Students participate in a collaboration each fall that explores these preconceptions. Site visits to urban and rural schools are arranged and discussions follow. Students are required to read the same text to facilitate meaningful discussion. The challenge of inducting middle school preservice teachers into multicultural education in a school environment that is overwhelmingly White and non-diverse is of particular interest to me.
Induction is the planned and organized orientation to the demands and responsibilities of teaching.
Throughout this semester, issues relating to multicultural education and diversity have been integrated throughout the class' curriculum. To further address these issues and provide our preservice teachers with real multicultural experiences, an exchange with middle school preservice teachers at Clark Atlanta University, a historically black college, was planned. The first part of the exchange occurred when 12 middle school preservice teachers from the Clark Atlanta University and 2 of their professors visited a Clarke County Middle school and an elementary school with 24 middle school preservice teachers and their professor from the University of Georgia. The panelists, Dr. Elizabeth Pate, Dr. Jenny Penny Oliver, Dr. Cathie Fallona and Dr. Martha Allexsaht-Snider shared with their audience their experiences in rural educational settings. Again, the preservice teachers were provided with detailed information about the programs and student population at each site.