Multiculturalism and Professionalism

The 2008 presidential race is the testimony of change magnitude multi culturalism in United States, first time in the history of this great nation a char or an African American will be a serious contender to be the air force officer in Chief. The race in itself is not an aberration or affirmative action notwithstanding a reflection how our society is evolving. In the latest census more than 20 percent of American identifies themselves below two unalike ethnic backgrounds. The country is now truly becoming the melting pot of humankinds different cultures.This increasing multiculturalism is no where more prominent than American inculcates where the children of majority, second generation of immigrants and unhomogeneous other sections of the society studying together and learning to build their own dream world in their own ways. The five most common challenges faced in a multi cultural surroundings be (Jeffrey Sanchez, 2005) Managing diversity, resolving cultural conflicts, cr eating a culture of cellular inclusion, building team spirits and harnessing the advantages of conflicts.Managing Diversity A t to to each one oneer has to be competent into managing diversity and first step in managing it is understanding diversity. For a teacher to be successful he/she should have noesis of subject he/she is teaching and knowledge of subjects whom he/she is teaching. fellowship of subjects will not only help him/her in developing empathy with them but as well as provides him/her an opportunity to innovate him/her teaching approach.Resolving Cultural Conflicts Number of times there are no wrongs or right, and the difference of perspective due to cultural dressing of children. If the teacher is not equipped with the cultural grooming of children then he/she wont be able to arbitrate impellingly and thus die to take the whole class in one direction.Creating a purification of Inclusion The most effective tool for managing diversity is creating a culture o f inclusion where students are encouraged to recognize the cultural difference of each other and even though they may not agree with them but receptive becoming to understand that there is difference, no superior or inferior values but just different values.Building Team Spirit A teacher need to have a good knowledge of team building as working in the teams students are most likely to understand each other differences better than just providing them dossiers of information. Working together will help them in accommodating each others perspective and how they can contribute to the given task.Harnessing the Advantages of Difference Today from school, to clubs and corporate houses are all endeavour to achieve diversity, the reason for it is the advantages various cultures bring in. Teams with diverse members are better equipped at tone at the same problem from different perspective and these diverse perspectives enable the team to come up with various different solutions.Steps a T eacher can take to create a Culture of InclusionThe teacher can take following steps to create a culture of inclusion where no student feel alienated but instead feel welcomed and respected (Karlfried, 1995) Creating a descriptive communication plan for students, a good beginning could be multiple messages with same message.Secondly the teacher should not assign work and responsibility on race or cultural generalizations.Thirdly the teacher should strive to develop a performance metric which is easily understood by the students and also in all transparent and fair to each section of the class.Finally teachers and students both be exposed to cross cultural interaction and workshops where they can understand the motives of cultural values rather than just taking on them face. shutdownCross cultural understanding and respect today is not only important for students but also for teachers as they are the focus of building tomorrows America where the present generation of school will be decision makers. Multiculturalism and professionalism not only has to go hand in hand but one has to feed the other. If todays school generation has lesser problems with cross cultural environment in school then it will have even lesser problems at work places in future.ReferencesJeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Eric J. Neuman, Shirli Kopelman, Oscar Ybarra, Hyekyung Park and Karen Goh (2006) Conflict in the Workplace. MIT Sloan Management Review. Winter 2007, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 5Karlfried Knapp (1995) The Definition of Intercultural Communication. Retrieved from 20th Feb 2008 from http//www.kwintessential.co.uk/articles/definition-of-intercultural-communication.html