Multiculturalism in the public schools

An illustration of multiculturalism--what I experienced on Tuesday and Wedneday for my most recent teaching assignment. The school was celebrating the Lunar New Year.

The Asians at the school are mostly Vietnamese, though there may be a few Chinese.
One of the 5th grad classes (6th grade?) sang "Vietnam Vietnam" in Vietnamese. (I don't know if they still play this song on Ch. 38 at the end of Vietnamese programming. To me, Vietnamese seems somewhat difficult to learn, even though some people claim Cantonese and Vietnamese sound very similar. It was a bit odd watching Hispanic and Anglo kids singing in Vietnamese... but they seemed to do it well.

I think the same class also sang "Gong Xi."


It was nice to see the Vietnamese students (and teachers) dressed up in ao dai. (Even if many were rather generic ao dai for children.) Some of the non-Vietnamese students (and again, teachers) were dressed in qi pao or Chinese tops.

I can see why those seeking to preserve Anglo culture and a national identity might complain about this. On the other hand, this is a school where most of the students are non-Anglo. It doesn't seem like the lunar calendar will ever be able to compete against the solar calendar in a Western country; besides the solar calendar is an international standard, and the lunar new year (in China at least) important only for marking certain holidays and picking fortuitous dates for weddings and so on.

But if a local identity is more important than a national identity, and the make-up of a community changes because of immigration and emigration, how can one really complain that the culture of the community is being lost (or more accurately, replaced)? Hence, one can understand the gripe of certain people that the Federal government is at fault for allowing so much (legal) immigration, to the detriment of local cultures and identities.

Yesterday I was asking some of my students the names of various things in Vietnamese. That was rather fun. The vowel sounds of Vietnamese do sound more complex than those of Cantonese...

So what's the harm in having children learn about other cultures? After all, they have to live with one another and therefore understand one another don't they? But do children really learn about culture differences in a public school, or do they get all of their learning from a textbook? And what of core values, and the customs that embody them? Should there be only one set? If children learn more than one, will they become confused, or worse, relativists?

I remember in high school we discussed the difference between ethics and etiquette, and people generally argued etiquette was not as "serious" as ethics, or did not have the same, well, ethical import. Nonetheless, is this really so? Some acts may seem neutral, such as using the right hand to hold the knife when cutting, but what about greeting one another? Isn't that tied to the virtue of friendliness?

And would it really be too much to expect that those who immigrate here should have more than a superficial knowledge of "American culture," beyond what is required on the citizenship test and what they may see on the television? How about a required etiquette course?

More later...