The Building Blocks Of Learning

African American students account for the larger majority of minorities in public schools in the United States. Most areas in the northern part of the United states and coastal areas are ethnically diverse. However, down south this is not the case. Students of color will experience a harder time in the education system. African American students meet the obstacle of educators who will not want them to succeed based on a preconceived thought. In fact, Caucasian teachers make up for 85% of all

Currently, general education classrooms have increasingly become diverse with both disable students and students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. In order for educators to ensure that they effectively teach these classrooms, meet the needs of each student both successfully and individually, effective research that is based on strategies need to be implemented. The U.S. Department of Education suggest that, the current school-age population is becoming more diverse as time passes, yet, majority of the teachers in these schools are white non-Hispanic women. According to another report by The Condition of Education in 2006, American schools are portraying increased diversity and growth. The report suggested that, forty two percent of students in public schools were ethnic or racial minorities in the year 2003; this increased from twenty two percent since 1972. Owing to these reasons, teachers in these schools are expected to educate a diversified class of students including those that come from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Teachers are therefore, required to implement a number of key strategies that will ensure that every student in specific classroom feels that he or she belongs there (Worrell, 2010).

Gloria Ladson-Billings spent time observing teachers in public schools that were located in predominately low-socioeconomic school districts to figure out what makes them successful with typically low performing students. Some of the things she observed are all the teachers “shared pride in and commitment to their profession and had an underlying belief that all children could be successful” (learnnc). Furthermore, these teachers established trusting relationships with their students that allowed the students to take responsibility for their own learning. Lastly, these teachers also went beyond the classroom to show support for their students such as attending community events. These observations led Ladson-Billings to realize that in order for “teachers to use culturally relevant pedagogy successfully, they must also show respect for students, and understand the need for the students to operate in the dual worlds of their home community and the

Teaching in racially diverse classrooms often leaves educators feeling uncertain about how to proceed and how to respond to historically marginalized students. There is pressure to acknowledge and accept students of color with different perspectives, to diversify the syllabi, be more aware of classroom dynamics, and pay attention to how students of color experience the learning process.

Today when you look at our country you think of it a somewhat of a melting pot or a mixed and diverse population. When you look at the populations, even in small towns you see multiple different races and cultures. This then leads to our workforce where you see that same type of diverse culture entering the workforce in the communities they live in and the ones around them. Our workforce hasn’t only changed to multicultural, it also has more and more woman as well.. If we look back 50 years you see that woman and individuals with a race other than caucasian had a very hard time finding a place

Teachers may sometimes feel like that boy on the beach, as if we are fighting a losing battle against cultural diversity in the classroom, learning difficulties, standardized testing, resistant parents, and

Furthermore the questions that guide this study are: “(1) how and why teachers participate in practices and policies that may undermine minority students’ academic achievement, (2) how elementary students respond to these practices and policies, and (3) the implications of

Lisa Delpit’s book, Multiplication is for White People, she outlines different reform strategies that will change African American education in the 21st century. The first reform strategy Delpit outlines is to recognize and build on children’s strengths. When teaching in an urban school, teachers should begin by understanding the children and their home lives. Using the knowledge that the children already have, and building on that will help students succeed. Believing that African American students are not worth being taught, plays a major role in the way students react to their educator. I believe that once an educator begins at a specific school, they should survey the student's knowledge to use that to go forward. Then using that to build on everyone’s strengths throughout the year will help in class participation and build a sense of community in the class. Recognizing a student's strengths, will make the student believe that he or she has someone on their side who cares. Once they feel that someone cares, they will want to do

During my third year in college, I participated in the Civil Rights and Social Justice Pilgrimage that the ministry department made each year. While on this trip, I was exposed to the good that came off the Civil Rights Movement, but I also witnessed the horrors that so many people endured. One of the events that really troubled was school segregation. One exhibit allowed me to view what a White classroom would look like compared to an African-American classroom. There were extreme differences in these classrooms. As someone who has a passion for teaching and helping children, this deeply upset me that the color of a child’s skin effected their education. At that point, I realized that if I was to become a teacher I would make my classroom

Heather Ruha grew up in a “pretty rough” suburb on Chicago’s west border; this background has allowed her to connect with the hardships that her urban students face. Her interest in education was sparked by an incredibly influential teacher’s assistant in one of her classrooms, who Heather described as “giving” but always pushed her to do her best and challenge herself. She graduated from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago with a major in Elementary Education and a minor in Psychology. Ms. Ruha has been working in the Kenosha Unified school district since 2006, originally as a teacher in elementary classrooms, until she discovered a true passion for working with middle school students.

The author of White Teacher is Vivian Gussin Paley. The book is about her experience of teaching her kindergarten class. She shares her experiences of teaching in a school with integrated classes in a time when racism was a major part of society in the outside world. Mrs. Paley’s main focus was to be the best teacher she could be to all of her students, but was not sure how to go about dealing with the racial differences in her classroom. She was told she should ignore the subject of race in the classroom and pay more attention to the behavior and success of her students. Mrs. Paley quickly realized that this was not the solution and that ignoring this subject did not help the students. It conveyed the wrong message to all of the students, even the white ones. Mrs. Paley started to bring the subject to her students and this also helped with her own struggles with racial stereotypes in and outside of the classroom environment. This book gives an inside look of the struggles that teachers face when trying to address the issues of race and it gives some insight on some of the solutions teachers can use to effectively deal with this very fragile subject.

In Alyssa’s interview I asked what the majority ethnicity of her high school teachers and students were. She explained that it was pretty common to see white female teachers, which is not a surprise, because according to the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education more than 80 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in education awarded during the 2009-2010 school year where to white students (AACTE). Alyssa’s school was not completely filled with just white teachers she notified me that her school also had an average amount of African American teachers along with Hispanic teachers. As for students she said that they were pretty diverse. Mexican, African American and whites were the majority of the school population.

During the Steps 2 College program provided by the University of North Georgia, Gainesville Campus, my Education 2120 class and I were to provide 20 hours of observational field experience in the classroom. From the many course options provided for the program, I choose to spend my time in the Environmental Science course which was located in the Nesbitt building in room 1213. The classroom setting was a darker than normal classroom, but was formatted auditorium style, with all seats facing the front of the class towards the smart board. This was a new experience for the students. Only the first row was used in class due to having a class size of only 7 students. The ratio of boys to girls was about even with 4 boys and 3 girls in the class. All the students were Hispanic, with the only diversity being the teacher and the teachers assistants present. They were all bilingual, knowing their native language of Spanish as well as English except one student who only knew English. All the students in our class came from Banks County High School. Banks County High School, located in Homer, Georgia, is the only high school within its county, with an enrollment rate of greater than or equal to 800 students annually (usnews,2015). Banks County High School has a national ranking of Bronze. Here is the breakdown of the demographics provided by (usnews,2015) and the National Center for Education Statistics of the school:

Funding allocation for additional training of educators as well as educators developmental programs would need to be created. Funding for curricula related expenses such as culturally relevant literature, events, speakers, and programs needed to facilitate learning. Learning in a real life setting such as the inclusion of community leaders, parents and institutions to give positive examples of diversity in action. In Lopez' (1995) study examined the relationship between the types of student learning, teaching skills and how knowledge affects the student performance. The teacher's race, gender and classroom size were examined to determine if student or teacher diversity or capacity affected the student performance for kindergarten through sixth grade. The results that were significant in regard to race and learning styles were that African American and Hispanic teachers were able to amplify student performance in the classrooms where the teacher’s race was the same as the students. This result indicates that young African American students have a positive school experience when they have teachers with whom they can identify with.

Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon (2014) noted that “educators need to take a two-tiered approach to the issue of inequitable treatment of diverse groups” (p. 369). This includes educators understanding their personal cultural identity and welcoming different cultures as well. They may need to thoroughly analyze the ways they hypothesize learning and performance so they can renew their sense of thinking within the diverse settings to ensure all students are not disadvantaged by certain assumptions and thoughts. The authors went on to pinpoint that “supervisors and teachers need to become directly involved in efforts to change public policy that works against lower-socioeconomic and racial/ethnic minority children” (p.