Teachers, Perceptions, and Diversity

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear diversity in schools?

Physical diversity: Skin color, languages or accents, clothing fashion, talents or gifts, ability or disability, etc.

Cultural diversity: cultural practises, what is taught in schools, food, etc.

Emotional diversity: various emotional states and biological makeups of staff and children

I plead guilty, physical diversity is often recognized or discussed first in most communities including our school communities. I am not conveying that recognizing physical diversity first is a problem, merely revealing that diversity is complex and multifaceted. What this means for me, a first year teacher education student, is that diversity can never be “boxed up” and sold as the same item a year or ten from today. Diversity changes with time and the humans that make it so. As a teacher I must commit to a lifelong learning process for all areas of teaching including diversity.

In my research I wanted to uncover different perceptions of diversity found in schools. There are several view-points from which to interpret diversity in schools. Most prominent are the teacher and student perceptions. Other view-points include government departments, school administrations, and parents. All of these view-points make up the school community outlook. In this blog post I will briefly just explore the teacher’s view-point.   

Inclusion of diversity in schools, particularly in relation to Saskatchewan schools, rests largely on teachers. While there are additional aspects to the inclusion of diversity in schools such as policies, and legislation, a teacher has the greatest potential to let diversity grow and be evident in classrooms. Teachers are one of the greatest avenues by which children will learn diversity. A teacher realizes the potential of diversity in his or her class when self-examination occurs relating to diversity. “It [critical self-reflection] is important because educators set the tone and the direction of any schools program regardless of the formal curriculum based on their own beliefs” (Egbo, 2009). Critical self-reflection is beneficial to start early in a teaching career. It is beneficial to the school community, students, and self.

According to several references in the resource list, critical reflection on one’s own beliefs, culture, religion, and ethnic background in relationship to understanding diversity in schools should begin at the teacher candidate stage. Essentially there are two ways to filter ones misconceptions and stereotypes of what diversity is in schools when working towards a teaching degree: institutional, academic, or book knowledge and field experience or student practicums. Often the academic side helps a student become aware of our misconceptions, while the field based experience gives the student tools to use in a teaching career. Duarte and Reed discovered that all of the teacher candidates held stereotypical attitudes regarding minority children and minority neighbourhoods prior to their field placement and had very few strategies on how to address the needs of diverse learners. At the end of the field-base experience, the experimental group "offered clearly defined ideas, utilized real-life scenarios that would make learning experiences more meaningful; presented materials to accommodate different learning styles; utilized multicultural and diverse literature to focus on issues supporting the minority experience, and facilitated learning that included students' cultural background.”

Teachers are as diverse as their students. Students are wise enough to know and watch our differences as co-workers. The real impact teachers and staff can have on students in school communities is the chance to model healthy diversity. No two teachers are exactly alike and when conflict arises in teachers differences, throughout the school environment, are we wise enough to find common ground? Common ground accepts fairness not sameness (Lyons, 2010). When students see teachers respecting each other’s differences and moving forward on common ground, then a child will begin to grasp the meaning of diversity and its role in schools.

Wally

Diversity, put simply, has to do with differences.  It’s not hard to look around and see that people are different.  Genetics ensure that physical traits are randomly assigned, so even our DNA makes us unique.  Before we are born we begin developing into a unique person and even identical siblings, who share DNA, begin to develop differently.  Some people may share some characteristics, but never all of them.  No two people are exactly alike and from the very beginning of our life we are developing into our own unique person.  Our experiences shape us and make us who we are.  Our upbringing, our schooling, everything we do has some effect on who we become.  The culture we are born into plays a major role in who we are and the people around us shape our existence. 

There are infinite amounts of ways people can be different and these differences are often used to group people.  Culture, skin colour, background, economic status, religion, intelligence, education, sexual orientation, and gender identity are some of the ways people are categorized.  Lumping people into groups based on these things can lead to biased views of other people.  Many of the problems within society result from people’s inability to look at other’s differences in a positive way.  People, when looked at individually or in groups, cannot be exactly the same as other people so it becomes necessary to celebrate differences and invite diversity.  Being unique should not create difficulties for anyone and diversity should be celebrated.  Teaching methods should incorporate everyone and give each student a fair opportunity to learn.

It is not likely that all problems arising from people’s differences will be solved.  Intolerance and close-mindedness cause the problems, while diversity creates beauty and meaning.  Diversity breeds new ideas and leads to new improved ways of thinking.  As a teacher it is crucial to encourage diversity while trying to eliminate the hegemony and prejudice from the classroom, possibly further.  One of the major issues surrounding diversity in education is fairness.  If students don’t have equal opportunities, not all students can be expected to reach their full potential.  Educators need to respect each student’s differences and strive to cater to each student. 

Even at a molecular level we are different and as we grow, we become a unique individual.  Diversity, if misunderstood can create problems, so it is important to educate about our differences and teach others to embrace individuality.  People should not be given less opportunity because of who they are or any group they belong to.  All people are unique, deserve a chance to let their individuality shine, and to be who they are.

Matthew

Diversity Moving Forward

Diversity is an issue that will not be going away and as we've shown it encompasses a large number of issues.  This alone can be enough to overwhelm even the most stalwart educator.  However, there are ways to turn this diversity into something good for our students.  Anti-bias education can help us remove the barriers and obstacles while teaching students awareness and tolerance can help students become global citizens.

Our hope is to educate our students to be aware that our society contains many "isms" that hurt and harm people.  We don't want to scare them but empower them to search for change.  I would hope that by creating educated tolerant global citizens that our society can be changed so that we won't have to discuss the way diversity hurts students.  Then we could focus on the positives that having a classroom filled with diverse students creates a classroom filled with ideas, beauty and a wealth of knowledge to draw from.

Just like this blog is a place for us to share our ideas with one another, collect our individual experiences and research together our classrooms can be places for students from diverse families to share their ideas, experiences and beliefs.

Megan

Amazing Shots

I belive the photographer has captured a genuine essence of diverstiy in this video. The pictures are so real and alive with life expressions. Diversity is the richness of celebrating, accepting, and sharing humanities difference.

Wally

Diversity Powerpoint

Diversity PowerPoint

Here's a powerpoint that explains my view of Diversity.

Kim

Diversity in Babysitting!

Throughout my lifetime I have had the opportunity to babysit many different children. They have varied between the ages of six months and eleven years old, and of course there were some that were boys and some that were girls. During my experience of babysitting these children I learned that there are not two alike. Each child has their own thought pattern, sense of humour, discipline response, behaviour, personality, appearance, and etcetera. Even though all of these children were different in their own way, I loved them all the same. They all had their moments where they loved me and where they hated me because I wouldn’t let them do exactly what they wanted simply because I knew that it was not a good idea, but they did not understand this at such a young age.

Diversity of these children was evident when playing outside with them. There would be the children who would look for anything bad to do outside so that they could cause a problem, and there would be the children who would ask before doing anything that may cause them to get into trouble. There were also the children who wanted to play rough and there were the children who played quietly and gently. These characteristics always resulted in an interesting and sometime frustrating play outside.

Likewise the diversity in these children stood out when watching the television also. The family’s religion and beliefs were evident as some of the children would put on a show that had awful language and then some children were content watching cartoons. This mainly depended on the age level as a two year old obviously would rather watch cartoons whereas a twelve year old is at the stage where it is cool to swear and what not.

Babysitting these children of different backgrounds, races, beliefs, ages, genders, personalities, tempers and etcetera has taught me different ways to respond to children of all different types. This experience will benefit me greatly when teaching in a classroom as I have learned to deal with all different children. Although I am ready for the challenge of learning how to deal with the new types of children I will meet in my future endeavours of teaching.

Kim

Diversity Quotations

 “No single tradition monopolizes the truth. We must glean the best values of all traditions and work together to remove the tensions between traditions in order to give peace a chance.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist Monk and Scholar

“The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men.”
John F. Kennedy

 “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
Judy Garland

“We may have come over on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.”
Whitney Young, Jr.

“Ecidujrep is prejudice spelled backwards—either way, it makes no sense.”
Unknown

 “It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.”
Mark Twain

“Men hate each other because they fear each other, and they fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they are often separated from each other.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi

"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
Mother Teresa

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
Eleanor Roosevelt

"The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back."
Abigail Van Buren

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The rich are more envied by those who have a little, than by those who have nothing."
Charles Caleb Colton

Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and a cruelty, too...."
Sigmund Freud

Kim