Thank you for expressing interest in making your classroom or home a more culturally varied environment. Multicultural awareness is exposure to, understanding of, and appreciation for many cultures other than your own. It helps individuals understand and accept the behavior and beliefs of the different people they associate with, based on knowledge of their culture.
Multicultural awareness is important, especially for our country's youth.
In a society and culture that becomes more diverse with each passing day, many remain stagnant in the focus of their choice of classroom literature, activities, and lessons, emphasizing only the traditional anglo-saxon history and experience. This leaves many children unaware of the variety and splendor of other life experiences, and often times unaware of their own history and cultural elements. Prejudice and intolerance still thrive in the homes and heads of much of our population. In an age where technology is expanding our realm of communication, a multitude of resources and experiences are at our fingertips. There are a multitude of resources on the world wide web which offer information about other cultures, lists of multicultural books, project and activity ideas, help in implementing multicultural activities effectively into the classroom, and links to related sites.