Education

            So should cultural awareness be taught in schools? In my opinion it should as long as it is done in the right way. What I mean by that is, a multicultural education can be nothing but beneficial to a students understanding of the world around them. Unless it is taught though means that wont either have a lasting impact with the child, or its done by a teacher teaching with their own cultural bias in their class rooms. These are both worries that can be taken care of with proper training of our educators. Training is important because its rare any two-classroom teachers will have the same definition for multicultural education. Now for this paper I am going to assume that proper training will be taking place and show why teaching cultural awareness should be taught in school. .
             "The basic goal of multicultural education is to help all children understand and appreciate events and people from various points of view" (Welton, 113). It shows them to see outside the confines of what's familiar to them and teaches them to appreciate as well as understand other cultures, as well as their own at the same time. What an educator should try to do is show a student the uniqueness of their own cultural background as a positive thing and how the differences of other cultures can be positive as well.
             Children's attitudes toward their race and ethnic group as well as other cultural groups begin to form early in the preschool years. Children are easily influenced by the culture, opinions, and attitudes of their parents. A parents perceptions of ethnic and racial groups are the strongest teachings that any kid will get and ultimately can influence a child's attitudes toward minority groups. Its not easy for a teacher to counter the influence that a child gets from their parents, but teachers should always believe they can help, because any progress made with a student is going to help them in the future.