Introduction
In writing a multicultural curriculum many of the curriculum and educational practices are often not culturally sensitive, with limited integration of information about different cultural groups into the curriculum (Vaughn 2011). As a result, many Deaf and hard of hearing students in mainstream schools who come from cultural backgrounds outside of their own immediate deaf culture are not recognized as individuals from more than two cultural groups and/or languages. The modern are education standards established for district, state, and the national standards does not attempt to incorporate elements of deaf culture that many deaf and hard of hearing students may have in addition to their potential secondary cultural backgrounds. The goal of this capstone proposal is to create a resource that current and future art educators who will work with deaf and hard of hearing students in their classroom that will provide information about deaf culture, deaf art, what it means to be multicultural from a deaf perspective and a module that included cultural diversity within the deaf population.
Minority cultures in the United States are not given enough consideration in regards to the benefits and insights that their cultural backgrounds can bring into the classroom, regardless of content due to a more “white” cultural way of thinking that is predominant in this country. The United States educational system that we know now was built on attempts to assimilate and mold young immigrants into the dominant white culture of the United States and this state of mind concerning education continues to this day: albeit not as severely. It is about incorporating cultural sensitivity as well as increasing awareness of multicultural groups in and out of the United States in the field of art and Deaf culture.
It should be noted that Deaf culture is made up of a variety of minority cultures and is not a culture with one perspective. Its members are so diverse that it would do them injustice to label them all under one category. This is why a multicultural education is integral for the Deaf and hard of hearing in the art classroom, regardless if it is mainstream or residential.
WHAT IS MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION?
Multicultural education for the deaf in a mainstream art classroom depends on the recognition of the deaf culture that exists out in the larger world and it’s inclusion into the overall curriculum of that class. For multicultural education to have any meaning it needs to enhance the communal or collective lives of groups that make up society, it has to be serious in recognizing the desire of the disenfranchised groups to be seen as legitimate and lastly, it has to support the validity of group membership as a basis for participation in society (Christensen 2000). This in important because the cultural background of the school can serve as a microcosm of the larger cultural world we live in and can be constructed to serve a teaching environment to prepare our students to interact with each other, respect other cultures and languages, beliefs, and values. This is of importance when considering the role that deaf and hard of hearing students can play in the mainstream classroom by teaching their hearing peers to be more accepting of individuals who might be “different” than they are. There are two approaches to curricula that can attempt to fully encapsulate all of the diversity within schools: transformative and social-action. These two approaches entail a more in-depth approach to developing curricula where the entire unit plan is based on matching the cultural needs of the students in a particular classroom and promotes cultural understanding and advocacy for all the students in the school regardless of their cultural heritage.
THE CULTURE OF SCHOOL: ASSIMILATION
The process of assimilation is transformative, taking place as a cultural group replaces old values and behaviors with new, usually with the majority group replacing the minority group. Accommodation refers to a group’s tendency to mediate or limit its acceptance of new cultural norms imposed from outside the group. Teachers may make accommodations to an intervention for various reasons, including peer pressure or fear of job-loss, and do so often in spite of, rather than in support of, the intervention (Charland 2011). For deaf and hard of hearing students, this perspective of the school and the individuals within it like teachers, this is a potential source of issues. Deaf and hard of hearing students will grow up in the mainstream setting entrenched into the world of their hearing peers in and out of the classroom and learn from this majority group but this assimilation can sometimes be so complete that their own potential cultural backgrounds can be ignored. In public schools some teachers will not have the training or unique perspectives required to teach and involve their deaf and hard of hearing student into the classroom, let alone teach that student about the varieties of cultures out there; especially Deaf culture.
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: IT’S IMPACT ON ART EDUCATION
The art curriculum is designed and intended to include content that meets local, state, and national curriculum content standards, regardless of educational setting. This means it has to address the many forms of art, such as drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, or digital arts, and the other visual arts (Sabol). The art curriculum is designed to be a discipline based art education that includes the study of the disciplines of art criticism, aesthetics, art history, and art production. However due to the requirements of NCLB, many art teachers have had to redesign their curricula to emphasize higher order thinking, skills such as reading, writing, and research activities because these are traits that are to be given higher priorities within the guidelines of NCLB. The goals were established to create more accountability within the schools to the quality of standards being taught to students, to increase the amount of standardized testing, data to assess how students were performing, and increasing focus on reading, writing, mathematics, and research but the increased attention on these topics can come at the expense of extra time devoted to visual arts content, studio time, varieties of art media experiences, field trips, and curricula that addresses multicultural issues (Sabol 2010). Another major area of loss in the art curriculum in the mainstream school was time for students to be creative and explore alternative solutions to problems, which is the focus of the social action approach that is utilized in a multicultural curriculum. An interesting piece of information is that many art educators have said that NCLB has created increased insensitivity to the needs of children and that many numbers of children with or without disabilities were behind (Sabol 2010).
This is relevant to the Capstone Proposal because when it comes to the deaf and hard of hearing student in a public school setting, the multicultural needs of the student should have a higher priority than their hearing peers. Deaf and hard of hearing students can be of more than one culture and linguistic background due to the simple fact that being Deaf can involve a culture that its own language, American Sign Language, in addition to their home hearing culture where English and other languages play a role. If the curriculum is negatively influenced by an increase in higher standards for NCLB and the goals of public schools to assimilate students into the larger cultural school group, then it’s possible that the opportunities to teach deaf and hard of hearing students about Deaf culture alongside their hearing peers may be decreased at the expense of the students in and out of the art classroom. It is important to involve exposure to cultures in the art curriculum because the essence of art is to express who you are, to teach the history of art and the meaning art has to the individuals who live in this world.
In writing a multicultural curriculum many of the curriculum and educational practices are often not culturally sensitive, with limited integration of information about different cultural groups into the curriculum (Vaughn 2011). As a result, many Deaf and hard of hearing students in mainstream schools who come from cultural backgrounds outside of their own immediate deaf culture are not recognized as individuals from more than two cultural groups and/or languages. The modern are education standards established for district, state, and the national standards does not attempt to incorporate elements of deaf culture that many deaf and hard of hearing students may have in addition to their potential secondary cultural backgrounds. The goal of this capstone proposal is to create a resource that current and future art educators who will work with deaf and hard of hearing students in their classroom that will provide information about deaf culture, deaf art, what it means to be multicultural from a deaf perspective and a module that included cultural diversity within the deaf population.
Minority cultures in the United States are not given enough consideration in regards to the benefits and insights that their cultural backgrounds can bring into the classroom, regardless of content due to a more “white” cultural way of thinking that is predominant in this country. The United States educational system that we know now was built on attempts to assimilate and mold young immigrants into the dominant white culture of the United States and this state of mind concerning education continues to this day: albeit not as severely. It is about incorporating cultural sensitivity as well as increasing awareness of multicultural groups in and out of the United States in the field of art and Deaf culture.
It should be noted that Deaf culture is made up of a variety of minority cultures and is not a culture with one perspective. Its members are so diverse that it would do them injustice to label them all under one category. This is why a multicultural education is integral for the Deaf and hard of hearing in the art classroom, regardless if it is mainstream or residential.
WHAT IS MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION?
Multicultural education for the deaf in a mainstream art classroom depends on the recognition of the deaf culture that exists out in the larger world and it’s inclusion into the overall curriculum of that class. For multicultural education to have any meaning it needs to enhance the communal or collective lives of groups that make up society, it has to be serious in recognizing the desire of the disenfranchised groups to be seen as legitimate and lastly, it has to support the validity of group membership as a basis for participation in society (Christensen 2000). This in important because the cultural background of the school can serve as a microcosm of the larger cultural world we live in and can be constructed to serve a teaching environment to prepare our students to interact with each other, respect other cultures and languages, beliefs, and values. This is of importance when considering the role that deaf and hard of hearing students can play in the mainstream classroom by teaching their hearing peers to be more accepting of individuals who might be “different” than they are. There are two approaches to curricula that can attempt to fully encapsulate all of the diversity within schools: transformative and social-action. These two approaches entail a more in-depth approach to developing curricula where the entire unit plan is based on matching the cultural needs of the students in a particular classroom and promotes cultural understanding and advocacy for all the students in the school regardless of their cultural heritage.
THE CULTURE OF SCHOOL: ASSIMILATION
The process of assimilation is transformative, taking place as a cultural group replaces old values and behaviors with new, usually with the majority group replacing the minority group. Accommodation refers to a group’s tendency to mediate or limit its acceptance of new cultural norms imposed from outside the group. Teachers may make accommodations to an intervention for various reasons, including peer pressure or fear of job-loss, and do so often in spite of, rather than in support of, the intervention (Charland 2011). For deaf and hard of hearing students, this perspective of the school and the individuals within it like teachers, this is a potential source of issues. Deaf and hard of hearing students will grow up in the mainstream setting entrenched into the world of their hearing peers in and out of the classroom and learn from this majority group but this assimilation can sometimes be so complete that their own potential cultural backgrounds can be ignored. In public schools some teachers will not have the training or unique perspectives required to teach and involve their deaf and hard of hearing student into the classroom, let alone teach that student about the varieties of cultures out there; especially Deaf culture.
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: IT’S IMPACT ON ART EDUCATION
The art curriculum is designed and intended to include content that meets local, state, and national curriculum content standards, regardless of educational setting. This means it has to address the many forms of art, such as drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, or digital arts, and the other visual arts (Sabol). The art curriculum is designed to be a discipline based art education that includes the study of the disciplines of art criticism, aesthetics, art history, and art production. However due to the requirements of NCLB, many art teachers have had to redesign their curricula to emphasize higher order thinking, skills such as reading, writing, and research activities because these are traits that are to be given higher priorities within the guidelines of NCLB. The goals were established to create more accountability within the schools to the quality of standards being taught to students, to increase the amount of standardized testing, data to assess how students were performing, and increasing focus on reading, writing, mathematics, and research but the increased attention on these topics can come at the expense of extra time devoted to visual arts content, studio time, varieties of art media experiences, field trips, and curricula that addresses multicultural issues (Sabol 2010). Another major area of loss in the art curriculum in the mainstream school was time for students to be creative and explore alternative solutions to problems, which is the focus of the social action approach that is utilized in a multicultural curriculum. An interesting piece of information is that many art educators have said that NCLB has created increased insensitivity to the needs of children and that many numbers of children with or without disabilities were behind (Sabol 2010).
This is relevant to the Capstone Proposal because when it comes to the deaf and hard of hearing student in a public school setting, the multicultural needs of the student should have a higher priority than their hearing peers. Deaf and hard of hearing students can be of more than one culture and linguistic background due to the simple fact that being Deaf can involve a culture that its own language, American Sign Language, in addition to their home hearing culture where English and other languages play a role. If the curriculum is negatively influenced by an increase in higher standards for NCLB and the goals of public schools to assimilate students into the larger cultural school group, then it’s possible that the opportunities to teach deaf and hard of hearing students about Deaf culture alongside their hearing peers may be decreased at the expense of the students in and out of the art classroom. It is important to involve exposure to cultures in the art curriculum because the essence of art is to express who you are, to teach the history of art and the meaning art has to the individuals who live in this world.