Conclusion

I've learned a lot from studying the different parts of multicultural education.  I have been able to analyse my way of looking at the world and come to educated conclusions as I faced uncomfortable issues upfront.
I never before realized how much I buy into a single story and how detrimental that can be to my world view.  I also never considered so deeply the costs and benefits of the paradigm I hold and the culture I buy into as critically.  This experience has been valuable not only for me to change, but for me to better understand myself and others and how people think.  I learned new ideas about teaching and how we can teach where we are more inclusive.  I never before considered the importance of a structural ideology where we are able to make situations more naturally inclusive.  I want to accept this ideology into my own practices.  I came to a better understanding of the difficulties of the LGBTQ community and how I can show these the support and love they need even while standing to my beliefs.  I also realized that a lot of problems that I used to ignore as trivial are actually a lot larger than I thought.  By ignoring these I have been failing to go beyond being a merely tolerant person.  I saw new perceptions that I hadn't thought of before, such as how we might make certain assumptions of culture based on a few facts - the way one might assume that a religious clothing is oppressive when it is a religious choice.
 I also realized that it is important to always acknowledge that I do not know everything.  That sounds obvious, but there are plenty of times where I feel like I understand things that I don't.  I may have thought I knew what "African" culture or another culture was like and bought into stereotype without even realizing it.  I don't know all about anyone's experience.  In being the "other", I only received a tiny glimpse of what some people face daily.  I don't know all of my student's struggles and may never fully understand what they go through.  Admitting that there is so much that I don't know and might never know opens my mind to learning more bit by bit and coming to better understandings of others that will let me support them better.  Compassion and love come first and foremost and the more I understand and learn, the more I am open to learning, the better I will be able to show this to my students.
I discovered in this class a few valuable things to include in the classroom that will help my students in this learning and growing process.  I learned that important issues really do need to be talked about and that talking about them can help me to reach students needs - issues like immigration race or poverty.  I realized that this should also be largely student led if possible so that they can important issues without much risk in a safe environment. They will be able to view their own world views critically so that they don't just accept hegemony without understanding the complexities behind it.  Those skills will help them in all aspects of life as they face so many different accepted ideas. They will also hopefully be able to take more active stances for what they come to believe.  Listening and seeing people as the valuable human lives that they are are other important things that need to happen in the classroom. We need to see beyond what we think at first and take the time to listen so that our eyes are opened.  Taking time to listen might seem hard, but it is essential to being the best influence that we can be and to really learning about the world.  If we don't listen we will never be able to help.
There is a cost to standing up for what you believe in that I never really saw before.  I always thought I would be willing to stand up for truth come raging storms, but when we discussed the cost I realized that it is harder than it sounds.  It was an adjustment for me to realize that being an active teacher will really take risks and work. One small way that I am trying to be more active and brave is through an organization that my siblings and I are working on creating that will focus on bringing people of different ideas together to discuss policy in a tolerant environment while working together for workable solutions.  I will use a lot of what I learned here to inform my approach in this so that I can be a more open and understanding mind.

I walked into a classroom
And smiled at their passions
The students that I taught
Not knowing who they were
Not knowing what they faced

With newer eyes I meet them
In better understanding
Unlike I had before
Seeing their complexity
Seeing glorious humans

I still don't wholly know them
What their potentials are
But my mind is open
Translucent to their needs
Translucent in my world