Blog Entry #1 - Multicultural Education

What is my definition of Multicultural Education?
To me Multicultural Education is any time a teacher brings a different culture into the classroom. To me a teacher can use literature written by authors who are not of the canon. I believe that even though we as a society study mostly white American authors, a caucasian author holds as much value as a non-white. Students can learn so much by reading and studying the works and collective histories of different authors and cultures, and they will benefit not only as students, but as future employees and members of society. Multicultural Education is recognizing everyone and their place in our society.
My personal and reflective thoughts regarding the challenge of defining multicultural education.
I feel that after Gorski's working definition of Multicultural Education I do my best to hit his major bullet points, but I feel the definition if general is missing the point that teachers have to teach what we are told to teach, I can deviate a little and have selected books for my students that are multicultural and written by immigrants or children of immigrants, but the lacking section is what school boards, districts and administration needs to do to provide teachers with the means for teaching multiculturally. I cannot make non-canonical literature appear in my classroom without funds from somewhere - lord knows I don't have them, nor do my 96% free and reduced lunch families. I would love to provide these things and do my best to, but I can only do so much without the proper support from my district.
I try my best to be understanding of the many different lives my children live and to be accepting of them and provide an avenue for them, I want to have a classroom where all students feel accepted and all students learn about their cultures and I feel that I am doing my very best at that right now. I know my classroom is very student-centered, and I will always continue to keep it that way.

The classroom challenges facing teachers as they strive to implement multicultural practices in their classrooms.
These are vast and I will probably not be able to hit most of them, but the first thing that popped into my mind was "Where is the money coming from to buy the books from authors outside of the canon, who are of the cultures of my children?" I live and work in an English-only school system where my Title 1 funds that do buy books are not allowed to buy books that are not in English. I do not have the money, nor can I require students to buy books to read in class. Where will I get the funds to buy 30 books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
What if I have no idea about the culture of the students that I am teaching and do not have the time to find anything out?
How can I provide texts from cultures that do not have a written language?
How can I provide information and solidly teach a concept that I am unfamiliar with?
How can I do all of this, plus make sure I hit all the standards, plus have lessons planned in a timely manner, plus sleep?
All the questions aside I already know I am way ahead of many teachers in the aspect of Multicultural Education. I realized that my students will not be reading any novels written by white Americans - all of my literature this year will come from authors who are mostly from Central and South America as well as the Caribbean and Japan. I have lived and worked in different cultures, so I know that I strive to bring other cultures into my classroom. The hardest part for me to buy into is that the "Leader" of Multicultural Education is not, nor according to his CV ever been a classroom teacher, I think it's fine and dandy to want change, but it has to be in the classrooms of America, not from an elite university. Give me the resources to make the change and I will, I WANT TO!!