Description

A very important aspect of incisive education that needs to be taken into account is multiculturalism and language diversity. This is especially true in current times in Malta because Malta is being introduced many different cultures coming in all at once from Europe and Africa through workers coming in to work in Malta and also through refugees that seek asylum in Malta. It is very important that the teacher adopts a ideology of equality of opportunity so that everyone has a chance to succeed. Teachers should encourage students of different cultures to interact with each other to find common ground with each other and to take interest in the differences that they might have. A teacher who has a multicultural class should make it a point to consistently give every student the opportunity to answer questions regarding the lesson. Students should be empowered by creating activities that allow them to express their ideas and work. There should be activities set up where students can make small presentations on the topics that they have gone over instead of just doing home work. This is because at that moment each student has the opportunity to be the centre of attention and that student is sharing his ideas with the class and the class has the opportunity to respond to those ideas.
Having a multicultural class should not be seen as an obstacle for the teacher but an asset for more learning opportunities for example a teacher who teachers home economics should base her cooking lessons and demonstrations on the type of food that are common in the various cultures of the students in his/her multicultural class. Similarly students could prepare food that is unique to their culture and give an explanation of its history to the rest of the class. If I had a multicultural class in gardening I would use the students from different countries to talk about the popular crops that are grown in their country and then we could try to grow some unique crops.
If there are language barriers with students there should be facilities to help the students overcome such barriers, one suggestion is that they could have their tests given to them in their own language until they feel comfortable in Maltese or English. There should be facilities they can go to help them learn Maltese and English and students might get the help of an LSE who is fluent in their native language and Maltese and English to help them understand the lesson better. A teacher’s goal should be to see if the students can understand the topic not to see if the student can understand the topic in a certain language otherwise every lesson no matter what the topic becomes a language test in Maltese or English as opposed to a lesson in the subject the teacher wishes to teach.

Socio-economic diversity:
Many students come from many social economic back grounds and one of the main problems that students with social problems have is that they tend to separate themselves from the rest of the class and refuse to take part in class activities. One of the most common ways to identify young students with social problems is their lack of participation in class, the first thing young children do when they go to school is find any reason to start paying a clear cut sign that a child has social problems is if the child stays off in a corner by himself instead of engaging in play. A child that does not even know how to engage in play has very serious social problems. There are ways to deal with this like putting the child the centre of attention by having a show and tell day or having the child talk about interesting things that are happening or saw in his life. The teacher should make sure that activities such as presentations and group work are very common in the class. In young children who excluded themselves in class and refuse to take part in even play the teacher should step in to get a reaction out of him/ her this may include talking to the child or even getting him to engage in physical activity such as getting him to play a sport or games.
The most important thing is for the child to take part in theses actives so that he feels part of a group and wants to contribute something that he has to offer so that he can help the group. There should be a safety net for children who are in such poor financial situations that they cannot afford the basic things that are needed for modern day education such as computers internet access. The government has put plans into place where internet and computers to children who need them which is good but there should be a very strong relationship between teacher and students so that students who suffer from economic problems can feel comfortable going to the teacher to get help and solve the problem. The school can also provide facilities that they know students will need to use such as computers in each class with internet access and each students should have an opportunity to make use of it for their learning needs. The school should also have a well organised library that students can make use of to learn. When dealing with kids that suffer social economic problems its normally the case that border community that they are making a part of has problems, this includes crime, poverty or even the parent’s having a bad mentality regarding the importance of education. It is then the government responsibility to step in and deal with those problems, a very important step that the government has taken is to fine parents who decide that their children could stay home if they want to because they don’t feel that education is important.