Definition of Pluralism
Pluralism refers to a system in the society whereby people from different religious, education, ethnic, cultural, or racial backgrounds in the community are in a position to co-exist peacefully. Pluralism follows the doctrine of multiplicity rather than the doctrine of unity or doctrine of duality (Eck, 2006) . That is, it does not involve the assimilation of individuals to act or think in the same way to a particular group in society. Instead, it relies on the view that there is no one correct logic in dealing with circumstances. Therefore, pluralism is primarily concerned with how individuals in a diversified society actively engage and participate with each other despite the existing differences. It means that despite individuals in the community believing in different things, they are in a position to tolerate other's beliefs even when such ideas do not match their own ( Eck, 2006).
The United States is an example of a perfect pluralist system. The U.S comprise of diverse ethnic and religious groups, such as Muslims, Christians, Indians, Buddhists, and also immigrants with distinct cultural diversities. The nation promises people to come the way they are with all their differences and angularities to contribute to the concept of American civilization and public demands in their distinctive way. There are real commitments towards engagement in creating a civil society without having to relinquish the distinctiveness of one's tradition of faith to attain such goals (Eck, 2006) . My understanding of pluralism and that of academic standing perfectly converge. In the academic definition, pluralism denotes the co-existence of a diversity of views, opinions, or beliefs among individuals that enables them to prosper harmoniously. However, the academic definition only calls for the tolerance of religious, political, and cultural differences. Pluralism is more than mere tolerance of differences; society members need to have some knowledge of their differences. Even though tolerance enables people in society to peacefully co-exist, it may be a deceptive virtue that stands in the way of engagement and active participation.
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Pluralism in Professional Teaching
Most urban schools are democratic, and education ministry provides an opportunity to allow teachers to create an environment that would enable the development of a 'pluralist' attitude in schools. The government is primarily concerned with the funding and regulations of elementary and secondary schools but do not engage in their mode of operations. While working as a teacher in one of the prominent urban schools, most learning activities instituted on imparting concepts of dialogue, activity, and the importance of diversity among students. Teachers refrained from the traditional teaching approach of encouraging students to learn about facts established and authored by other scholars and researchers. The learning process was interactive and embraced inclusivity to enable students to share their experiences and understanding of a given topic of discussion. Interactive teaching has a real impact on the development of students because it encourages entertain different ideologies towards addressing problems that exist in a diversified society (Sapon-Shevin, 2004) Students learn in various ways they can positively participate and engage in a pluralist society. Embracing a multicultural curriculum has been one of the factors that have contributed to the active participation and engagement of students. The multicultural curriculum focuses on an individualistic approach to teaching and learning rather than the group. The individualistic approach of education encourages students to generate diverse ideas or logic to problematic situations (Banks, 1995 ). Group thinking limits students towards discovering their true potential in coming up with various solutions affecting their society. Groupthink encourages assimilation rather than pluralism. Pluralism builds on the premise that there is more than one correct logic to a situation or problem.
The goal of including pluralism in multicultural education in urban schools is to relinquish cultural and racial assumptions that legitimize institutionalized inequality ( Banks, 1995) . The pluralist education system is transformative. Such a system encourages students to develop reformative ideas that challenge the status quo. Most urban schools suffer from a racial crisis that has plagued America. The racial crisis is contributed by a large number of immigrants entering the nation and the widening social gap between the rich and the poor. The changing characteristics of students in urban schools have called for the development of reformed ways to help students re-envision and rethink various way s in which they can effectively contribute to America’s civilization. The use of a multicultural educational curriculum is effective in promoting content integration, knowledge construction process, prejudice reduction, and equity pedagogy, and empowering students on school culture and social structure.
Ideas of Pluralism
One of the engaging ideas of pluralism, as it relates to education, is that it is not a sheer fact of diversity alone but rather an active engagement with the existing diversity. Though diversity is celebrated in society and also in institutions such as schools, one can be threatened by it because it promotes relativism (Eck, 2006) . Relativism makes people to be emotionally attached to their culture, which often clouds the ability of individuals to seek truth and justice in the face of adversity. Hence, diversity has only managed to create isolation among religions and sub-cultures by limiting traffic between them. The dynamic of pluralism encourages participation and engagement, thereby maintains a two-way of information and idea exchange among diversified groups. Pluralism conceives the idea that differences are natural, inevitable, and enriches teaching and learning experience. It is, therefore, crucial for teachers to describe all students as different or none of them to create a robust democratic atmosphere in the classroom environment. By using inclusive education, teachers will be in a position to encourage interaction, which is useful in linking students to broader visions of democracy and democratic society.
Another engaging idea of pluralism is its ability to nature constructive dialogue to reveal common understandings and real differences elaborately. The use of dialogue as a teaching mechanism is a foundation for pluralism because it enables teachers and learners to engage in discussions about a topic to reveal areas of agreement and disagreement ( Eck, 2006) . It does not mean that everyone in the dialogue “table” will necessarily agree with one another, but it enables parties in a dialogue to make compelling arguments. The power of teaching is to empower students to impact the larger world positively. Dialogue, therefore, will instill the ability of students to formulate competent and informed decisions, which has a direct on the kind of societies they will create in the future.
Pluralism as it Relates to Teaching
Teaching needs to treat differences in their classrooms as something expected, noticeable, and desirable. More effort should be made to view classrooms as being inclusive of acknowledging the wide range of learners to create a “normative” teaching environment ( Sapon-Shevin, 2004). All students come to the classroom with a range of racial, cultural, sexual orientation, and religious differences that affect their needs and their learning. Teachers should embrace inclusive and interactive teaching methods to enable students to create deep, meaningful relationships with their classmates (Sapon-Shevin, 2004). Such established relationships will allow students to accept the existing cultural and racial differences among them and develop a pluralist view that will enable them to co-exist with each other peacefully.
Pluralism in My Teaching Practice
As a teacher, I understand that schools are powerful socializing agents that can be used to change the world in transformative ways. Using interactive teaching mechanisms has made it possible for my student’s to acknowledge their differences and work hard towards accepting each other. With the help of other teachers, we have implemented an antiracism curriculum in a bid to ensure that all students in the classroom are treated equally regardless of one’s racial or cultural differences. We believe that by implementing a dynamic anti-racial curriculum will not only affect the racial relations in the classroom but also create hopeful and democratic inclusive futures in society. I have also been making use of integrated curriculum projects and multilevel curriculum units to help respond to students' adversity. Through the use of a multilevel curriculum, students have been able to learn that the world does not work just "one way," thereby enabling them to become creative in formulating various solutions geared towards making the society a better place.
References
Banks, J. A. (1995). Cross ‐ cultural awareness and curriculum transformation. Journal of Negro Education , 64 , 390-400.
Eck, D. L. (2006). "From Diversity To Pluralism "(The Pluralism Project at Harvard University). Posećeno , 11 (1), 2010.
Sapon-Shevin, M. (2004). Thinking inclusively about inclusive education. Defending public schools: Teaching for a democratic society , 161-172.
