America has often times been called a “melting pot”. It’s roots may even be traced back to the founding fathers. There is a belief of national unity, that can be traced back to embracing diversity:
“Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people”
Multiculturalism began as an idea inspired by the “pragmatism” philosophy from the end of the 19th century. Pragmatism is understood as assessing theories and beliefs in terms of their practical application and success. This pragmatic view was partly to justify the mass immigration in the late 19th century. This is not to be confused with cultural plurism which is an existence of smaller cultural niches within a large dominant culture.
We can see an encouragement in modern day grade school teaching about diversity from an early age. However, what needs to be understood about American education is that it has never been simply to “impart knowledge”, but it also has the approach of “making children into americans” (cited from here).
“John Quincy Adams wrote that immigrants ‘must cast off their European skin, never to resume it.’ Horace Mann argued that ‘a foreign people — cannot be transformed into the full stature of American citizens merely by a voyage across the Atlantic.’ One of the strongest motives for building public schools was, therefore, the need to make Americans out of Europeans.”
However, a small change can be seen in after the 1960’s with the civil rights movement. Now, Americans changed their teachings of history. A very commonly cited example is the colonization of America. Instead of treating it like a wonderful advance in civilization, they paid more heed to the misfortunes that happened to the Indians living here at the time. Now the question here becomes, what exactly is a multiculturalist approach to teaching history? Is it teaching that American colonists were bad to dislocate the native Indians? Or is it teaching that while an advance in civilisation was a worthy contribution but the dislocation of native Americans was also an unfortunate and consequent casualty?
A similar problem arises when addressing slavery in America’s past. Once it becomes accepted as an “unparalleled evil”, it is easy to question all of America’s history. Once an acceptance of multiculturalism manifests in a modern society, the people whose ideas created America immediately become questionable, because the truth is that one of those ideas/practices was slavery.
Teaching a multicultural history is hard. Schools that are becoming more and more diverse try to teach history by addressing all perspectives, but it becomes uncertain exactly what to learn from this kind of history, because after all, we study history to learn from it. While yes some people may argue that teaching a different perspective is not difficult, and is in fact needed, the problem becomes apparent when trying to approach implied historical knowledge from the perspective of certain cultures. In the same Journal of HIstorical Review that I linked previously, they explain this problem in context of French and British people. The mere geography of London, or famous geographical locations (Waterloo Station, Tralgafer Station) are coined by defeat of the Frenchman, and a triumph for the British aka something to be proud of. But from the French perspective, these are not moments of embarrassment or defeat but memories of the British and all the horrible things they have done. It becomes confusing to teach a history like this, and almost makes the student run in circles.
This article written by James Banks from JHU school of education (I found this through many different search engines and sources… Banks seems to be a big name in multicultural education) explains how teaching with “diversity” can be improved. It is based on studies at University of Maryland and University of Washington, and supported by Carnegie Institute in NY. Its a systematic approach that article one so cynically pointed out with learning a multicultural history. I like principle 3 in their “student learning” section the best.
Principle 3: The curriculum should help students understand that knowledge is socially constructed and reflects researchers’ personal experiences as well as the social, political, and economic contexts in which they live and work.
This addresses a historiography aspect that I wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for the international baccalaureate curriculum that I was in. While I am still in the generation of education that is changing to approach history and multiculturalism in this way, I have found myself interested, and somewhat understanding of the problem that article 1 pointed out (Because I chose this topic willingly). I think it’s interesting to see that before we can even address multiculturalism as a goal to strive for, we must find a way to teach why it was wrong not to have it in the past.