Intercultural learning materials in Europe
Drs. Tom van der Geugten
Tilburg,
The Netherlands,
April 2004
As a contribution to the conference of the International Society for
History Didactics in Rabat (Morocco,
September 2004) on the theme 'To cope with history - to cope with the
other. History teaching as intercultural dialogue' this lecture focuses on
the question what intercultural education is and what intercultural
learning materials should be like in Europe.
Tom van der Geugten (1952) is a textbook writer and history didactic of
Fontys University of Professional Education in Tilburg (The Netherlands) . With this
lecture he hopes to put intercultural education on the agenda of teachers,
history didactics and textbook writers around the world.
DIMPLE
From 2001 to 2003 nine European countries worked together in the
DIMPLE project to establish national information centres, called
'helpdesks', to contribute to the production and use of intercultural
learning materials. These helpdesks are thought to provide guidance to
authors and publishers in the process of developing learning materials that
take into account the multicultural and diversified society. The helpdesks
also can inform teachers about the intercultural dimension of education and
specifically of learning materials.
The DIMPLE project (DIssemination and IMPlementation of Helpdesks
for intercultural LEarning materials) was initiated by the Dutch Parel
Foundation and was carried out with organisations from Belgium, Bulgaria,
Greece, Italy, Poland,
Romania, Spain and Sweden. The project was
sponsored by the European Commission. At the end a report was published
including a short film on cd-rom which visualises, in a nutshell, the
rationale for the project, the history of helpdesk activities, comments of
the partners as well as two case studies, taken in the Netherlands in a
high school and in my own teacher training college.
Intercultural education
During the DIMPLE project it became obvious that the frame of reference
for intercultural education in most partner countries are different. In Western Europe the focus was initially on migrants.
In Central European countries like Romania
and Bulgaria
intercultural projects address foremost groups that always have been part
op society like the Roma.
Over the years the concept of intercultural education as a whole
also has evolved. In Western Europe it became an issue in the 1970's when
the first wave of labour migrants had come from countries like Morocco, Italy
and Turkey to
industrialised countries like the Netherlands
and Germany.
The independence of former colonies also contributed to diversity in
Western Europe in terms of culture, ethnicity, language and religion, when
a part of the inhabitants of these former colonies settled in Europe. Not incidentally, this is the context of my
own personal history. Being born in 1952 as an Eurasian in Indonesia, the former Dutch-Indies which
became independent in 1949, my parents decided in 1954 to migrate to the Netherlands,
as about 300.000 other Indo-Dutch did. Since the 1950's there is also a
growing migration to Europe from different countries with political or
economic problems like Chile,
Vietnam, Somalia and the former Yugoslavia.
Objectives in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands
intercultural education became a pressing issue when the amount of students
from ethnic minority groups at schools grew rapidly, especially in the big
cities. Until the 1980's intercultural education was directed to immigrant
pupils only, but later it was considered by the government a valuable
learning objective for both native and migrant students. All the schools
were obliged to pay attention to the fact that students "grow up in a
multicultural society". In 1989 the Ministry of Education specified
this obligation with three objectives:
- acquiring knowledge of
one another's socio-cultural backgrounds, both on the part of the
native Dutch population and on the part of the ethnic, immigrant minorities
and mutually gaining an understanding of how values, norms, customs, and
environment determine the behaviour of people;
- teaching how groups of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds
can harmoniously co-exist in the Netherlands; and
- preventing all groups of the population from adopting prejudicial,
discriminatory and racist attitudes on the grounds of ethnic and/or
cultural differences.
In 1994 the Ministry established the Projectgroep Intercultureel
Onderwijs, a group of experts which developed a conceptual framework for
intercultural education, as well as strategies to systematically
interculturalise education, focussing on the role in this process of
teaching methods, learning materials, museum collections and teacher
training. When around 2000 the term of this project group had ended, quiet
a number of examples of good practice had been published. The government
then thought intercultural education had been established, but that was not
how it was.
Teachers and textbooks
In 1998 I wrote an article about my own experiences with intercultural
education as trainer of coming history teachers in secondary education. I
concluded that in my largely 'white' institute not much more than
lip-service was paid both by teachers and students to the idea of
intercultural education as a key feature of the curriculum. "The
extend to which attention is paid to intercultural education largely
depends on individual teachers, in terms of developing as well as
implementing the curriculum. It is my impression that many teachers, both
in teacher education and in secondary education, regard intercultural
education as an isolated part of the curriculum and tend to interpret
cultural education as a course on the multicultural society. This
interpretation and the prevailing idea that there is hardly any need for
intercultural education at 'white' schools are impediments to the much
needed innovation of intercultural education, something which I regret for
years. On the other hand, I can understand that there are many teachers
whose actual classroom needs are served by providing them, not with a set
of objectives, but with concrete teaching materials, preferably integrated
into a complete, full-fledged course-book. Teaching materials are the
driving force for methodological innovation, also in the field of intercultural
education."
In the Netherlands
textbooks are written according to the official curriculum, but without any
official controlling organisation. There are six publishers with their own
history course-book, and the customers, which are the schools, can make a free choice. Unfortunately,
when they choose, intercultural aspects are not a major issue. Writing the
text of this lecture in 2004, I can say that generally speaking, textbooks
are getting better since the early 1990's. But I also see how difficult it
is to make a sound intercultural textbook. In a recently published
textbook, for example, you can read: "The time has passed in which
there were almost only Christians in the Netherlands. Now there are
Moslems, Hindus, Jews and Buddhists around you." It is obvious that the writer
seriously has tried to take into account the multicultural society in the Netherlands,
but he did it from the point of view of a Christian. Students of the other
religions cannot identify themselves with the words "around you".
Focussing on history teachers I see a growing willingness to teach
about different historical points of view, for example that of colonists
and of natives in the colonial world. More teachers are aware of the fact
that they can use this kind of historical information for developing a
tolerant attitude among their students. But how to do this, that is not so
simple. In several Dutch textbooks you will find a Arab source about the
cruel capture of Jerusalem
in 1099, next to an explanation of the European motives of the Crusades.
But in the days immediately following September 11 2001 there were not many
teachers who gave their Moroccan-Dutch students the opportunity to explain
about their anti-American opinion, probably because this could be explained
as an approval of the cruel assaults in the United States. This lack of
interest caused much frustration among Moroccan-Dutch students, resulting
sometimes in refusing to join when a minute of silence for the victims was
kept in schools a few days later. A year later, when the Dutch public
opinion was divided about helping the American-Anglo invasion in Iraq,
much more history teachers used the then present situation as an
opportunity for intercultural dialogue in a historical context.
Intercultural learning materials
What should teaching material in a multicultural society be like?
I've been puzzling with this question as a teacher in secondary education
since 1976 and as a writer of textbooks since 1986. In the 1990's I joined
the Parel Foundation, the Dutch national advisory centre for intercultural
learning materials, as a member of its board.
In 1999 Parel published A Colourful Choice. Handbook for
intercultural teaching materials.
In this book specialists explain about the possibilities to interculturalise
textbooks for language education, artistic development, geography, history
and applied sciences, with many examples of good and bad practice from
Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the
United Kingdom.
Following this book we developed a shortlist with criteria for
intercultural textbooks in the Netherlands, which was
published in 2000 with examples of good practice under the name of Parel
Indicator . This indicator can be used to compile and assess teaching materials.
It is based on the assumption that any good intercultural teaching material
or textbook pays unequivocal and positive attention to the ethnic and
cultural diversity in the society. From this basic assumption twelve
criteria have been derived, which are classified in the four categories:
scale, contents, form and perspective. In the following I will focus on
these twelve criteria, with some Dutch examples.
Scale
Ethnic and cultural diversity is present everywhere: at Dutch
schools, in society and all over the world. These three levels are reviewed
in the first three criteria of the Parel Indicator, in this order, ranging
from small to large scale.
1 Attention is paid to the ethnic and cultural diversity at school.
The one school is much more diverse than the other school, as far as its
ethnic and cultural aspect is concerned. And the ethnic and cultural
diversity at the one school is not the same as that at another school. The
textbooks used in the schools throughout the Netherlands should contain material
that is familiar to all the pupils at these schools. The contents of these
textbooks should also suit the students' backgrounds and these textbooks
should also contain enough topics that are of common interest to all. An
example from a history textbook: "On this picture of a Dutch school
class you see children from different cultures. From what cultures do the
children in your own class come from? Are there children in your class of
which the family comes from one of the former colonies of the Netherlands?
Are you one of them?"
2 Attention is paid to the ethnic and cultural diversity in society.
All those people living in the Netherlands come into contact
with each other, whether they live near each other or far away from each
other. Textbooks should make this point clear. An example from a geography
textbook: "Most of the schools with a large number of migrant children
are in the big towns in the west of the Netherlands. Explain why this
is so."
3 Attention is paid to the ethnic and cultural diversity all over
the world. Migration is an important educational theme in our 'global
village'. Textbooks should provide information about the global context of
the ethnic and cultural diversity that is present in Dutch society. An
example from a history textbook: "Do you sometimes eat French fried
with peanut sauce? It is food with a history. Potatoes originally come from
America.
Peanut sauce is known here from Indonesia. These are traces of
old contacts of the Netherlands
with other countries. This also concerns you, and not only when you are
eating..."
Contents
Five criteria of the Parel Indicator concern the contents of
textbooks.
4 There are interesting and relevant subjects for boys and girls with
different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Textbooks should reflect the
diverse aspects of the society in which people from different backgrounds
participate. Textbooks should take into account the fact that society is
made up of people from different backgrounds. These textbooks should give a
complete picture of the diverse nature of society.
An example from a history textbook: "Maybe your friend comes
from another country, with another culture. Than you learn nice things from
each other: about food, cloth or how to behave or not. Not everyone in the Netherlands
is pleases with the multicultural society. Some say that All these strange
cultures are a threat for the Dutch culture. Twelve hundred years ago there
were these kind of tensions as well. The Arabs conquered a big empire,
including Spain.
Charlemagne tried to be a friend of the Arabs. But others did not approve.
They were afraid the Arabs would come further into Europe
and that Islam would grow more. That's why there was war between Christians
and Moslems."
5 The textbook is balanced and it is as objective as possible; there
are no stereotypes or prejudices. Textbooks should reflect the differences
in background and culture in a natural way, clearly refuting prejudices and
stereotypes. An example from a textbook for Dutch language: "There are
about a billion people on earth who cannot read or write. We call them
illiterates. Most of them live in poor countries, but there are also in
rich countries. Maybe you think everybody in the Netherlands can read and write.
Also in our country there are about a million illiterates. Sometimes they did not go to school
because their parents were moving. Sometimes they had problems that were
not noticed in school."
6 The term, 'race', when referring to people, is only used in
conjunction with racism and discrimination. The term 'race' is
scientifically untenable. Classifying people according to 'race' is only
useful if you want to explain something about racial theories. Textbooks
should make this point clear. An example from a history textbook: "In
the 19th century some writers tried to classify people in sorts or 'races'
according to the their physical features. Some even stated that some
'races' were stronger and smarter than others, like plants and animals.
Today we know that these race theories do not agree with the facts. Hitler
was a fanatic supporter of race theories."
7 Racism is rejected and attention is paid to its dynamics and the
resistance to it. Textbooks
should obviously be compiled or written from an anti-racist perspective. An
example from a history textbook: "Invent what you can do yourself
against forms of neo-fascism."
8 Attention is paid to contributions to the subject in question from
various cultures. Instead of a euro-centric approach, textbooks should
emphasise that achievements from all over the world have contributed to the
present knowledge and insights. An example from a history textbook:
"The Roman numbers were rather complicated. It's not easy to count
with them. The Arabs learnt the number zero from people from India and invented the Arab ciphers (from
the Arab word for zero: sifr) that were taken over in Europe."
Form
Three criteria of the Parel Indicator have to do with the form of
textbooks.
9 Students whose mother tongue is not Dutch are also taken into
consideration. All students should be able to read the textbooks available
in schools. Particular attention should be paid to those students who have
problems with the Dutch language. Important are a clear layout, the use of
common language, functional illustrations and logically arranged
assignments.
10 Teachers and students are urged to practise intercultural
communication. Textbooks should offer students the opportunity to
communicate critically and respectfully with each other and also with
others. An example from a study packet tells about the relationship between
a Moluccan-Indonesian boy R. (20) and a Dutch girl M. (19) in the
Netherlands with an assignment directed on dialogue: "Suppose, you are
the girl M., you want to merry R., you want to have children, but you also
want to keep your full time job. Invent ways to solve this
problem."
11 People from all ethnic and cultural backgrounds are treated as
individuals. Textbooks should not limit themselves to generalisations about
minority groups and ethnic citizens. They should make it very clear that
groups are made up of individuals with their own personal interests and
motives. An example from a geography textbook with the title 'El Mire
Minoun tells'. Next to his picture you can read in his letter: "In
1967 I left my little farm in the Moroccan Rif to go to work with Shell in Rotterdam. With my
farm I did not earn enough for my family. In Rotterdam I earned four times as much. In
1975 my wife and children came to the Netherlands. Last year my
eldest son was married in Rotterdam with
Aicha from Casablanca.
They live nearby in the neighbourhood Feijenoord."
Perspective
The last category of the Parel Indicator focuses on perspective.
12 Topics are viewed from various social, ethnic and cultural and
also geographical perspectives. 'Us' and 'them' are not used in opposition
to each other. Textbooks should use the terms 'we' and 'our' to refer to
all those people living in the Netherlands. Events and
situations often become surprisingly clear when they are viewed from a
number of different angles. An example from a history textbook: "There
are foreign cultures in the Netherlands
because people have come here from all over the world. Not only in recent
times, but also longer ago. In the 'native' Dutch culture there are things
that come from far away, like Christianity, that originally came from Palestine.
Nevertheless nowadays Christians and churches belong to the 'native' Dutch
culture. The difference between 'real Dutch' and 'foreign' is not so clear
at all."
Conclusion
Since 1990 important research has been done on the question what
intercultural education is and what intercultural learning material should
be like. In the Netherlands
the government has adopted intercultural objectives in the educational
system. The Parel Foundation has worked on the dissemination and
implementation of the concept of intercultural education in the Netherlands
and in eight other European countries. The Parel Indicator can be used around
the world as an example by writers, teachers and didactics who want to
explore the possibilities of intercultural dialogue in the teaching of
history. As a result I hope that students will better be able to cope with
history and to cope with the other in our global village.
INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION IS NOTHING BUT GOOD EDUCATION WITH A
DIFFERENCE
The Implementation of Intercultural Education in a Teacher Education
Curriculum
Tom van der Geugten
From: G. M. Willems a.o., Trends in Dutch Teacher Education (Leuven - Apeldoorn 2000).
Translation of article in: VELON Tijdschrift voor Lerarenopleiders,
no 19, March/April 1998.
Intercultural education is one of the pedagogical tasks of
education. Although under the Education Act intercultural education is to
be an integral part of education in general, many regard it as an isolated
subject in the curriculum. In this article the author discusses how the
history department in the Education Faculty of Fontys University of
Professional Education in Tilburg (one of
the teacher education institutes in the Netherlands) deals with the
theme of 'migration' in order to achieve the three objectives of
intercultural education (knowledge, learning how to co-exist, and fighting
racism). Students do research (literature, interviews, the Internet) into
image and self-image of migrants in the community.
Insight gained into various aspects of the history of migation will
lead to a better knowledge of the phenomenon and to more positive attitudes
towards the multicultural society. Examples of good practice will show
students what possibilities there are for the teaching of integrative
intercultural education, guided by the principle: 'intercultural education
is education that accounts for differences'.
The other day I received an e-mail from one of our students on paid
teaching practice 1) in South Africa:
"In retrospect I am very glad that we did our thesis on South Africa,
for now I am teaching South African history in grade 9. This gave me the
necessary background knowledge. It is a very interesting subject to teach.
It is all about the political changes in South Africa between 1910 and
1994, so about the rise of the NP; the ANC and apartheid. I have extensive
discussions with my pupils. The majority of the (white) pupils still see
all these developments from an apartheid perspective. As much as possible I
try to provide them with alternative perspectives and to nuance their
views. Many of them have never really given much thought to apartheid and
simply mouth their parents' views. What I hope to achieve is to nuance
their thinking (and to encourage them to approach the facts with a more
critical attitude). So far I have at least accomplished something, for in
one of my classes a black boy raised his hand and asked: 'You really are an
anti-racist, aren 't you, Miss?' I hope to set more pupils thinking. Even
if it is only one, this already counts for something. These experiences
are, in my view, really important for my training. Now I realise that it is
really possible to get through to your pupils as long as you try hard
enough and I must admit that this really gives me a good feeling. Only now
do I realise what intercultural education is really all about and what it
means to teach pupils to put forward their own opinions."
It was not only unexpected but also striking how this student made
me realise what intercultural education should be all about, at least if
you go 'by the book'. 'The book' in this case is Waar een wil is & een weg .... Sprekende
voorbeelden van intercultureel onderwijs (Where there is a wil and a way
... Telling examples of intercultural education),
which was distributed in 1996 among all educational institutions by the
Intercultural Education Working Group and the Anne Frank Foundation. The
book covers intercultural education in terms of the so-calied 'six I's'.
1 Identity building (socio-emotional development, awareness of
ethnic or cultural identity),
2 Inclusive / positive (positive attitude towards ethnic or cultural
diversity),
3 Interactive / reflective (among other things getting to know
yourself and others through communicating),
4 International (the world as a global village),
5 Integrative (intercultural education as the benchmark for all
teaching activities) and
6 Implementation feasibility (intercultural education as a natural
ingredient of standard subjects in the curriculum and of the drive towards
the appropriate methodology).
The will, the way and the necessity
Two years after its publication Where there is a wil and a way ....
has not lost any of its relevance. I recall positively commenting on the
book's attractive appearance when it was first presented, calling forth the
following reaction: "Hopefully this won't result in the book's
confinement to the principal's coffeetable". In the meantime every
department in my faculty has its own copy. The book has become the staple
diet for student teachers (on paid teaching practice) who delve deeper into
intercultural education.
The book's value lies in its pragmatic and realistic approach. The
description of a wide variety of projects across Dutch education tries to
give a comprehensive picture of current trends and developments. The
introduction convincingly argues that intercultural education should be one
of the pedagogical tasks of education:
"The objectives - preparing pupils for a multicultural society;
teaching them to respect cultural diversity and fighting prejudice,
discrimination and racism - have remained basically the same, but their
implementation has changed. In particular, this means a shift from
intercultural education as a self-contained subject, realised in isolated
projects, to intercultural education as the guiding principle and an
integral part of all educational activities. (...) This book intends to
inspire teachers, school managers and policymakers across the entire
educational spectrum and to give them information about the possibilities.
(...) It is becoming increasingly obvious that intercultural education
today requires not only the wi/1 and the way, but also a new approach.
Education is a cornerstone of the multicultural society. Children,
adolescents and prospective teachers must at some point be able to draw on
new skills and knowledge and on an open-minded attitude, based on mutual respect.
Schools offer unique opportunities for acquiring these skills and
attitudes, since it is in schools that intensive interaction between pupils
of widely different backgrounds takes place. In other settings there is far
less opportunity for close collaboration, monitored interaction, dialogue
and occasionally conflict. (...) Good intercultural education should be an
integral, but yet identitiable aspect of everyday teaching and learning
activities. (...) This also implies providing more perspectives in the
teaching of history, adapting the objectives of teacher training programmes
and developing a training concept, which gives diversity its due. (...) The
integrative approach to intercultural education presupposes a specific view
of teaching and learning. Schools are not just factories for learning. They
can be democratic learning communities enabling adolescents to develop
their identities with respect tor the views of others. In such schools
there is true and intensive communication, in which any view can be
expressed as well as questioned. "
Whites only
The above offers me same guidance in judging how my colleagues and
myself have dealt with intercultural education within a teacher education
context. At the same time it gives me some idea of the course that
intercultural education will take in the near future. In the late 1980s and
the early 1990s one day every year was set aside by my faculty for a
conference on intercultural education, organised by the department of
Educational Science, for all the third-year students. The afternoon part of
the conference consisted of a series of more subject-oriented workshops,
conducted by the other departments. What I recall of these conferences, is
external experts delivering highly theoretical lectures in classrooms
filled to capacity, bulky handouts densely packed with materials for
background reading which nobody read; an impersonal presentation of the
teaching pack Tools for Intercultural Education by the author himself
(well-paid for his services); my own unsuccessful attempt to squeeze the
problem of racism in the teaching of history into a two-hour presentation;
and above all the passive students, only interested in sitting out the
obligatory conference in exchange for the credit points awarded at the end
of the day.
Five years ago one of the many revisions of the curriculum led to
the discontinuation of this well-intended but ineffective
'no-skin-off-our-noses' show. The then ongoing process of educational
innovation prompted the decision to give intercultural education a more
central role in the curriculum and to turn it into a key feature of teacher
education in each and every subject, analogous to the role played by, for
instance, environmental education. However, so far not much has been done
to realise this objective. In our largely 'white' faculty only lipservice
is paid both by teachers and students to the idea of intercultural
education as a key feature of the curriculum. The extent to which attention
is paid to intercultural education largely depends on individual teachers,
in terms of developing as well as implementing the curriculum. It is my
impression that many teachers, both in teacher education and in secondary
education, regard intercultural education as an isolated part of the
curriculum and tend to interpret intercultural education as a course on the
multicultural society. This interpretation and the prevailing idea that
there is hardy any need for intercultural education at 'white" schools
are impediments to the much needed innovation of intercultural education,
something which I have regretted for years. On the other hand I can
understand that there are many teachers whose actual classroom needs are
served by providing them, not with a set of abstract objectives, but with
concrete teaching materials, preferably integrated into a complete,
full-fledged coursebook. Teaching materials are the driving force for
methodological innovation, also in the field of intercultural education.
The coursebooks for the various subjects differ considerably in the amount
of intercultural education they offer. However, the real problem in
intercultural education is not so much the quantity as the range and nature
of classroom activities.
Three objectives
Intercultural education is a complex matter. That is what I discovered
myself in my own search for instances of good practice as part of
intercultural education in the teaching of history.
In my still ongoing search my lodestar is article 24 in the
Secondary Education Act: "The curriculum specifies how attention is
paid to the fact that pupils grow up in a multicultural society". In
1989 the Ministry of Education further defined this rather casually
formulated obligation by specifying three objectives:
. acquiring knowledge of one another's socio-cultural backgrounds,
both on the part of the native Dutch population and on the part of the
ethnic, immigrant minorities and mutually gaining an understanding of how
values, norms, customs and environment determine the behaviour of people,
. teaching how groups of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds
can harmoniously co-exist in the Netherlands, and
. preventing all groups of the population from adopting prejudicial,
discriminatory and racist attitudes on the grounds of ethnic and/or
cultural differences.
A second point of departure was the first version of the core
objectives for the national curriculum for 12-16 year olds
('basisvorming'), which made me decide in 1993 to focus my non-western
history modules on the historical relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia,
Surinam, the Dutch
Antilies and Aruba. As a result of this
relationship, the neo-colonialist and eurocentric terms 'The East and West Indies' are used to refer to these four
countries in the core objectives for the Dutch national curriculum. This
choice was prompted partly by the need to link up my own modules with the
core objectives, and partly by personal considerations. These involved, on
the one hand, my own Indo-Dutch background and, on the other hand, the
small but constant contingent of students in our department from the Dutch
Antilies and Aruba, who are happy to see
the importance of 'their' history reflected in the curriculum. One of my
aims was to make them see that taking an interest in one's own ethnic and
cultural background is only natural and nothing to be embarrassed about. I
shall never forget how a third-year student wrote in one of his progress
reports: "It is for the first time that I realise that my origin is
Hispanic and that so far this has never played any part whatsoever in my
studies." Ever since, I invariably ask my students about their origins
and encourage them to pay attention at some point in their studies, in
particular during their practical education and in their final theses, to
their French, Greek, Slovenian, Turkish or other backgrounds.
This awareness of the importance of one's own and other people's
ethnic and cultural background has also become one of the guiding
principles in writing materials for secondary education. My motto then is:
"Let's not just talk about the people but let's listen to what they
have to say themselves." My view is, for example, that it will not do
to deal with forms of racism only in terms of a seemingly objective
description of an incident, but that it is equally important to deal with
the personal experience of such an incident. Not only does this contribute
to amore balanced view of the seriousness of the incident, but it also
provides a better insight into interpretations and solutions of the
underlying problem. Examples of this approach are the history coursebook
Sporen (Traces) (1990-1993) and the teaching pack Indisch in Nederland - Beeld en zelfbeeld van Indische
Nederlanders (1996) (Being Indo-Dutch in the Netherlands: Image and
self-image of the Indo-Dutch).
Knowledge, insight, skills and attitudes
Although I still object to the continued use of the terms 'East and West Indies', I was pleased to see that the revised
version of the core objectives explicitly links the multicultural society
and 'decolonisation'. This was one of the reasons for me to decide to shift
the emphasis in my module 'The Multicultural Society' from knowledge
acquisition to the development of skills and attitudes. The starting point
for me and my colleague was to do something about the students' lack of
knowledge and the resulting prejudices and antipathies. However, written
exams on the book Allochtonen, een inleiding (Immigrants, an introduction)
by Van der Werf did not prove to be adequate, because students did not
really get beyond the acquisition of facts and in many cases even failed to
do this satisfactorily. Reason enough for a different approach. I changed
the title of my module and opted for a case-study approach. Students come
to the newly titled module 'Migration' after having taken the 'Images of
Indonesia' module, which has trained them to look at Indonesia
from various perspectives: Indonesian, Indo-Dutch and Dutch. In the
'Migration' module I subsequently deal with the migration of the Indo-Dutch
and the Moluccans to the Netherlands.
In this module I frequently use film- and videofragments to
illustrate my lectures and for selfstudy purposes. In this context I also
show two short videos about image and self-image of the IndoDutch in the Netherlands,
which I made for the teaching pack mentioned above. My aim is to get students
to take an interest in the history of migration in the Netherlands
and in how the IndoDutch and the Dutch have perceived and influenced each
other in the process.
In addition, I ask students to search the Internet for information,
in particular websites of immigrant groups and organisations such as the
Indo-Dutch Information Point and Djangan lupa Maluku.
Subsequently, for their independent research students themselves
select a non-western immigrant group. In the course of their research they
will have to gather information taken from literature, movies, videos, the
Internet and interviews. In the proceedings of the VELON-conference I
outlined a similar approach to intercultural research in the upper forms of
secondary education (Van der Geugten, 1997).
Students' reports show how their motivation increases as they go
along, resulting in fascinating forms of intercultural communication, which
break down barriers on all sides. Recently, I received for the first time a
home-produced video montage as part of a research report. My experiences
show, first of all, that there is a direct link between this form of
intercultural education and the trend towards more skills-oriented teaching
and learning. Secondly, I notice how the students' increased insight into
the various aspects of the history of migration leads to amore positive
attitude towards the multicultural society.
Intercultural education and innovation in secondary education
The introduction in 1998 of new government regulations had a
positive effect on intercultural education. In the first place, there are
the three newly formulated principal characteristics of secondary education
as a whole, mentioning the importance of 'personal and social development',
'the active, independent pupil' and 'recognising and utilising differences
between pupils'. Secondly, these characteristics have been further defined
in the Preamble to the core objectives tor the national curriculum, which,
in my view, offers the authoritative guidelines for the professional component
of teacher education courses. It is striking how quickly this document has
overcome the resistance to intercultural education of colleagues and
students, who resign themselves to the argument "Look, there is no way
back, this is what the government wants." Times have changed indeed.
This development greatly strengthens the position of intercultural
education, which is now no longer an isolated subject. This was my own
experience in writing Weten wie je bent - Molukkers in Nederland (Knowing
who you are - Moluccans in the Netherlands), a teaching pack distributed
for use at secondary schools in which 'intercultural communication' is the
main objective. The choice for Moluccans was arbitrary and only served to
illustrate the new approach to intercultural education.
The sources induded deal with real persons in everyday situations,
such as the relationship between a Moluccan boy and a Dutch girl.
Assignments prompted by the Moluccan example are formulated in such a way
that they can serve as stepping stones to discussions among pupils about
their own identity, about how they perceive others and others perceive them
(image and self-image), about their ability to engage in a dialogue with
others and about their ability to handle conflicts. In this way the teaching
pack contributes to the realisation of a number of the revised core
objectives, both the subject-specific (history and institutions) ones and
the ones pertaining to general skilis as mentioned in the Preamble, in
particular 'learning how to learn', 'learning how to communicate' and
'learning how to reflect on the learning process'. For many teachers and
pupils these objectives are currently more or less 'terra incognita'. With
the introduction of the revised core objectives and the advent of new and revised
coursebooks they will gradually have to start exploring the new terrirory.
The teaching pack can help them in the process. The pack also contributes
towards realising the interdisciplinary theme, mentioned in the Preamble,
namely the theme of 'functioning as a democratic citizen both in a
multicultural society and in an international context'.
In the second-year methodology module I try to use the teaching pack
to kill several birds with one stone. The students' first assignment is to
make an inventory of the possibilities for differentiation offered by the
pack (tempo, type of school, learning style, gender, ethnicity).
Subsequently, I ask them to analyse how the teaching pack can be used for
the realisation of the general and subject-specific objectives pertaining
to the different types of schools. After confronting them with the three
principal characteristics for secondary education, I ask them to describe
how the teaching pack can be exploited to instil these characteristics,
taking both content and classroom activities into account.
The latter is of paramount importance. After many years of teachers'
pleading for better textbooks, allowing pupils to work more autonomously
and teachers to spend less time on dassroom lecturing, it now seems that
tables have been turned completely. The only thing pupils seem to do now is
to work on their own with a depressing routine of constantly checking 'all
those' textbook assignments as the only activity for the whole class.
Boredom reigns supreme, with the telling example of the teacher who daimed
to have been made redundant by the new textbook. It seems teachers have
gone to the other extreme. As teacher educators, we no longer have to tell
student teachers over and over again to refrain from lecturing too much,
but above all to stimulate them to talk to their pupils as a group and to
encourage pupils to communicate with each other. In this day and age this
seems to me one of the basic pedagogic tasks of education. The first
completed assignments for Weten wie je bent (Knowing who you are) are
encouraging. They show that a concrete example can not only get students to
adopt a modern and innovative methodology but can also get them involved in
forms of integrated cultural education. One student hit the nail on the head
when he said that good teaching is all about the ingenious combination of
well-selected topics, balanced assignments and appropriate classroom
activities.
At the moment of writing this (March 1998) the faculty where I teach
is in the process of fundamentally changing its curricula, as a result of
which the humanities will be closely intertwined as from the new academic
year onwards. Of course the idea is to adjust parts of the old programmes
to the new programmes. As far as the nonwestern history modules are
concerned, the picture is not very clear yet. The way things stand, there
will be an interdisciplinary module worth three credit points dealing with
intercultural education and the multicultural society at the end of the
first year. My suggestion is to use the 'Interculturalisation and Course
Materials' module which was specially developed for teacher education
courses under the aegis of 'Parel' (Pearl / The National Advisory Centre
for Intercultural Course Materials) and which had its test run at the
University of Professional Education of Amsterdam. The books for students
and teachers going with this unit will be available for use at all teacher
education faculties in the course of 1999. It will also be available on the
Internet (www.parel.nl). One of the things the module does is to establish
arelationship between students' own real-life experience and the
interculturalisation of education and to discuss various implementation
strategies in the process. There is a questionnaire and checklist to assess
the impact of intercultural education on the policy and resources of
schools. Students are taught how to conduct systematic research on the
basis of a list of criteria (the Parel Indicator) and how to develop
culturally sensitive test batteries. By combining students' own
experiences, school routines and course materials the module develops a
comprehensive frame of reference for students to drawon. Teacher - student
communication involved in this unit (keeping a diary, for example) is
carried on, at least partly, electronically. Assignments regularly refer to
Internet sites. The module can be regarded as the basis for intercultural
education for students to build on, if they so wish, in the fourth year.
Under the Prommitt (Programme on Multimedia in Teacher Education)
scheme I am one of the contributors to the development of the 'Migration.
always and everywhere' multimedia module, worth one or more credit points.
The topic of this unit is the 'multicultural society', which features in
various school subjects as required under Dutch law. This module also meets
the requirements for the introduction of interdisciplinary components in
teacher education, as formulated by PML (Process Management Teacher
Education). At faculty level the primary goal is the acquisition of
knowledge, insights and skills concerning the multicultural society in the Netherlands
after 1500. In the module 'Communication', in particular the exchange of
information between students of the various Education Faculties plays a
prominent role. In terms of classroom practice at secondary schoollevel the
aim is to introduce amore intercultural and multimedial dimension in the
way the various subjects of the national curriculum for 12-16 year olds
realise the obligation to have pupils conduct research in the community.
The module also aims at helping teachers in the upper forms of secondary
schools (16-18 year olds) to facilitate amore intercultural and multimedial
orientation in terms of pupils' practical assignments, historical research
and final papers. In addition, the module will also enable students of the
teacher education faculties to use more traditional methods to acquire
subject-specific knowledge with respect to the multicultural society, as
specified by the PML requirements.
Good education with a difference
The plans outlined in this contribution are still being developed.
There are signs that in addition to the intercultural education module
mentioned above the syllabus will offer more modules which one way or
another pay attention to the history of the non-western world and to the
multicultural society in the Netherlands. What is missing in
my view is a concerted effort to realise a genuinely comprehensive
intercultural dimension in the teacher education curricula of all, or at
least related, departments in my faculty. At present the success or failure
of intercultural education is still too much dependent on individual
initiatives. In this contribution I have tried to clarify my own views on
the way intercultural education is to be implemented. My quest for good
intercultural education has so far taken me down a winding road, signposted
by the three objectives formulated above, i.e. knowledge, learning how to
live together and fighting racism. In my efforts to find a balance between these
three I will be guided by what is said in Waar een wil is & een weg
(Where there is a will and a way): "At the end of the day
intercultural education is nothing but good education that account for
ditterences". This is true for the Netherlands, for South-Africa
and for anywhere else, for that matter.
Note 1) Henceforth referred to as student teachers.
References
- Geugten, T, van der
& linden, L. van der, Indisch in Nederland. Beeld en zelfbeeld van
Indische Nederlanders,
onderwijspakket, Den Bosch 1996. Zie ook het Indisch Informatiepunt
(http://home.planet.nl/~vdbroeke/) onder Onderwijs.
- Geugten, T. van der,
Weten wie je bent. Molukkers in Nederland, Bonus-lesbrief KPC Groep, Den
Bosch 1998.
- Geugten, T. van der,
'Intercultureel onderzoek door leerlingen in het studiehuis', in:
Velon-congresboek 1997, Eindhoven 1998.
- Hoeij, J. e.a.
(red.), Waar een wil is is een weg ... Sprekende voorbeelden van
intercultureel onderwijs, Projectgroep ICO / Anne Frank Stichting,
Amsterdam / Den Bosch 1996.
- Homan, H. e.a., ICO-module. Parel, Utrecht 1998. Zie www.parel.nl.
- "Kleurrijk samen
werken", Uitleg Extra, 13e jg nr. 29a (1997). Recent overzicht op het
gebied van anti-racistische leermiddelen en intercultureel onderwijs.
- Mok. I. &
Reinsch, P. (red.), Kieskleurig. Handleiding intercultureel lesmateriaal,
Parel, Utrecht 1996. Zie www.parel.nl.
- Mok, I.,
Interculturele leermiddelen in de Tweede Fase. Adviezen voor uitgevers en
auteurs. Parel, Utrecht
1997.
Contactaddress:
info@parel.nl