What you can do: Educators

If you are an educator looking to teach your students from a multicultural perspective, it is important to encourage the racial and ethnic identities of your students. One way of doing this is to support the languages spoken by your students if they are bilingual or fluent in languages other than English.
Another way of implementing multiculturalism in the classroom is to encourage the children, regardless of background, to all feel welcome. This will help all students (not just the "minorities"), but also the white or European American children learn about diversity and respect for others.
Furthermore, do not just teach or discuss topics that are from a European perspective. Add books to the curriculum that are from a Caribbean perspective, a Latin American perspective, an Asian perspective, etc. By offering a wide range of books (as opposed to the usual To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Scarlet Letter), students will become more culturally aware, and will begin to see the injustices of white privilege.

What You Can Do

If you feel that eurocentrism should be overcome in the classroom, there are many things you can do. One of the best ways to help fight eurocentrism to simply to talk about it. Talk about diverse issues, tell your teachers or professors that you want to learn about "alternative canons" or "alternative histories." If you are a parent, talk to your child's teacher to express your concerns. The problem with eurocentrism is that it is so ingrained in American society that we often do not even realize it is happening, so an important way of helping to reconstruct the education system is to talk about it, and to instruct others about the benefits of a multicultural approach to education.

Madison Cup Debate

The Madison Cup debate gave me a better understanding of what debate is supposed to look like. I noticed that the debaters from Johns Hopkins used "I believe" and "I think" a lot, which was persuasive in that it made their arguments more personal. However, the second Johns Hopkins debater's speech was too planned, discouraging questions and overall debate. He also came across as rude and seemed to "talk down" to other debaters, which made his and his partner's arguments seem less credible. I also realized that I was paying attention the way the debaters were dressed, which, though facetious, did affect my perceptions of their arguments. The affirmative side was the more personable side, but they did focus too much on the Jeremy Davis case, as this is only one incident. If they had more cases like that one, their arguments would have been more persuasive. However, the negative side tended to irritate me, as they seemed to take themselves just a little too seriously, and though I tried to distance myself from making judgments, I just found myself not wanting to listen to the negative side's arguments any longer. One aspect of the debate that I really liked was that many different arguments were brought up, giving me a broad spectrum to draw from.