Who and What Should We Educate Our Students To Be? An Inquiry into the Curriculum of Multiculturalism in Education

Abstract

American, not Don't mistake me as I'm fed up being thought by others to have anything to do with Chinese! Upon hearing these words, intuition may tell you that this is a person who has been wronged many times in terms of who he is, swollen with grievance and indignation, and nearly driven beyond the limit of his endurance! Nevertheless, are his words true? Let's pause and ask: Does he really have nothing to do with Chinese in any way? Actually, the student was born in China and immigrated to the United States of America with his parents at eight years of age. Having received his school education all in (U.S.) America, in his late 20s now, the language he speaks has turned into English-only from Chinese-only. He has become antipathetic towards associating with Chinese or being identified as Chinese, though he grew up in a Chinese immigrant family, was raised on Chinese cuisine, with all his relatives still in China, and all his parents' friends being Chinese. This is Allen, the only son of our friend Lao Zhang, who feels hurt, but more helpless. (All names are pseudonyms.) As a former educator and a current doctoral student of education who is immigrant myself, I couldn't help but wonder: Why does immigrant child enter the (U.S.) American educational system as immigrant and exit as only an American? Why hasn't this immigrant child grown up taking pride in where he comes from? Why can't he composedly proclaim American with my roots in another place? Do immigrant children have to abandon their connections to their points of origin to better integrate into (U.S.) American culture and fit into that society? What role has (U.S.) American education served and continues to play in cultivating in children from various ethnic backgrounds the self-identification of who and what they are? Is (U.S.) American education aiming to uphold diversity or dilute the diversity and Americanize everyone regardless of where they are originally from, ethnically, linguistically, culturally, and religiously? These are the questions that deserve the consideration of every educator. Multiculturalism: A Call from Assimilation In a letter to the president of the American Defense Society in 1919, Theodore Roosevelt made the following statement: There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is American, but something else also, isn't American at all. We have room but for one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people. (Theodore Roosevelt, 1919) What turns out as reality doesn't disappoint Roosevelt: American education has been doing well at Americanizing its diverse population from generation to generation, which can even be traced back to the early times of New England when the earliest public, tax-supported school system took on the responsibility of transforming the children of European immigrants and Native Americans into American citizens (Frey & Whitehead, 2009). Since then, public schools have become the primary institution charged with assimilating the heterogeneous masses and creating a suitable workforce for a developing American nation (Tyack & Hansot, 1982). Assimilation, aesthetically named melting pot, has remained the dominant strategy in (U.S.) American schools, with a ruling White Protestant elite setting the curriculum, standards, and assessments for each succeeding generation, imprinting students with white middle class values (Ferguson, 2001). Those students who resist this assimilation are doomed to go through psychological and emotional struggle and are frequently labeled at-risk, leading to their educational marginalization and subsequent failure. …