Blog #4 Immigration

Immigration

Upon reflecting over the debates concerning the need to incorporate curriculum that is multicultural, the issue has far more implications and adjustments than realized. Though I agree with inclusivity, I’m concerned with the manner of how this should take place. Will learning a foreign language be a part of the requirements to teach in public schools? Will the students of the dominant culture lose or be disconnected from American History (past/present) as we know it for the sake of diversity? How can we protect English only speaking educational leaders from unfair job opportunities and discrimination during this new immigration movement? In my opinion these are valid interests that could shape the very fiber of education and centralized schooling. But in order to abide by the very laws created by the United States in our constitution we must seek to explore ways in which school officials can affectively incorporate what’s fast becoming a new immigration. The dominant culture will always be the determining factor for why ratification and reconstruction of the current educational system is at hand. The possibility of losing one’s ethnic identity or cultural relevance by accommodating other races is highly unlikely. In fact, the room to edify or enhance ones communal ethnos would increase with the implementation of educational materials that teach and welcome multiculturalism. According to the Core Knowledge Foundation such a program is plausible. Classroom learning cannot go forward effectively unless all students in the class share some common points of reference. A consensus is building in the United States that this shared, school-based knowledge should be (especially in the areas of history and literature) far more multicultural than it has been in the past. It is possible, of course, to hold a kind of dual citizenship, to be part of both one's particular ethnos and the larger cosmopolis. The difficulty begins only when one asserts the mutual exclusivity of ethnos and cosmopolis. (Hirsch Jr., 1992) As long as humanity continues to procreate new ethnicities and races are being born. Therefore the call to reform American education is urgent.

Reference
E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (1992). Core Knowledge Foundation. Toward a Centrist Curriculum:
Two Kinds of Multiculturalism in Elementary School. Website retrieved from
https://elearn.mtsu.edu/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=2975445&tId=19133313