Multiculturalism

It was very interesting and revealing to see how the special education instructional assistant at Riverside Elementary views multiculturalism. While other teachers that I spoke to see multiculturalism as "various cultures working together and learning from one another" and "race, language, religion, where the children are from, the food they eat, and varying cultural traditions", the special education assistant sees it as something a little different. While she agrees with the other definitions of multiculturalism that the other teachers present, she also believes that her autistic students come from a different culture then the other students because of their disability. These students have varying experiences and perceive them in a completely different way than their peers that are not autistic. There can be cultural gaps and misunderstanding in many ways that many people are blind to, and I do not think that most people consider autistic students as coming from another culture. This is just another example of how we might need to look at the world and our understanding of it a bit differently.