We do students a disservice if we don't teach in culturally proficient ways

As I listen to the information about a racially insensitive act at a local college, I am reminded of the fact that we do students a disservice if we don't teach in both culturally proficient and global ways.

Theater Link

Our students will live in a multicultural world, and if we teach them about multiple cultures and ways to respect and learn about those cultures, we will give them a valuable and critical lens with which to see, think, and live in their world.

Yesterday we brought our students to the wonderful Wheelock Family Theater's performance of Lin-Manuel Miranda's play, In the Heights. The performers who represented multiple cultures and wonderful performance skills including singing, dancing, rapping, and acting gave students a terrific glimpse of a neighborhoods and lifestyles familiar to some and unfamiliar to others. Students had the chance to see a snapshot of life including the highs and lows of a group of people from Washington Heights, a New York neighborhood. I'm sure children found connections to their own lives and also noticed parts of life they haven't experienced or thought about yet.

Also students had the chance to see positive collaboration of people who looked like them and didn't look like them. Too often in the media, we only see negative images of some people and some groups. Children who live in communities that represent mostly one culture or race, may have skewed ideas and stereotypes about groups they don't interact with, and this is where prejudice and racism starts. Instead, to provide students with multiple experiences with multiple cultures, race, and lifestyles is to enrich students' experience and education, and to prepare them to live well in a diverse and multicultural world.

I look forward to discussing the play more with students in the days ahead. What did they notice? What surprised them? What questions do they have? Would they have changed anything in the play? How was the neighborhood in the play different and the same as their neighborhoods? What was the message about family and home that the play relayed?

To prepare our students well for their world, they need rich, culturally proficient, multicultural experiences. That is how they will learn about their world and understand that there are good, talented, and wonderful people of multiple cultures, races, lifestyles, gender, and geography. In the Heights is a terrific, energetic, entertaining, and thought-provoking musical. Wheelock Family Theater's production of this play is outstanding. I recommend.

Note: Fifth graders are the youngest grade recommended for this play with regard to school groups.