It has often been said that to really come to know and understand something
we must see it from a variety of angles. The adage seems particularly
powerful when applied to our understanding of other people.
Imagine your department has just hired a new instructor. Between the interview process, greetings in the hall, and department meetings, you quickly gain a sense of who she is and what she is like. But, your understanding is limited solely to the context of the work environment. If you were to run into your new colleague at a restaurant, bowling league, the hair salon, church, the hospital, or even in a traffic jam driving home from work, you would begin to assemble new facts about her. Your growing understanding would probably acknowledge more of the complexity inherent in life and in some sense would represent a truer sense of her character.
Through contact with your colleague in a variety of contexts, your understanding of her character would become enriched. It is the same with our presentation of content in the classroom. When we provide students with only one, or even two, contexts within which to learn about an issue or concept, the degree to which they develop a more complex and deeper understanding is limited. Until students have explored course material through multiple perspectives and contexts, their understanding will lack depth.
We would be justly concerned if our life biographies were written
by our auto mechanic. Even though we might see our mechanic numerous
times a year, the context within which we interact is one-dimensional.
We would want someone with multiple perspectives on our lives to
write our biographies. Likewise, reliance solely on the traditional
canon of our discipline often provides students a limited, one-dimensional
view of the field. By including multiple perspectives into the course,
we facilitate the possibility for greater student learning while
becoming more aligned with the principles of multicultural education.