Multiculturalism in Schools

Having been raised within a Latin culture, I can identify with many people from similar upbringings. Although, my own parents where immigrants to this country they adapted the American view on education. My parents valued education tremendously, to such an extant that they matriculated my sister and I into private schools. Yet, other families did not feel the same way. The video on "Multicultural manners in school how does the priority of education differ among cultures?" does point out a very important fact within many Latin cultures, in that a families' livelihood is extremely important. Whereas education is not viewed nearly as important. Perhaps this is due primarily to the vast majority of the population in many Latin countries to be in poverty. And they are the ones to migrate to America searching for a more prosperous future. Therefore it is essential to know and understand these differences, especially in our classrooms, no matter how frustrating they may be. We need to have our students best interests at heart and help them succeed as much as they are able and allowed to. 

Below I have added a link to a You Tube video on immigrant parents and their struggles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CQ61S10QrM


Manners and Body Language


Most of our communication is made through our bodies. So, being able to read and understand messages can be a difficult thing to do. Especially, with people from varying cultures. Gestures, facial expressions and/or body movements could cause confusion in both directions.  Therefore, being informed about different customs and traditions is ever so critical. Otherwise, we run the risk of misunderstanding the messages that are trying to be conveyed to us, primarily form our ELL's students. 
Words of course could also be misunderstood cross-culturally. The video "Manners and Verbal
 Expressions across Cultures " made light of many things that a person might do that might be 
taken the wrong way. For example, an Asian student might reply "yes" when being asked if they
 understood everything a teacher was saying. But in actually they did not, yet, they did not 
answer truthfully as to not offend the teacher. Hence, we have to learn and adapt sometimes to
 our students and find other ways in which to present ideas, comments or information to them.

*An interesting website that I found on how to read someone's body language...note this might
 primarily pertain to North America



http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Body-Language