those learning styles.
Recognize accomplishments of various cultures throughout the school year
School and schoolboard should support teachers' decisions.
School should schedule assemblies and have guest speakers or parent group gatherings that are inspirational with positive messages that educate and uplift. Usually there's not much time to present these things in a curriculum.
Send teachers to attend Inservices.
Send short synopses out regarding significance of phrases, facial expressions, culturla expectations, typical expected levels of hostility toward the dominant culture.
Share experiences during teacher conferences and Inservices would be profitable.
Share or engage in exchange programs with nearby schools having students with different cultures.
Share experiences with one another.
Share in more visible waysã like class presentations, assemblies, background information about our students cultural backgrounds.
Smaller class sizes and bigger ratio of teachers to students.
Some type of budget to allow us to teach with multicultural materials
Spanish cultural programs
Special education and ESL teachers have been needed in our schools for as long as I can remember.
Sponsor dialogue sessions for members of the constituency.
Sponsor ESL classes for parents; purchase materials which aid ESL instruction.
Students assuming I was racially prejudiced.
Subscribe to a multicultural magazine.
Successful people , men and women from various cultural, racial backgrounds need to present assemblies telling of their success, how it was achieved and urge all cultures and colors to work together rather than separate because of cultures and colors.
Suggest books useful to help with the problems
Supply aides that would free me so I can provide more one on one time.
Supply translator
Supply materials and awareness activities
Support needed changes re: methods, materials, attitude.
Take advantage of things the public schools offer for free.
Teach tolerance and understanding of other cultures
Teach a foreign language.
Teacher collaboration is to be encouraged. We have too much teacher isolation in solving problems.
The board has to be patient with me, and not to criticize me.
The music instructor/ director could feature multicultural music and composers throughout the school year with several special concerts.
The school could send out a questionnaire to all the different ethnic families to see who would be willing to give a presentation on their culture's food, clothing, tradition, relition,etc. for special assemblies or Home and school programs.
They could purchase some books for our teacher resource library that present information regarding the several cultures we would most likely have students from and important teaching techniques that might be useful and helpful.
To provide more teaching supplies that are multicultural including books, language tapes that speak in their language and English.
To have an International day, which we already do. We get to see different costumes, and eat different foods. We talk about family and traditions.
Try to reach the community and invite them to come to our school.
Try to find a teacher who is multicultural and try to employ them.
Understand and support the teachers
Union Level should offer addition classes, because local conference is struggling, too, and local school is too small and do not have the funds.
Use local funds to provide teacher inservices. Use home/school association as catlyst for presentation to church and other constituents.
We do well with a lot of support.
Work with superintendent in providing a teacher in-service.
Work to bridge social gaps with other cultures. Often times the difficulties I see arise not because of academic issues. Rather there are sociological barriers erected on both sides that interfere with social/academic goals.
Workshop in multicultures
Workshops for Home and school nights to involved parents community.
Workshops on the history of special times and holidays for the different cultures so that we can understand and celebrate with them.