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Heroes and Holidays

‘Heroes and Holidays’ (Lee, E, Menkart, Deborah, Ed.; Okazawa-Rey, Margo, Ed. [1998], Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development. Network of Educators on the Americas), or ‘Holidays and Heroes’ (Nieto, S. [2018] Language, Culture, and Teaching [pp.97] Routeledge) is a method of teaching multicultural education, typically in grades K-12. This method focuses on ‘celebrating’ prominent figures, food, costumes, and/or other tangible items from non-dominant groups in a classroom or public school setting.

In several ways, this technique is thought by contemporary experts to be deficient and inappropriate. According to Sonia Nieto, one issue is that this method “…is too superficial to have any lasting impact in schools (Banks, 1991;Sleeter, 1991).” Another critique is that it can cause learners to see these things as additions to the curriculum rather than as being vital and critical part of society. “Students do not attain a global view of the role of ethnic and cultural groups in U.S. society,” according to Banks (Banks, J.A, Approaches to Multicultural Curriculum Reform, Trotter Review, Volume 3, Issue 3). Another argument is that this approach is ethnocentric and culturally biased (Lee, E, Menkart, Deborah, Ed.; Okazawa-Rey, Margo, Ed. [1998] Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development. Network of Educators on the Americas).