I have been a teacher for many years now and I have taught in many multi-cultural schools. To teach in a multi-cultural school definitely has its challenges. Each child is brought up differently. They each have their own way of doing things and they each have their own culture and religion. What is right for one child, is wrong for the other.
Here in South Africa we have great difficulty with the learning process because some students just believe what they believe because they were taught by their parents and grandparents, which they respect more anyone else, and even if you show them prove of something they still find it difficult to accept a concept.
One thing that I came across many times is the religion factor. Children are forced to believe in what their parents believe, but that is a post for another time.
Today I want to explain the difficulty in to infusing indigenous knowledge in the curriculum.
Indigenous - originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native.
The new curriculum that was introduced into the South African school system, brought a great shift in the education system. Due to the cultural differences of various students in one class, it became important for teachers to integrate indigenous material into the new curriculum, to make it easier for students to learn. The focus from content-based material, changed to an outcomes-based curriculum. This means that a student has to achieve certain skills to move on to the next year.
Outcome-based curriculum – focus on the outcomes and each learner learn at their own pace.
This was done to ensure that all learners now had an equal opportunity to learn. Not all learners had the opportunity to learn in schools in the old system. Some learners had never been exposed to the school system and their backgrounds differed from others in the same class.
Even though the new curriculum was adapted and strongly supported by the ruling party- The African National congress, a few critical issues was raised by educators in the current system. Many teachers argued that outcomes-based education would fail, because nobody took into consideration the fact that classrooms are not organized in a way to make this successful.
Constructive and effective learning will depend on the educator understanding the interaction, as well as the educator’s ability to manage a classroom.
The biggest problems arising from the new outcomes-based curriculum where indigenous material is integrated, begins with a lack of knowledge from teachers, and the lack of resource materials.
Indigenous knowledge is not recorded anywhere, and the information is not readily available to educators. In the past educators made use of readily available knowledge and could transfer the information to students easily by making use of textbooks.
Science for example is a difficult subject to teach because of cultural differences and due to students having different backgrounds. I have found this video that you might find very interesting, and even though it is ridiculous, these are the actual things that we are struggling with.
Culture plays an extremely big role and in certain cultures students could be offended if their beliefs are different. This could prevent a student from learning effectively.
BUT with the proper guidance, learning material and attitude, the integration of indigenous material could be successful. Students can learn from each other and this could become a successful practice in schools, but only if it is integrated with the existing available learning material, and if we can succeed in convincing students that the learning material is actually true.
Integration is extremely difficult if the student’s background and culture is not taken into consideration, and it can cause frustration as well as make learning difficult if information is forced onto students.
When indigenous materials are integrated, students need to be open minded and the educator needs to be in total control of the class. If the class is not managed properly it could turn into a bad learning experience and then the effect of learning something new is a negative experience.
The struggle is real.
