Multicultural education has become a staple for me while I have been overseas. For the past five years while teaching in other countries, I’ve had to appropriately blend my knowledge and teaching style with the local culture and customs. The key is to incorporate as much as you can, learn as much as you can, and above all, to be flexible and understanding to the different cultures of your students.
My first culture shock happened as a beginning teacher in Kuwait. It was my very first day and I was getting to know my students when all of a sudden, another teacher comes bustling into the room saying it's prayer time. The girls knew exactly what to do! They started getting out their rugs and clothes and started praying in the middle of the classroom! I was experiencing a lot of firsts that day, just a few hours earlier I had my first awakening by the 5:30 a.m. Call to Prayer! Before that I had never experienced combining religion with education, but in Kuwait, it was all the same to them. Being flexible and understanding towards their culture made it possible for me to thoroughly enjoy the experience.
Parent Volunteer sharing story with students
While teaching in Myanmar, I’ve used multicultural learning through incorporating local ways and teachings in my lessons, activities, and general demeanor. My favorite example of this is when we were researching folktales. I researched Burmese folktales, and collected as many books in both English and Burmese that I could. The students were asked to talk to their parents and share folktales we’d learned from around the world, and ask if they knew any that may have been orally passed down. I asked parent volunteers to come in and share local folktales and worked together with them to create an appropriate activity/ craft.
Visiting the National Races Village
(Yangon, Myanmar)
Other ways of incorporating local ways and teachings are as simple as using basic hand gestures. When moving to Yangon, Myanmar, I quickly discovered that not all hand gestures are universal. I remember asking one of my students to come over and read with me by simply beckoning with my hand. The look the student gave me was one of shocked horror! She thought she had done something terribly wrong, and that I was angry, because that is the only reason someone would summon you like that in their culture. When you beckon someone in Myanmar, you always do it with your hand facing down towards the ground, not up towards the sky like we do in the States. From then on out, I made sure to adhere to the local hand gestures and avoided the ones that were taboo (like pointing to things with your feet).
I’ve also tried to incorporate the local environment and resources as much as possible. In Social Studies, we have not only been learning about different places and cultures around the world, but also the cultures in Myanmar. After a few weeks of researching the different States of Myanmar, the class went to The National Races Village, a park/museum where each State is represented with homes and artifacts you can walk through and see.
Taking a trishaw ride!
I also love to touch on some of the things that make that culture special and unique. For example, in Myanmar, they have cars but this is too expensive for a large majority of locals. So a very popular mode of transportation is using trishaws. A lot of my students had never taken a trishaw before, so we got to experience a little culture not even two minutes away from the school!
Just teaching and regurgitating things you know about the culture is not enough, I find it makes everything come more alive when I am able to visit local events myself. This not only helps me connect with the students on their culture, but gives me an opportunity to learn from them. And more often than not, I’m able to use the events and places I’ve been to in the classroom. Living overseas has not only opened my eyes to how different other cultures can be, but also to how important they are to value and respect. These are their lives; this is how they live, how they learn. I’ve found that once parents and students realize that you are open to their culture and thirst to know more, they are more than happy to help educate and support you.