American Studies Blog Week 2
For your post, locate and
analyse any K-12 (American school system) web project on immigration. Does your
choice follow the Melting Pot, the Salad Bowl, or the Tapestry-Mosaic?
http://www.edu.pe.ca/vrcs/resources/poetry/text/poems/what's%20fair/face.html
Using the analogy of a tapestry or mosaic to
describe the nature of American society and culture is felt to be appropriate
by those who believe that just as individual threads of different colours can
be woven together to form the picture in a tapestry, or fragments of stone of
different shapes and colours can be combined to make the picture in a mosaic,
so the different ethnic groups and subcultures in American society join
together to create a unique national identity. The K-12 web project on
immigration made by the Kennedy Center, an institution that provides schools
across the United States with teaching materials and classroom support etc.,
clearly reflects a belief in this concept, as is very obvious in the opening sentence
of the lesson plan which states that “American culture reflects a mosaic of all the
many cultures that make up the United States.” This makes it relatively
straightforward to analyse the lesson plan in detail to show how it
provides further evidence for this belief, but it also raises the question of
why children in the United States are increasingly being taught in this manner
today.
The
learning objectives of the lesson plan make it clear that the primary aim of
the project is to expose children to different cultures by teaching them the
words, music and foods of different immigrant groups in the hope that they will
go on to “Express understanding of the value of diversity in a poem or
drawing”. This reflects the importance that is attached to teaching children to
recognize and celebrate the different cultures that are to be found in America
today, something that clearly corresponds to the concept of the mosaic and
implies that there is some overall grand design, some kind of harmony to be
found amid the diversity. The suggestion that those being taught should listen
to or read the poem “Face to Face” by Anita E. Posey in class is clear and
irrefutable evidence that the project/plan follows the Mosaic concept, since
the poem is preoccupied with convincing listeners or readers of the rightness
of the idea of accepting and celebrating different cultures.
On
reflection, it is not that surprising to find that this web project on
immigration embodies a belief of the American society as a Tapestry-Mosaic, since
there are powerful forces in the U.S. today that wish to see those who will
soon become citizens adopt an attitude that allows them to embrace its
diversity. This can be attributed in part to the fact that the older concept
that represented America as a melting pot has been refuted on the grounds that
it was more representative of the ideology of “Anglo-conformity.” Here the election
of Barack Obama as President in 2008 can be seen as contributing powerfully to
this change in attitude among many adults, and therefore also in the education
system.
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