“Good grades pay off literally. Teachers have long said that success is its own reward. But these days, some students are finding that good grades can bring them cash and luxury gifts… Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso last week promised to spend more than $935,000 to give high school students as much as $110 each to improve their scores on state graduation exams… The most ambitious experiment began in September, when seven states-Arkansas, Alabama, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington-won spots in an Exxon/Mobil-funded program that, in most cases, pays students $100 for each passing grade on advanced placement (AP) college-prep exams.” (USA Today, 01/27/2008)

The above is just one example of how some educators have developed additional incentives to motivate their students in hopes of them increasing their performance in school. A majority of students have gone through educational systems in which such rewards are present, albeit not as extreme as in the example above. In such systems, money, student awards, honorary degrees or advanced placement opportunities aim to improve student performance and motivation toward meeting expected goals through increased competition. Some of these rewards may not be tangible: simple praise, public appreciation and positive feedbacks are examples of intangible or verbal rewards. Both tangible and intangible rewards are advocated and implemented by many educators. Today they constitute a crucial part of our educational system. The reasoning behind rewarding or praising students is simple: If one reinforces a behavior by bestowing a reward for it, it is believed that behavior is more likely to be developed and maintained by the recipients of the reward, but is this really the case?

Some psychologists, known as behaviorists, believe that human nature is utilitarian: behaviors are influenced by their consequences. The use of reinforcement and punishment to control and manipulate human behavior reflects this view. The former allows educators to increase the likelihood of a behavior, while the latter is employed to decrease its likelihood. They argue that one can improve and nurture a particular behavior through reinforcement. An educator with a behaviorist point of view, therefore, believes that learning can be achieved in part by reinforcing desired behaviors with rewards, medals, degrees, grades or praises.

Even though these concepts have been valued and applied widely by many educators for decades, there are some psychologists and educators that do not agree with the current use of either tangible or verbal rewards for educational purposes. Their reasoning is based in part on motivation theory. According to motivation theory, people are motivated by either extrinsic or intrinsic drives. Extrinsic motivation is defined as any reinforcement to support, develop or maintain a behavior provided by external conditions, such as rewarding a student with money or an award. Intrinsic motivation, in contrast, implies doing an activity for its own sake because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable. The most important distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation lies in their source: an internal (intrinsic) versus external (extrinsic) source of motivation. Money, praise, awards or promotions are examples of external motivators, which are used to nurture some behaviors, while inner willingness and ambition, are sources of intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

There are educators who advocate motivation theory but disagree with the idea of rewarding their students since they believe that external rewards undermine intrinsic motivation. As students are extrinsically rewarded, they are more likely to lose their intrinsic motivation to sustain their behavior. Empirical studies have shown that students who did not receive any tangible rewards previously will begin to associate their behavior to rewards they have been given, eventually leading students to neglect performing an activity for its own sake when there is no reward present.

Amabile, Hennesey and Grossman (1986) examined the influence of rewards and perceptions of activity on creativity. In their study, children were rewarded with the opportunity to take pictures with instant cameras after they completed a task requiring creativity. For young children this reward was pretty attractive. The perception of the activity was manipulated by calling the activity “play,” “work” or by not specifying its nature. They found that children with the perception of play but without the promise of a reward showed a higher degree of creative performance than other children who were promised a reward. It appears that the “label” of the activity and the existence of rewards influences the creative performance of children. Another phenomenon considered in this study was the variation of the children’s behavior in activities in which they were given choice and no choice at all. The authors showed that in activities where participants were not given options, rewarded participants outperformed non-rewarded participants while non-rewarded participants were superior to rewarded participants in choice situations. There were three educational implications discovered as a result of this study:

1. The way a teacher presents an activity or responsibility counts! The presentation of an activity as “play” is correlated with higher performance than if it is presented as “work” or if its nature is not specified.
2. Rewards may undermine activities requiring intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is important for creativity. Biographies of inventors show that inventions are the result of perennial attempts and thus require a high degree of intrinsic motivation. Therefore, educators need to think twice about whether rewarding their students encourages or suppresses creativity in a given situation.
3. Rewards are detrimental when people have intrinsically chosen to do something, but not necessarily when an action is required of them. This point leaves some room for rewarding students. A good portion of the educational curriculum might be outside of students’ interests. For those kinds of activities, rewards may work to motivate them to participate in these activities, however, if students choose an activity, and if they have already had the motivation to do it, rewards will most likely not improve their performance.

This study shows that educators need to answer the following three questions before deciding whether rewards should be used:

1. Do the students already have intrinsic motivation to complete this activity?
2. Did the students choose to complete this activity?
3. Has someone else already asked or encouraged them to complete this activity?

Another study by Mueller and Dweck (1998) revealed the influence of praise on performance. In a culture of appreciation, praise is expected to encourage people and motivate them to be more successful. This study questions whether praising students is necessary and how praise can affect students. The authors of this study designed six experiments to examine the effects of praise for intelligence and praise for effort and how they influenced the participants. The authors discovered that when praising students for their intelligence the students’ achievements and motivation were lower than those students who were praised for their effort. Children whose intelligence was praised cared more about performance goals while children whose effort was praised cared more about learning. Moreover, the students whose intelligence was praised displayed lower levels of task persistence and enjoyment, increased low-ability attributions, and worse task performance when they experienced failure than children praised for their effort. Another crucial result of the study concerns the concept of intelligence. The same group of students, who were praised for their intelligence, considered their intelligence to be a fixed trait whereas the other group considered it a flexible trait. While the first group (students who were praised for their intelligence) tried to look smart even by sacrificing learning, the second group (students who were praised for effort) attempted to learn new things even if doing so was difficult or risky. Another interesting result was in the discrepancy in performance between the two groups of students when they encountered difficulty in their tasks. The study found that the performance of the students in the first group was impaired in comparison to the second group whose performance increased.

Considering the controversy surrounding rewarding versus not rewarding, the authors of this study focused on the issue of “what to praise.” Praising some traits such as intelligence, ability or creativity might be detrimental for the traits’ continuity in students while praise for endeavoring towards utilizing their intelligence; creativity or any other ability appears to increase the likelihood of learning. This issue raises some serious questions about the current practices of gifted education. Today, most education systems in the United States and other countries “identify” gifted students through tests and other means of determining intelligence, some even group students in separate classes. These students are well aware why they are being treated in this way. In other words, the system itself is continuously providing implicit rewards for the students identified as gifted. From Dweck’s point of view, this policy would impair learning because the student’s performance is not rewarded, while their “intelligence” is.

Another important question raised in this study is the “appropriate time of rewarding.” In research by Kamins and Dweck (1999), the influence of praise and criticism was observed in several ways: when directed variously toward the person performing an activity, toward the process of the activity itself, and toward the activity’s outcome. In their research some of the participants were praised with “I’m very proud of you”; some as “That’s the right way to do it,” whereas others were told: “You found a good way to do it, can you think of other ways that may also work?” When these groups were compared, the researchers found that the process-praised group was superior in rating the products of their work in comparison to the outcome-praised group. It was also noticed in that participants that were members of the process-praised group had increased self-esteem and were more persistent than the other groups. Those findings were the same when criticism was used in place of praise. The lesson to take from this research is clear: we should provide feedback, praise or criticism, about the process rather than the person and the end product.

There are other side effects of rewarding students. When we reward, we actually teach two different things in a very subtle way. First, we teach the student to do something for the purpose of another thing rather than for its own sake. Second, we teach the student not to do anything for free. Both of these have important drawbacks: we kill their enthusiasm and intrinsic motivation because they have been given another reason to do their activities and we implicitly redirect their valuation to external things that then could cause them to undervalue the task itself. This means that they will no longer repeat the same behavior when the rewards are discontinued. There is a paradox here. On the one hand, behaviorist psychologists defined learning as an overt change in behavior. Since the behavior (or learning) fades away later along with the rewards, we cannot argue that rewards did make a permanent influence on behavior. On the other hand, by using these methods we teach students to be independent individuals who do not care about others. Especially in today’s conditions, when many jobless, homeless, and hungry people are trying to survive all around the world, self-centered individualism should not be the desired outcome of education. Infusing people with seemingly innocent notions of “money talks” or “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” might function as a rationale for unethical and socially irresponsible behaviors. Educators should not bolster a self-centered individualism by excessively rewarding students. Such rewarding may contribute to the kind of irresponsibility that allows for the kinds of unwise decisions that lead us to the current recession.

The overall point that I have advocated in this article is not an argument strictly against rewarding. Rather, knowing more about the individual, the conditions, and possible consequences related to rewards are vital for an effective education. How can this be achieved? An example is the treatment of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) toward a child who was making fun of the Adhan (the Muslim call to prayer). He approached one of them and praised one of them by saying, “What a beautiful voice that you have.” Caressing his hair, he continued by asking the boy “Would you mind to give the call to the prayer in the masjid with such a beautiful voice?” He took the child to the masjid and this child, known as Abu Mansura, later became a well-known muezzin (the individual who makes the Muslim call to prayer). This example stands as evidence of the importance of rewarding. On the other hand, in traditional Sufi thought, the purpose of praying and good works is not merely entering Heaven or avoiding Hell, instead, acquiring the acceptance and approval of God is seen as the ultimate goal for a person. Such a purpose may not apply to everyone, because the majority of people may need a tangible reward to do something, just like majority of students want to achieve a certain goal primarily in order to gain rewards, however, higher levels of spirituality can be developed toward an overarching goal that can be achieved by only a select few. Therefore, these two examples do not in fact conflict. The messages derived from educational and psychological literature, as well as religious teachings, seems to converge, even though rewards may help most people to perform better, rewarding is not helpful and even detrimental to a minority group of people who already display high levels of motivation and ambition to achieve.

As a result, rewarding is not necessarily helpful or detrimental. Educators should give up applying their ready-made methods to all students. Ideally, intrinsically motivated students should not receive external rewards because this would switch their focus to material prizes. When needed, educators should try to provide feedback directed toward the process rather than the outcome or the person. Also, they should foster student’s efforts rather than their ability. The decision about rewarding should be based on knowledge regarding the person to be rewarded, the target or direction, and even the timing of the reward. Otherwise, for some individuals the rewards might produce an effect diametrically opposed to its intended purpose.

References

• Skinner, B. F. 1953, Science and Human Behavior. New York: The Free Press.
• Kamins, M. L. & Dweck, C. S. 1999. “Person versus process praise and criticism: Implications for contingent self-worth and coping.” Developmental Psychology, 35, 835-847.
• Mueller, C. M. and Dweck, C. S. 1998. “Intelligence praise can undermine motivation and performance.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 33-52.
• Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions.” Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.
• Amabile, T. M., Hennessey, B. A. & Grossman, B. S. (1986). “Social Influences on Creativity: The Effects of Contracted-For Reward.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 14-23.

Gifted education involves several procedures such as testing, identification and tracking students to challenge their potential to the fullest. Initially, students take several tests including tests of intelligence, creativity, and motivation and must perform well enough to get into a gifted program. Following this testing, they have a label that they and others know quite well, gifted. Frequently, this means grouping them separately from their non-gifted peers. Accordingly, they follow a different curriculum, and attend different programs that are not available to others. Also, some practices that often occur when teaching or interacting with gifted students, such as a teacher’s or parent’s praise, convey direct and hidden messages. These messages, in essence, consistently remind them of how superior they are. Ultimately, they are taught to enjoy their superiority with a minimal or no clue about being virtuous. Most educators pay a great attention to increase their self-esteem while they were indifferent for the possibility of arrogance and conceit. Nevertheless, the “privilege” of being in the top 5 or smaller percent dramatically shapes the identity of the gifted individual from early ages. With the self–esteem enhancement movements in 80’s, the importance of humility as a significant virtue has been ignored among educators. They mostly perceived lack of self-esteem as a big problem whereas lack of humility was rather acceptable. However, potential of the gifted individuals, like any other person, deserves a more gracious treatment that regards them as human beings rather than better human resources for the nation and economy.

Corollary to the deficits in educators’ approaches to the gifted individuals, their emotional and moral development have been omitted. When one searches the studies on the development of positive moral characteristics of the gifted, such as, humility, there is almost no study on those issues. Humility in itself is a crucial virtue for several reasons. First, humility allows gifted individuals to recognize that they cannot control everything in every situation. Their superior abilities compared to their peers become a huge burden because others and their own expectations about themselves are mostly quite high. Failures and unexpected academic performance are less tolerable for the gifted. Crucially, humble gifted individuals can successfully handle challenging situations because their moral development valuing humility functions as a buffer zone and make them more resilient against challenges of life. People can have a more realistic view of themselves as long as they are well aware of their real inadequacies.

Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez (2004) pointed to the positive role of humility on competition in the organizations. They argued that fear of failure impedes people from taking initiative and humility helps people to reduce their fear of failure with the premise that people with no experience of failure are unlikely to try again. Secondly, humility helps gifted individuals to have a better and more realistic understanding about one’s self. Humble gifted people can realize their own weaknesses. This is also important for the gifted because very few people criticize them while many others praise their ability. In such a social climate, a true understanding of oneself is not an easy task. Thirdly, humble people can empathize with others easily. Gifted individuals mostly have concerns for others and have a keen moral sensitivity. However, feeling of superiority can hurt their healthy relationships with others; thus, other people become less likely to enjoy being together with them. Humble people have an increased valuation of others without a decrease in their valuation of themselves (Means & Wilson, 1990), and, thus, the need for humility is even more important for the gifted individuals.

Humility represents a major dilemma of gifted education: Although several procedures, facilities and resources are developed and implemented for the gifted, they inherently trigger a grandiosity effect. As a result of that, usual practices in the gifted education seem to nurture a less realistic view of self which is not less dangerous than the lack of self-esteem. Unfortunately, educators tend to ignore the presence of the dilemma and insist on particular practices without pondering upon the potential damages. What kinds of precautions can be taken to raise humble gifted individuals? What other messages should be given to them? Among many possible methods to overcome this problem, the following recommendations can be taken into consideration in educational and psychological practices.

1. Giftedness as a responsibility

Conceptualization of the giftedness needs fine-tuning. Traditional perspectives that seek the differences between gifted and non-gifted individuals have created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Gifted individuals have been marginalized and alienated. So-called unrealistic perception of giftedness has led to a perception of “superiority” over others. Remarkably, giftedness, as a concept, implies being the one who was awarded with some qualities which other people do not have. The concept also implies the passivity of the gifted because he was given, not necessarily because he deserves it. Corollary to this, gifted individuals should be taught about the responsibilities along with the gifts. Unlike the current practices, educators should emphasize the individual and social responsibilities corresponding to giftedness.

Individual responsibilities of the gifted individuals are related to the importance of realizing their personal strengths and skills and investing for their potential appropriately. In educational context, many gifted students tend to take the classes easy and pay attention to other “more interesting” things. They tend to make no effort beyond what the classes require, and their potential is not challenged. Individual responsibility defined as fulfillment of one’s own potential should replace externally defined responsibilities which are neither challenging nor motivating for the gifted.

Social responsibilities are critical for the gifted individuals because their potential can lead to both positive and negative changes at the societal level. Many scientific innovations facilitating our lives today are the gifted minds’ contributions to human beings. On the other hand, they could have devoted their potential to harmful innovations, too. The gifted individuals, therefore, are those who can build the civilizations with all advanced systems of technology, transportation and communication, and destroy them with mass destruction weapons, such as atom bombs. Employing the strengths and capacities to the benefit of human beings should be set as a basic goal for the gifted individuals.

2. Importance of effort over ability

Overemphasis on abilities and consideration of abilities as fixed traits tend to block gifted individuals. If people think that they possess a superior capacity and this is more or less stable, they may have difficulty in making for their goals. They often compromise their high ability with less effort that may result in underachievement and dropouts. The importance of effort and struggle over ability and performance should be integrated to the educational system.

Valuation of effort can be achieved through differentiating the curriculum for the gifted students. For example, the research indicate that easy learning materials and having a better standing in the class with respect to school achievement lead to ability attributions while mental effort and task commitment induce effort attributions (Dweck, 2006, Nicholls, 1978; Schunk, 1994). That means students tend to attribute the achievements to their abilities in easy tasks while they tend to attribute their performance in hard tasks to their hard work. Preparing the curriculum at an appropriate level of difficulty, by which students can be challenged but still can comprehend the content with some effort, should be a major task for the educators. In this way, the frame of reference for the gifted becomes the degree to which they struggle toward their goals rather than the gifts, capacities and strengths they possess.

3. Learning goals instead of performance goals

Goal setting is a crucial aspect of the education of the gifted people. Goal setting is influenced by the way educators assess student performances. There has been a tendency to evaluate school performance through objective, psychometric measures. Even though those measures are more reliable, the information gained from those measures are restricted, comparing the gifted with their counterparts instead of indicating the level at which the gifted fulfill their potential. Learning goals which can be set through individual projects should be the focus of evaluation rather than performance goals which tend to reduce the evaluation to the numbers. Learning goals also seem to be safer for the gifted since it focuses on the discovery of strategies that lead to desired outcomes whereas performance goals tend to have deleterious effects as people are preoccupied with the end result. Therefore, a third task for the educators is to preserve the gifted students from the detrimental effects of mechanical measurement of the performance. In this way, students have criterion set at their own pace for their success rather than external criteria set by others.

The above suggestions, which can be the basic steps of the fundamental changes in the system, can be further enumerated. The dilemma with the gifted education mentioned above is institutionally induced; therefore, the solutions should be addressed at the institutional level. By virtue of those changes in the educational settings, the programs for gifted education can become more individual-based and less mechanical, ultimately caring more about the critical human virtues such as humility. The political developments helped the gifted education programs to blossom, but it brought some side-effects. Educators must see those gaps and generate solutions that care about the gifted individuals.

References

• Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.
• Nicholls, J. G. (1978). The development of the concepts of effort and ability, perception of academic attainment, and the understanding that difficult tasks require more ability. Child Development, 49, 800-814.
• Schunk, D. H. (1994). Self-regulation of self-efficacy and attribution in academic settings. In D. H. Schunk & B. J. Zimmerman (Eds.), Self-regulation of learning and performance: Issues and educational applications (pp. 75-99). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
• Vera, D. & Rodriguez-Lopez, A. 2004. Strategic virtues: Humility as a source of competitive advantage. Organizational Dynamics, 33, 4: 393-408.

“China Air Flight 0815, now boarding.” I sat in an unfamiliar airport in Beijing, China, waiting to board my plane. I had been in Beijing for three days and was headed to Urumqi in northwest China. Until now, I hadn’t been afraid. In fact, I had been strangely fearless. At the age of 15, I was ready to take on the world on my first overseas adventure. Well, at least I had been fearless until the night before the flight. The leader of our group had gathered us all in the hotel for a debriefing of our day. Before we left, he told us that the flight we were going to take the next day was one that many Muslim people would be taking as well. We needed to be aware of whom we would be flying with and be prepared to be respectful of our Muslim neighbors.

In utter honesty, this scared me. I thought back to all the pictures I had seen on the television during the months since September 11, 2001. I had sat on my couch looking at pictures of men in turbans, and I had been frightened. I remember thinking I was glad I was nowhere near them. September 11 had been a blur for me: church prayer services, classroom discussions and continuous news reports on the television. For a fifteen-year-old in comfortable America, I did not feel the full impact of the events that Tuesday morning. For some reason I was detached and distant from the whole ordeal and busied myself instead with the handsome football player in my theater class. To top it all off, the next month I lost a good friend to suicide. The last thing I was thinking about was people halfway around the world. And now, all of a sudden, here I was, with history staring me in the face. It was then and only then that the words of Mr. Henderson’s quotation from Shaw hit me. I had been ignorant. I had been “incapable of learning from experience.” As I sat in the busy airport that sunny day, the images from the news programs were suddenly alive. I found myself in the midst of the very world that I had thought was so far away.

Granted, nothing happened on the plane that day. I boarded the plane, sat down in my assigned seat, plugged in my earphones and, before I knew it, I was in Urumqi. Nothing eventful had happened. Yes, there were Muslim men with turbans and long black beards. But they were friendly; one had even smiled at us. This was my first of many encounters with Muslim people.

Once in the Xinjiang province, I was immediately intrigued with the culture I came into contact with. Though Urumqi does have Han Chinese, the majority of the city’s population is Muslim Uyghur. The Uyghur people of northwest China welcomed us into their city, and I soon felt at home there. During my first evening there as I was surrounded by dancing, music, delicious fruits and sweet, sweet smiles; I knew that I had embarked on what was to be a personal pilgrimage through the Muslim culture.

Returning home from China, I took a special topics course at Houston Baptist University, called Introduction to Islam. It was then that I encountered the key beliefs of Islam. Through my studies, I was able to better understand those I had grown to love.

By far, the most memorable experience in my class was an interview that I conducted with a Muslim student. I had told Elif that she could recognize me by the pink tennis shoes I would be wearing, and she told me I could look for a woman wearing a head covering. As I approached her at our meeting place at the University of Houston, I can admit I was a bit apprehensive. Little did I know that the assignment I was about to complete was really giving me deep insight into the heart and life of a passionate Muslim woman.

A literature and sociology student, Elif is very independent and holds deep convictions. When asked her views on the roles of husbands and wives in marriage, she admits that she is a bit of a feminist. There were times when she saw women in her native Turkey who were not being treated the way that they deserved, or according to what they were worth. “I am lucky, I am,” she says as she thinks about her husband and their balanced relationship. When she saw women being mistreated in Turkey, she wondered what made men act like that. “Men are proud of being men,” she says, but she wonders why. Was it culture that made them that way, or religion?

To help her better understand this, she read about the Prophet and his wives. According to Muslim teachings, Muhammad was deeply committed to and loved his first wife Khadija. And though he had more wives later, he was not hurtful to any of them. Instead, he was helpful, even doing things like washing the dishes. Some of his later wives were women that he took into his home to protect because they had children but no husband. Muhammad was supportive of women, not oppressive.

From reading this, Elif decided that men were not justified by religion in their actions. With her strong convictions about the roles of men and women, she herself had some reservations about being married. She clearly laid out her ideas to her husband before they were married. She did not want to marry a man who simply wanted to marry a veiling, practicing Muslim. She wanted to marry a man who wanted to marry her for who she was, as an individual. Her husband is very respectful and a very good listener.

He supported Elif and encouraged her to continue in those strong convictions. He was even the one who influenced her to go back to school to get her masters degree. She warned him that if she did this, she would not be able to be at home all the time, helping out with food and meals. And he said to her, “You don’t have to be like everyone else.” This impressed Elif, and she is grateful for her respectful husband. She says they enjoy cooking together; he often prepares the salad, while she prepares the main course (because she is the better cook!).

“The idea of prayer is gorgeous- I need prayer,” she told me. When asked about prayer and her relationship with God, she was passionate and excited about her beliefs. Elif says that prayer is a way that she can feel close to God. He is always close to her, but when she prays, she can feel his closeness more. Time in prayer with God is the “ultimate closeness.” Prayers serve as a reminder to think about God. She says that as humans we are prone to forget God, and so the Muslim tradition of praying five times a day is helpful, in that it constantly brings you back to focusing on God. She said prayers usually begin: “In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate…” And she reminded me that He is not just merciful to Muslims, but to everyone. “He loves everyone equally.”

I feel my words do not do justice to Elif. I was inspired by her passion, strong beliefs, firm convictions, and honesty. She was passionate about everything she talked to me about. From Russian literature, to passing on the love of books, to the role of women in marriages, to prayer and fasting, she was utterly honest and approachable. Though she introduced herself to me as someone who was unsure of what she thought about some things, I found her solid, grounded and strongly convicted about the things she believes. I found it a joy to get to talk with her and hear about her life and personal journey.

Another stop along my exploration of Islam was reading the philosophy of the writer, preacher and educationist M. Fethullah Gulen. My first impressions of this man are very positive. I feel his ideas aim to bridge gaps between cultures and religions, destroying hostility and bringing peace in their midst. While I do not uphold everything he believes I do sincerely believe that anyone can learn from Gulen. When I met with Elif, she talked to me of the influence Gulen had had on her. She talked of how he highlighted the importance of contemplation and gratitude. My generation seems to be filled with mindless video gamers, not deep and passionate thinkers. We need to be cognizant of what is going on around us, exercising our minds to analyze and seek understanding. Also, I completely agree that we need to be more thankful. Especially in the American culture, we are so coddled by all our belongings; we think we are self-sufficient, forgetting that our very existence is something for which we should be thankful for to God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together, says that perhaps it is because we are not grateful for the little things in life that God does not entrust us with the big things. Being intentionally thankful is a lesson I learned from Gulen. May we all live lives of gratitude.

Also of utmost importance are Gulen’s thoughts on education. Fundamental in his discussion on education is the home. He declares that “the home is vital to the raising of a healthy generation…for souls without truth and knowledge are fields in which evil thoughts are cultivated and grown.” So often today the home is viewed as a place of conflict; why is this? I’m grateful that I have grown up in a home where love was lavished on and instilled in me. But unfortunately, I don’t think this is the norm. Instead of the home being a place where peace is destroyed, peace should start in the home.

Gulen also makes a distinction between educators and teachers: “Education is different from teaching. Most people can teach, but only a very few can educate.” He also states: “Teachers should know how to find a way into the student’s heart and leave indelible imprints upon his or her mind.” I have been lucky enough to have a few educational experiences like this. On occasion I have had teachers, or should I say educators, who cared so much about me that they were able not only to help me gain factual knowledge, but to grow as a person as well. One of these educators told my class a story of one of his former professors. This old professor pondered the difference between teaching the grammar of a language to people and teaching people the language.

The difference is subtle, but the implications are profound! One system of education stresses the information that needs to be processed, while the other highlights the individuals whose lives will be changed and edified as they grow in not only knowledge, but also character! This is the ideal for which every education system should strive. And in a culture that is usually stereotyped as being oppressive to women, Gulen writes, “Although it is fundamental that girls be brought up to be delicate like flowers and mild and affectionate educators of children, due attention must be given to making them inflexible defenders of truth. Otherwise, we shall have transformed them into poor, impotent beings for the sake of delicacy and mildness. We must not forget that female lions are still lions.” His recognition of the place and position of women is of utmost importance in this day and age, and serves to empower Islamic women.

Being immersed in the Muslim culture in Urumqi, China was a blessing. I’ve never felt more welcomed in my life. My new friend Elif was a doorway into the world and culture of Islam. I so appreciated her walking me through the world of Islam. Gulen’s writings, as a peace movement within the Islamic context, can make a huge impact on the world as a whole. This young American Christian woman is grateful for a pilgrimage through the Islamic culture.

“Any people who would like to secure their futures should apply as much energy to the upbringing of children as they devote to other problems. The energy devoted to many other things may go in vain, but whatever is spent for the upbringing of young generations to elevate them to the rank of humanity will be like an inexhaustible source of income.”
M. Fethullah GULEN

In thousands of American classrooms, early childhood educators and caregivers are faced with the dilemma of meeting the needs of an ever-changing population. As the population becomes more diverse, classrooms are beginning to reflect the larger population. In response to the expanding needs of young students, instructors and caregivers increasingly are trying to incorporate multiculturalism into their class curricula. This article will explore how diversity, inclusion, and multiculturalism have impacted the early childhood classroom.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

The concept of early childhood education, which originated in the 1800s with the formation of kindergartens, focuses upon children between 3 and 8 years of age. In many arenas, early childhood education theories center on encouraging and supporting the educational needs of young children.

The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) position statement on “Critical Issue : Promoting Children’s Readiness to Learn” states: “In most instances, children come to school ready to learn but with different cultural, educational, and environmental experiences to draw from. It is the responsibility of the educational system to meet children where they are and encourage and support their development from that point” (1999, p. 1).

The Educational Excellence for All Children Act of 1999 echoes NCREL’s position: “Consistently poor early education programs hinder children’s cognitive and language development. As a result, some children are unprepared to attend school and learn to read, the foundation of nearly all later learning” (Title II, Part C, “Early Childhood Educator Professional Development,” 1999, p. 1). Both NCREL and The Educational Excellence for All Children Act of 1999 touch upon the concepts of cognitive development and school readiness.

School readiness, as defined by Kagen et al., encompasses two points: readiness to learn, and readiness for school. Specifically, “… readiness to learn … involves a level of development at which the child has the capacity to learn specific materials…” (Kagen, 1990; Crnic & Lamberty, 1994; Lewit & Baker, 1995). On the other hand, readiness for school is defined as “… a specific set of cognitive, linguistic, social and motor skills that enables a child to assimilate the school’s curriculum” (Kagen, 1990; Crnic & Lamberty, 1994; Lewit & Baker, 1995). Hence, there is a possibility that a child may have a readiness to learn but lack a readiness for school. For example, a 3-year-old girl could have the ability to recognize colors; however, she may not have the ability to participate appropriately in a school setting.

On June 8, 1999, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley gave an address to the National Press Club. Entitled “Cost, Quality and Child Outcomes’ Study,” it emphasized the following points: “What we know can be summarized this way: the quality of experiences in the years matters, and there appear to be critical periods in the first few years of life for acquiring certain language and cognitive skills. Therefore, the stakes are highest in the earliest years-the stage in life when children are their most vulnerable, and a stage when it has been proven difficult to build support for public investment” (1999).

The preceding excerpt alludes to a connection between language and cognitive skills. The emphasis on developing language and decision-making skills has resonated among early childhood educators for decades. Language development and cognitive development is important, because if children learn how to express themselves effectively, their cognitive abilities may grow exponentially. Furthermore, if children’s cognitive abilities become sharp, they may develop a better understanding of those who are different and make decisions accordingly.

It is well documented that many children become aware of differences among people before they enter a kindergarten classroom. Maritza Macdonald, contributing author of “Explorations with Young Children: A Curriculum Guide from the Bank Street College of Education” writes that children “… between the ages of 2 and 5 … become aware of gender, race, ethnicity, disabilities and other differences among people” (1999, p. 5). In “‘Do You See What I See?’ Appreciating Diversity in Early Childhood Settings” by Dr. Barbara Kupetz, it is stated that “children are around two or three when they begin to notice physical differences among people-some are short and others tall, some have blue eyes and others brown, and some have dark skin while others have light skin.” Both Macdonald and Kupetz point out that most children can discern differences among individuals at an early age. Hence, early childhood educators are not simply charged with teaching “empty vessels.” On the contrary, many educators are faced with the task of educating individuals who already may have formed negative perceptions of people who look different.

DIVERSITY AND THE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION CLASROOM

Diversity means different things to different people. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines it as: “1. Quality, state, fact, or instance of being diverse; difference 2. Variety.”(2) While this definition touches upon the point of difference, it does not convey various perspectives that make up the concept of diversity.

Macdonald states: “The concept of diversity includes the perspectives of multiculturalism and nonsexist and antibias education. Diversity encompasses children’s individual interests and capabilities, racial and cultural differences, age and gender difference and language differences” (1999, p. 5). Her definition incorporates the range of differences that teachers and caregivers face everyday. Macdonald completes her definition by adding: “It also includes the social realities that affect children and communities, including availability of economic resources, access to technology, health and safety concerns, demographic make-up and locale” (1999, p. 5), Here she addresses social factors that can make a child seem different. Thus this definition can be applied to a child who is part of a racial minority, has a learning disability, does not share the majority’s native language, is homeless, or has a chronic illness. In other words’ the needs of a multitude of children are included.

Inclusion, which falls under the umbrella of diversity, is becoming another growing concern of early childhood educators. The Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion (ECRI) released the following statement on inclusion: “Early childhood inclusion, formerly known as ‘mainstreaming’ or ‘integration,’ refers to the full and active participation of young children with disabilities in programs with typically developing children. In principle, including children with disabilities in early childhood classes and community settings is a well-accepted practice”(1998, p. 4). This position adds an all-too-often ignored segment of an already diverse population: children with disabilities.

Deanna Jordon’s “Inclusion in the Preschool Setting” illustrates the challenges of seeing to the needs of special children in the early childhood classroom: “In many preschools and daycares today you can find a growing number of special needs children. These children have disabilities ranging from hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, speech and language difficulties, blindness, deafness, mental retardation, and physical impairments. Thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act, our society is becoming better equipped to meet the needs and challenges of these special children. Unfortunately, many daycare providers have little to no special training to deal with these children.”

Although the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, many school districts remain ill-prepared to educate this special population.(3) Part of the challenge of implementing change within the early childhood school setting lies in the fact that many school administrators and teachers encounter financial, cultural, and social obstacles that prevent a fully inclusive atmosphere. ECRI supports the concern of inclusion by stating: “… family members, teachers, and administrators often encounter practical problems and policy barriers when they try to include young children with disabilities. Such barriers may prevent inclusion from occurring or may affect the quality of the experience for all children.”

When a person looks at all the problems faced by early childhood educators, it is not difficult to see why many teachers feel overwhelmed. Alison Levy, author of “Culture in the Classroom,” succinctly puts the point of view of early childhood educators into perspective: “In a field where burnout is common and salaries are low, there is not sufficient respect and appreciation for what teachers accomplish. It is often hard to accept this added challenge of continued learning” (p. 10). Although Levy acknowledges that educators face a number of barriers, she goes on to say that children who participate in multicultural settings gain valuable experiences. Hence, despite the obstacles that come with diversity and inclusion, both concepts are worth pursuing in multicultural classrooms.

MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOMS

Very few individuals can deny the importance of building strong communities within classrooms. Many teachers “… have become more interested in multicultural education, with the assumption that such approaches help children feel more welcomed, validated, integrated, and able to cooperate with others in their classroom” (Allen, McNeill, & Schmidt 1992; Brendenkamp, 1986; Byrnes & Kiger, 1992, Gollnick & Chin, 1994).

Levy concurs with the preceding statement by speaking to educators directly: “… if your class includes a variety of cultures or abilities, the group spends more time learning about and cultivating an understanding of those unique features.” Validation, integration, cooperation, and cultivation of ideas and experiences are of vital importance. Consequently, if educators ease this process for young students, they will impact the futures of their students. Macdonald emphasizes the impact of diversity on decision making: “… when you include diversity in your work with children, you are preparing them for citizenship in a society where people speak different languages, practice different customs and embrace different values. By starting in early childhood, you will be helping individuals learn to work together, communicate across differences, and value just and fair treatment for all” (1999, p. 10). Both Levy and Macdonald encourage educators to remain aware the impact teachers have on the well-being of future societies and generations.

M. Fethullah Gulen, a noted scholar who has been molding the minds of students for close to four decades, maintains that there is a direct relationship between a community and its young people. In his Towards the Lost Paradise, Gulen explains: “A community maintains its liveliness through the spirit of its young, and flourishes through it. When a community loses this spirit, it fades and withers away, like a flower whose veins have been cut, and it is finally crushed under foot.”(4) His comparison of a flower to a child is all the more poignant when we look at the loss of innocence thousands of children have experienced due to violence in schools.

CONCLUSION

Diversity and multiculturalism may seem like concepts that are not age-appropriate for young children. However, I contend that issues of diversity must have a place in the early childhood curriculum. Although children may have difficulties articulating the differences they see around them, they are aware of the concept of difference. Just as classroom populations are changing, the face of early childhood curriculum also must expand and grow to meet the needs of the twenty-first century.

FOOTNOTES

1. M. Fethullah Giilen, Criteria or The Lights of the Way -1 (Izmir, Turkey: Kaynak A.S., 1998), 55.
2. Webster’s New World Collegiate Dictionary, 3d ed., (N.p., n.d.)
3. Americans with Disabilities Web site: www.usdoj.gov/crt/ ada/adahoml.htm.
4. M. Fethullah Giilen, Towards the Lost Paradise (London: Truestai, 1996), 25.

REFERENCES

• Americans with Disabilities Act. www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahoml.htm.
• Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion. “What is Inclusion?” www.inform.umd.edu/EDUC/Depts/ecrii/inclu.html
• The Educational Excellence for All Children Act of 1999. “Title II, Part C, Early Childhood Educator Professional Development.” (4 pp.). www.ed.gov. offices/OESE/ESEA/prospectus/title2-c.html
• Gulen, Fethullah M. Criteria or the Lights of the Way -1 (Izmir, Turkey: Kaynak A.S., 1998)
• . Towards the Lost Paradise. London: Truestar, 1996.
• Jordon, Deanna. “Inclusion in the Preschool Setting.” www.earlychildhood.com.” Informative Articles from earlychildhood.com.
• Kupetz, Barbara. ‘”Do You See What I See?’ Appreciating Diversity in Early Childhood Settings.” Early Childhood News (Jul.-Aug. 1998): 1-5.
• Levy, Alison. “Culture in the Classroom.” Early Childhood News (Jan.-Feb. 1997): 1-9.
• Macdonald, Maritza. “Valuing Diversity: An Excerpt from Explorations with Young Children, A Curriculum Guide from the Banks Street College of Education.” www.early-childhood.com.
• North Central Regional Educational Labor. “Critical Issues: Promoting Children’s Readiness to Learn.” www.ncrel.org/ncrel/sdrs/areas/issues/students/earlycld/ea700.htm.
• Riley, Richard W. “‘Cost, Quality and Child Outcomes’ Study.”8 June 1999. (Speech).