valuate, and use multicultural curricula and interventions. Also, when a student's English proficiency is limited, it may be difficult for a teacher to tell if academic problems are due to a disability or a language difference. In such cases, the teacher must informally assess the student's English language proficiency. Enhancing traditional tests with other assessments such as classroom observations and performance measures can provide the information needed to develop appropriate lessons or identify alternative teaching strategies. For most children referred for evaluation, academic failure is related to problems in learning to read. It is crucial to emphasize reading and to have a strong array of alternate instructional strategies to address reading difficulties. Curricula should incorporate students' cultural backgrounds, be relevant to their lives, and build on their experiences. Multicultural Education and the Educator:Multicultural education helps students attain the skills and perceptions needed to function effectively within their own ethnic cultures, other ethnic cultures, and the common culture. It demands that cultural pluralism become an integral part of the educational process at every level. Educators must be trained to recognize, accept, and value the cultural differences of students. They must be taught to continue to search out the historical truths. They must teach all subjects from several ethnic or cultural perspectives with the Anglo-American perspective being only one of those groups rather than the dominant, superior group.Emphasis on intercultural acceptance among all groups is badly neededif we expect to enable new generations to reduce ethnocentrism andunderstand the world through the eyes of other people. Cognitive learning about the contributions of each other’s culture is only the first step. Acceptance, as a value, must pass beyond mere toleration of others andprovide for internalization of such an e...
