Multicultural Education: Hiring Teachers to Teach Multiracial Students

The population of the United States is becoming a cultural diverse society. The ethnic,
cultural, and language diversity within the U.S. and its schools is increasing at greater speed
than decades before. The U.S. Bureau of the Census projects that if current trend continue,
students of color will comprise approximately 46 percent of the student population in 2020. As
consequence this brings the necessity to hire and train more teachers to teach in a very
challenging environment with students from different backgrounds and level of education. An
example of this is the need to hire more teachers to teach minority groups such Latinos, Native-
American, and African-American students who fall behind in educational attainment compare
to other students population such as white students. The following graph shows the low
percentage of high school graduate among Latinos, Native-American, and Blacks.

These groups are examples on why is necessary to hire more diverse teachers who can
connect with students and are familiar with the culture of their students. Teachers from diverse
cultural background usually make positive identification with their students, and connect easily
with them because they often come from like communities and share similar expiriences.
Looking at what is happening in our schools, it will not be long before the minority becomes the
majority. Therefore, the need to have more teachers that can successfully teach a broader
diverse student population.
Multicultural education makes students more aware of their own cultural identity, history,
more able to appreciate other cultures and more aware of how all cultures fit together in
society. It is imperative to provide an empowering and equitable education for all students in
the United States. Within the context of teacher preparation, one of the highest priorities that
should be taken into account is to help teachers acquire the attitudes knowledge, skills, and
dispositions to work effectively with culturally diverse students. Colleges and departments of
education across the nation must assume the responsibility of preparing all teachers, to teach
racially-diverse students. Multicultural teachers close the gap on disintegration, knowledge,
prejudice, and social inequality.
Racially diverse teachers empower school culture and social structure. They also provide
students with educational experiences that enable them to maintain commitments to their
community cultures as well as acquire knowledge, skills, and culture needed to function in their
community. Multicultural teachers would also facilitate the academic achievement of students
from diverse racial, cultural, socioeconomic, and language groups. This includes using a variety
of teaching styles that are consistent with the range of learning styles within various cultural
and ethnic groups.
Finally, hiring multicultural teachers is investing in the future of the United States.


Work Cited:
http://educationstateuniversity.com/pages/2252/Multicultural-Education.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-lynch-edd/the-call-to-teach-
multicu_b_4568066.html
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21589924-education-technology-helps-
minorities-do-better-university-minding-gap
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/minoritytrends/