Review of a picture - Essay Example

Spending a few minutes at any average American school will no doubt testify to the fact that it is impossible to have a classroom in the current times that is occupied by pupils hailing from a single culture. Therefore it goes without saying that the classrooms of today are predominantly multicultural, very unlike the scenario presented in the picture and studying in classrooms given to cultural diversity does endow the students with multiple abilities and skills that go a long way in assuring success in the professional environments given to diversity and multiculturalism.

One thing to be noted about the given picture is that all the students in the classroom are singularly attentive to the concept being taught, and hence it would not be wrong to conclude that education in a single culture setting is mostly text book driven, which hardly tries to arm the students with the essential social skills, which they will have to necessarily acquire in a classroom driven by diversity. The piles of textbooks assorted on the desks placed before the students in the picture, in a way precisely symbolize such conclusions.

Perhaps the students are so attentive to what is being taught, because there is nothing else in their surrounding ambiance that is different and hence stimulates their curiosity and attention. They are focusing on the lesson because the classroom environment dominated by a single culture does not require them to come across questions and views that are foreign and new to their culture. No wonder, one could predict that such a class as shown in the picture may give way to students who are academically sound, but may perhaps lack the people skills and cultural literacy that is of immense importance in today’s flat world.

Hill-Jackson, Sewell and Waters testify to the limitations of single culture classrooms by pointing towards the fact that “students who bring strong biases and negative stereotypes about diverse groups will be less likely to develop… beliefs and behaviors most consistent with multicultural sensitivity and responsiveness (Hill-Jackson, Sewell & Waters 176).” Once one agrees to the limitations of the single culture classrooms as presented in the picture under consideration, one may be poised to raise the question as to whether the students depicted in the picture are missing something, and if yes, than what is it?

It would not be wrong to say that the loads of textbooks piled before the students in the picture and the content in them do certainly cater to the needs and aspirations of a single race or culture because the given classroom is essentially dominated by the students associated with a single culture. However, things are never so in case of the multicultural classrooms. In multicultural classrooms the educators are required to configure syllabi and text books which cater to the needs of many cultures and races, and hence education in multicultural classrooms is not merely about a two way dialogue and communication between the students and the teacher, but is also about fostering cultural understanding amongst the diverse groups in the classrooms and building a consensus amongst diverse opinions and ways of seeing things (Powell & Caseau 174).