Diversity When Teaching

As a teacher, it is very important to learn about the diversity in your classroom, and to know each of your students from multiple perspectives to ensure that you are teaching to benefit each student. It is important to learn these characteristics early in the year, so that you know how to teach towards your specific students. When I have my own classroom and in student teaching next year, I plan to do a community profile of the surrounding areas around the school to get an idea of where my students are coming from, and the types of things they have access to. Researching and exploring the area around the school will give me insight into the different types of housing, jobs and resources that the students grow up with as a whole. As we have discussed in class, having diversity in the classroom will benefit all of the students, as they will be able to learn about their classmates, and have a comfortable classroom setting. The experiences that the children have will impact the way they contribute to the class, so it is important to understand where each child is coming from, and what they can bring to the class to make a unique and effective classroom community. As discussed in the Almasi article, it is important that the students are comfortable sharing and discussing, so that the conversation is effective (such as when discussing a certain piece of literature). I feel that the students should be exposed to each others diversity as well as myself, as it will help to create a more comfortable classroom environment, since the students will know each other on a deeper level than purely surface information.

I am currently placed at the kindergarten grade level, but work with two separate classes each week (one day with the morning students, one day with the afternoon students). Since I do have a lot of students that I work with, I have found that I do not know very much about many of the children, as I have not had enough individual time with each of them. One concrete action that I plan to take is to talk with each student and to ask questions regarding home life, friends, hobbies, etc. My mentor teacher has centers set up daily, so I usually spend my time in the classroom working at one of these centers. Instead of purely focusing on the assignment, I may sit at one of the tables that does not require as much work, and ask the students different questions to get to know them. I may also allow them to ask me some questions, so that they feel more comfortable sharing with me as well.