Goals of the program must be discussed and should encompass the following: change the focus from ethnocentrism to diversity in the current curriculum; build understanding and appreciation of other cultures and racial groups; lessen tensions and conflicts among groups; and change the current curriculum to make it relevant to the diverse population's experiences, cultural traditions and historical contributions.
Multicultural activities should be organized around holidays like Kwanza, Chinese New Year, St. Patrick's Day and Martin Luther King's Birthday. They can be planned for each elementary school class or for the whole school. Have the children participate by looking up newspaper and magazine articles; find pictures, books, and stories; present a play; keep a journal for the different holidays throughout the year; make up a calendar marking the different celebrations from other countries; learn songs in other languages; and make a map depicting where all the different groups of people come from.
As children get older, a more comprehensive multicultural program can be initiated. This can include human relations skills, multicultural awareness and cross-cultural experience. Human relations skills deal with activities that build self-esteem, interpersonal communication and self-awareness, and assist the students in understanding group dynamics. Booklets on different ethnic points of view of American history help to raise awareness in multicultural studies. Discussions of cultural and historical information in the booklets among students and others from different ethnic groups help to create cross-cultural experiences.
Multicultural education creates opportunities for students to take part in community affairs, get students to be direct and active participants in learning, give relevance to the concerns of the students, involve a multitude of instructional materials, use information that is developmentally based and can be evaluated by several methods at the end of the program to determine its success. Multicultural programs help children understand other cultures and appreciate diversity, which will aid them in their future lives.