Teaching Children of Catastrophe (Schools, Culture, And Trauma‪)‬

Teaching children who are victims of Katrina is not a multicultural education issue per se. The field is not centered in catastrophic events such as the hurricane, the breakage of the levees on Lake Pontchartrain and the subsequent havoc that befell New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, and other Gulf coast cities in Louisiana and Mississippi (and Alabama to a lesser degree) in August 2005. Multicultural education is more about everyday issues and events that are normal occurrences in U.S. society and schools rather than the exotic, exceptional, and spectacular. Katrina and its aftermath fall within the latter categories. However, there are some intersections between the victims of Katrina and the educational responses to them, and some of the primary constituent groups and issues that multicultural education represents and intends to serve. These are children of color and poverty who are marginalized in schools relative to resource allocation, learning opportunity, and academic achievement.