Multicultural Education, Development of: An Eyewitness Account

Gwendolyn C. Baker is a founder of multicultural education and one of its earliest theorists. While a professor at the University of Michigan from 1970 to 1977, she established one of the first programs in multicultural teacher education in the United States. In this entry, Dr. Baker reflects on her participation in the early days of the development of the field of multicultural education.

When I began my teaching career I was not aware of the wealth of experience I was taking with me. By that I mean I started to teach fourth-grade children at the same time I entered my youngest child in primary school. Most first-year teachers rarely have children of their own. In the 1960s I would guess that most had not had a decade of marriage experience. I did not realize how familiar I was with the needs and requirements of children I now had the responsibility of teaching. In addition to having a child in primary school, I had a second child just entering kindergarten, and my oldest child was eagerly awaiting what was before her in the fourth grade, the same grade I was beginning to teach. It was not until I began my first year of teaching that I started to value these experiences. And at this same time in my life, I was to become involved in the development of multicultural education.

Being familiar with children of the age level I was going to teach helped me a great deal. Planning my teaching was fairly easy. This helped me develop some of my teaching strategies. I never questioned what I was to teach. I just followed the same curriculum from which I had been taught. I had attended schools in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and did not realized how stagnant my education had been. My elementary instruction had been much the same as the teacher training I received in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. The how and substance of what I was to teach had been so ingrained in me that I had no idea how sterile my teaching was, especially the content. There were no complaints from those who helped to prepare me for educating young children. My teachers, including the professors at the University of Michigan, were oblivious to the fact that they were not preparing teachers for helping young children to function in a diverse nation and world. I was an African American but had no impact on the content of what I was sharing with my students. My first year's class was 90% White. I was teaching the same content I had learned as a student. However, I did take a novel approach to teaching what I had been taught as a student in the Ann Arbor public schools. My classroom was a breath of fresh air in the school building. The parents of these fourth graders were mostly professors or business people in the city. They had no complaints. However, I am so grateful for the comment one parent professor made to me during a parent–teacher conference: This one comment to me not only changed my teaching but served as a catalyst to my involvement in the development of multiculturalism.

...