Why a Multicultural Bilingual Education Matters

Autor: Stance Dual School Stance News Publicado: 04/07/2023

CHILDREN’S IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT.

Children spend many of their waking hours at school. They not only learn about a diverse array of subjects, they learn how to live in a community and get along with others. They learn who they are within a community and who they can become. Their identities are developed over their many hours and many years at school. The collaboration between home life and school life is central to this development and it is important that families choose a school based on a holistic view of a child’s identity development.

DEALING WITH MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES

When families choose a bilingual education for their children, they are giving their children a gift that goes far beyond the ability to speak a second language. It is the gift of seeing things from another perspective, a viewpoint that becomes available through the culture imbued within a second language. Yet, often families do not realize that by choosing a bilingual education that treats both languages on equal par, they are supporting their children to value their local roots, as well as their global wings. They are providing a firm foundation for them to know and ap-preciate their local culture, history and language on the same footing as a second language and the cultural and historical perspectives its offers.

CRITICAL EVALUATION & PROBLEM-SOLVING

When considering that children must learn how to be astute problem-solvers, analyzing multiple perspectives and taking a position towards them, a multicultural bilingual education takes on an even greater importance. Children that have studied in a bilingual school, particularly one such as Stance Dual that approaches bilingual education from a multicultural perspective and values children’s local roots on the same level as their global wings, have a broader and deeper rep-ertoire of perspectives to deliberate upon and the tools to critically evaluate them in their deci-sion-making and problem-solving.

TEACHING & LEARNING AS A DIALOGICAL PROCESS

When a school puts the study of multiple perspectives at the center of its teaching and learning process, and inquiry is used to build an understanding of what a perspective follows from and what follows from it, children learn to not take anything at face value and to question. When a school puts dialogue at the core of the teaching and learning process, children learn how to lis-ten, be curious and respect other points of view, all the while developing their own stances about how to think, how to act and how to be in the world.

MULTICULTURAL BILINGUAL EDUCATION: LOCAL ROOTS, GLOBAL WINGS

This is what we value at Stance Dual, a multicultural bilingual education constituted by local roots and global wings in which children develop their identities within a welcoming community of inquirers and reflective, critical thinkers who aim to innovatively solve problems and make decisions agentively.

By Sarah Weiler, Head Teacher

Stance Dual School