The Texas Standard, Volume 23, Number 4, September-October 1949 Page: 14
23 p. : ill. ; 29 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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TEXAS STANDARD
• Continued from Page 7
Inter-Lultural Fducation
pupil, like each teacher, has something
to offer and something to share. The
situation is open for spontaneous partici-
pation in an interesting activity."(n)
The primary goal is improved inter-
group relationship in the total school
community program.
Or, as Van Til and Giles put it, "the
overall goal of inter-cultural and inter-
group education should be the promotion
of undestanding and the practice of the
democartic way of life." So basic is this
purpose to the whole of American educa-
tion that every individual in every group
should have the opportunity of learning
and living democratic human relation-
ships. They assert that the major aims
of inter-cultural and group education
are: (1) to help students feel the need
for a sense of values and to formulate
the values; (2) to foster desirable hu-
man relationships in student daily living;
(3) to help all majority and minority
groups to participate fully in American
life; (4) to better human relations in
the community through educational pro-
cedures; (5) to share with young people
the findings of the physical and social
sciences; and (6) to develop critical
thinking.(p)
All six of these aims constitute de-
sirable goals of the social studies. True
it is that many social scientists try to
avoid value judgments. Value formation,
however, has a place in all education
and an indispensable place in inter-cul-
tural education. Possibly high school
teachers of sociology, history, civics
may interpret the loyalties and deeds of
nations, communities, neighborhoods
classes and groups. As a matter of fact,
what they teach or stimulate tends to
influence many pupils in forming their
scales of value.
As regards living democratically, ed-
ucators can use the school itself as a
laboratory for human relationships. In
the relationships of administrator to his
staff and students, of students to their
classroom, or children to each other, and
the school as a whole to the community
are opportunities for planning and living
democratically. Teachers of social studies
especially should help students acquire
a working knowledge of good behavior,
good citizenship, cooperative woi'k, do-
mestic and ethnic relationships in such
courses as Social Problems, American
Government, and The Family.
Social Scientists study the participa-
tion of individuals in the group life.
Through field trips, interviews, and case
studies they and their students can par-
FOURTEEN
ticipate in the common life. To have
classes visit a council meeting, a court
trial, a political or labor meeting, a set-
tlement house or even a prison will in-
itiate many into the community life.
Or they may contact migrant adults and
children to get as well as give an ele-
mentary orientation to American life.
Immigrant families encounter difficult
moral standards and new folkways in
buying, playing, working, voting or join-
ing organizations of the community. If
administrators, social scientists and stu-
dents become somewhat meticulous about
this acculturation process, they may
help prevent any special arrangements
which the new comers need for becom-
ing "institutionalized into discriminatory
segregation." (q )
In many schools units or courses in so-
cial organization, community organiza-
tion, community recreation lend them-
selves both to objective study and partic-
ipant observation. The school should
be a community center throuerh educa-
tional procedures. In ff t "this kind of
education is a failure unless it produces
chaneres in the people who make un the
communitv. The truest evaluation of the
effectiveness of an inter-cultural pro-
p-ram is what it Hoes in helnin°- to create
good liviner in the community."(r)
On the other hand the scientific spirit
pnd tbe scientific method nav be em-
ploved. Teachers, advanced students and
social agencies may aid the slow accumu-
lation of facts through library research,
field trins. scientific survevs. mapping
community develonments. comnilinor au-
thoritative data. These scientific finding
shouM be shared through forums, de-
bates. the press, the radio and audio-
visual devices.
Inter-group education is sharing the
findings of the social and physical
sciences on inter-cultural relations as
well as experiences of daily living that
reveal basic similarities as well as dif-
ferences. When they learn from physi-
cal rnd cultural anthropologists the
scientific data on race, on culture, on pre-
judice and stereotyping-, on human per-
sonality, they exhibit intelligent concern
about racial or national tensions, about
stratifications and employment, about
health, housing, recreational and educa-
tional facilities for minority groups.
Shared knowledge arising out of shared
experiences in common problems tend
to result in desirable social action pro-
grams to achieve social justice.
Finally, Social Scientists in each school
are interested likewise in the habit of
critical thought. In fact, it is one of the
aims of every course they teach. As they
develop objective, critical thinking about
social phenomena and group relation-
ships, they help realize the final aim of
intercultural education. Often have they
found a lack of critical thinking at the
base of many problems of group relation-
ships. In too many instances have they
observed loose generalizations about a
cultural group, especially the stereotype,
mistaken for reality, crystallized into
policy or enacted into law. Those trained
in inter-cultural education from the ac-
cumulated evidence can teach the nature
of proof and help students think clearly
through many controversial matters.
All of these aims require the long
view. Intercultural education cannot be
hurried. Nor can it be carried on spas-
modically. The struggle for democratic
relationships among young Americans
of varied cultures may prove to be long
and strenuous . . . Ignorance, bigotry,
intolerance, group hatred, are enemies to
democratic human relations and do not
yield easily, quickly or permanently.
Creating unity and understanding
among the religious, racial, ethnic and
economic groups of our local, national
and global community is the unfinished
task of our schools and other enlightened
institutions. The teachers of social stu-
dies can play a unique role in trying
to develop youn<r Americans who can
live together harmoniously in a nation
and world built bv persons of all creeds,
classes, races, and nationalities.
IV. Some Inter-Cultural Practices in
Elementary and Secondary Schools
What are schools doing? Some promis-
ing inter-cultural practices in the social
studies have been in a number of schools
at different teaching-learning levels.
Classes in social studies are being used
constantly for the improvement of hu-
man relationships. In fact, administra-
tors, teachers, students and citizens at
large are now quick to recognize that
classes in social studies can be an inter-
cultural education c'ass almost daily.
Some Approaches to Inter-Cultural
Education
The promising practices in intercul-
tural education are not easily classified
because the social studies vary so great-
ly in content and organization. However,
teachers usually make use of three ap-
proaches: (1) the incidental approach,
in which the inspiration of the moment
or a matter of specific immediate inter-
est provides the point of departure for
inter-cultural teaching: (2) the pervasive
approach in which emphasis throughout
the social studies program places human
relationships in the common stream of
all social studies teaching; and (3) speci-
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Peace, Hazel Harvey. The Texas Standard, Volume 23, Number 4, September-October 1949, periodical, September 1949; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth193756/m1/14/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Prairie View A&M University.