The Future of Education

This presentation is inspired by three culminating projects included in the multiculturalism and education course taught at my university. The course is designed to provide students with opportunities to develop a critical and reflexive understanding of who they are as individuals and social beings, examining how consciousness is/was constructed, and promoting understanding through the complexity of difference. In addition, the objectives encourage understanding and promote a more active/critical learner/citizen participation in the society in which we live, as well as globally.

These course objectives have been realized through three culminating projects; the social justice field experience, the cultural self-identity project, and the Cultural Palooza event.  The social justice component consists of the pre-service teachers working within local area community organizations identified to provide needed services to disadvantaged families and youth, and schools whose student population serve lower-income and working poor families.  The pre-service teachers work with children on art projects, which reflect the child’s own cultural identity and lived experiences.  These projects are displayed at the Cultural Palooza (explained as the third component) at the end of the semester.

The self-identity art project seeks to answer the critical questions of: Who am I? How do I understand my culture? My ethnicity? My nationality? How does my understanding of my culture affect my perception of self? As important as these questions are to how we come to really know of ourselves, we seldom ask them or even think about them. In this assignment the students design a piece of art that answers the above stated questions. In addition to the art project students submit a 3-4 page double-spaced explanation of the art piece.  The student’s project is then displayed at the Cultural Palooza at the end of the semester.

The third component of the project is the Cultural Palooza, which is the culminating event where university and k-12 students display their artwork and various cultural acts perform at a community event. The three components of the multiculturalism and education course together create space at our university for cultural and community awareness.

This presentation demonstrates that action research is relevant for multicultural education pre-service teachers.  Ultimately pre-service teachers better understand their culture, privilege, power, and responsibility in society.  From this presentation the audience will be able to see the development of this project to creating a clearer self and social consciousness of the environment in which they live. The objectives of this presentation are threefold: 1)Expose others to this inclusive and effective project; 2)Provide the audience with the tools to expand and/or implement the project/s into their own programs and 3)Emphasize theory-into-practice learning and its contributions to the learning of future teachers.