Málfríður - 15.10.2009, Page 37

between social background and competence acquisi­
tion is unusually taut.7 The Icelandic school system
is known for being inclusive with only 0, 5% of all
students in some kind of special schools. A single
teacher cannot change the system, but he or she can
change attitudes towards diversity in the classroom,
teaching style, structure of the classroom by being
open to learning and practising new and inclusive
teaching methods. This leads us to the next part in
this article, the how question.
How do we teach in order to reach
the aims of intercultural education?
Some educationalists hold the opinion that we should
actually not tell teachers how to reach the aims of
intercultural education. Gloria Ladson­Billings in the
book “White teachers / diverse classrooms” proposes
the following “Even if we could tell you how to do it,
I would not want us to tell you how to do it. “… ”The
reason I would not tell you what to do, is that you
would probably do it. … In other words, you would
probably do exactly what I told you to do without any
deep thought or critical analysis. You would do what
I said regardless of the students in the class room,
their ages, their abilities and their need for whatever
it is I proposed.”8 In the article she stresses that the
attitude of the teacher is much more important than
using special teaching methods or materials. I partly
agree with her; the attitude of the teacher is essential
because teachers who are narrow minded or who see
the diversity of their classroom only as a problem
will probably not use inclusive teaching methods
and their attitudes will perhaps have more influ­
ence than methods used. BUT… for those teachers
who really do want to reach the aims of intercultural
education, who really want to give every student the
same opportunity to learn and who really values the
diversity, have seen the benefits of training in using
intercultural/inclusive teaching methods. As I have
discovered through both teaching trainee teachers
and in­service teachers, many of them have not had
any training in using different teaching methods nor
had time or opportunity to discover them on their
own. For those teachers the practical training in inter­
cultural teaching methods is essential.
If we come back to the main aims of intercultural
education and think how traditional teaching meth­
ods (frontal teaching where the teacher speaks and
the pupils listen) reach the aims of intercultural edu­
cation and if they give every student opportunity to
learn. Do we in any way increase our students’ com­
munication, cooperation or conflict solving skills by
sitting and listening to us? Do they learn creative­ or
critical thinking when they are just reading, listen­
ing and remembering the facts that we will test them
on? Will they be able to discover the advantage of
diversity when the only competence that is valued
is the competence of reading, writing and memoriz­
ing? Why should it be good to have other compe­
tences, skills, experiences or out of school knowl­
edge when these skills are often seen more of a prob­
lem than positive diversity? And how do we give
every student access to the learning process when
we only give those students who are good at listen­
ing, reading, memorizing and behaving according to
our school culture a chance in our classrooms? The
culture that dictates: sit still and face the front of the
room, listen to me or read quietly, don’t discuss with
other students, don’t help each other, don’t bring in
your own ideas or experiences – don’t interact!
How can we change this... but still teach our sub­
jects? The answer isn’t simple because there is no
one single teaching method so good that it suits all
students all the time. The answer lies in diversity,
diverse teaching methods and approaches. Teaching
methods where the student is active, where there
is interaction and communication taking place and
where there is structure that increases the possibility
for every student to have access to the learning proc­
ess, are best suited to reach the aims of intercultural
education. Cooperative learning methods, using
activities and games, using controversial problems in
the classroom are all approaches that have shown to
be useful to reach those aims. Cooperative learning is
the most widely accepted solution for the instruction­
al challenges of heterogeneous classrooms. It is true
that the use of small cooperative groups increases
friendliness and trust among students from diverse
ethnic, linguistic, and racial backgrounds.9 Group
work and co­ operative learning are sometimes con­
fused together. To ensure cooperation in a group, it
must be very structured and certain principles must
be followed. Group work alone does not ensure coop­
eration or prevent exclusion. If poorly managed and
structured it can even be worse than individual work.
I will not go deeper into explanation of cooperative
learning here but instead introduce one method of
cooperative learning; Complex Instruction (C.I.).
Many European educationalists and teachers had
been looking for some time for suitable teaching
methods that would meet the aims and principles
of intercultural education. It was soon clear that
cooperative learning was useful in order to increase
student’s intercultural competences in general, also
in order to break down stereotypes about certain
minority groups (and often their schoolmates) and
MÁLFRÍÐUR 3