The Importance Of Diversity In Education

Poverty is a serious issue which our society and children faces every day. It is a constant struggle that shouldn’t be ignored. UNICEF states “The study of OECD countries in 2007, over fourteen percent of Australian children under the age of eighteen are currently living in households who are defined as poor or with incomes less than half of the median national income”. The increase in the number and percentage of children living in poverty within our society has contributed to making today's classrooms more diverse than ever it has been. This highlights and makes both teaching and learning more challenging. Diversity exists in the students who are living in poverty and the education assistant and teachers must provide the concept of diversity

Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.

When we talk about education we focus on those topics that have become near and dear to the hearts of this country: math, science, and whether or not art programs are funded. It's all anyone ever talks about, the calculators and the paintbrushes. But a part of the american education system that does not receive nearly enough emphasis is the social studies and history department. It's almost a null topic for everyone: the kids just need to learn this so they can understand how things work. But no one ever looks closely enough at the material because it is boring. And I agree, white male history is boring. An endless parade of Jean, Jon, and John inventing that new thing and changing the world? Count me out. But in this new era of true multiculturalism I have discovered just how vibrant history can be. School curriculums focus on an endless cycle of white men and then throw in a few white women (suffragettes), one - or two if its an AP class - black men (MLK and Malcolm X), and two black women (Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks). But those names are probably about .001% of what is discussed in a basic level history course. I'm lucky come from a school district that implemented an ‘ancient cultures’ section of the curriculum where we went over some

Jonathan Kozol, a Harvard University scholar, witnessed the travesty of racial segregation within the inner city public educational system. After many years of teaching and exposure to substandard classrooms with dilapidated furniture, a shortage of materials to engage a pupil’s mind and a disproportionate diversity ratio, he could no longer tolerate the conditions in which he was surrounded. Kozol’s frustration compelled him to become a staunch advocate for disadvantaged children so that they might receive equal rights to a quality education.

As discussed last week on the class blog, for some there exists a flat reality connected to the concept of whiteness and lack of cultural identity. From this idea, it appears society at large would benefit from reading and discussing multicultural literature with aims at developing a dynamic self-concept of one’s culture and making ideological changes about others. Luckily, teachers have the opportunity to make this happen in their classrooms. As Szecsi, Spillman, Vazquez-Montilla, and Mayberry (2010) pointed out in their opening, “Literature allows individuals to share in the lives of others, it can also provide an avenue for multicultural understanding” (p. 44). However, before having these teaching experiences within the classroom,

Mrs. Warren is an experienced 9th grade English teacher at Littleton High School. Her class consists of 8 students, 2 boys and 6 girls, who are all very diverse. These students’ names are: Jose, Tyrone, Angela, Bettie Ann, Sara, Rhea, Katie and Maria. Many students in the 9th grade are about 14 years old like Tyrone, Bettie Ann, Sara, Katie, and Maria. Jose and Angela are repeating the 9th grade while Rhea was retained in the 8th grade making them at least one year older than their peers. Ethnically speaking these 8 students stem from 3 different backgrounds, 2 Hispanics, 2 African Americans, and 4 Caucasians. Since Jose and Maria are Hispanic, Spanish is the primary language of their household. Jose is fluent in Spanish and

Maya Angelou once said, “It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” When we send our children to school, they are segregated based on the letter D (diversity, disabled, dysfunction), showing the young that not all children can enjoy the same educational opportunities that they are provided in schools. This is due to a controversial topic among teachers and parents known as inclusion. It’s time we put an end to this separation and bring inclusive classrooms to all schools. Inclusion secures opportunities for students with disabilities to learn alongside their non-disabled peers in general education classrooms. Classrooms that establish a healthy inclusive environment benefits

While some schools are as racially segregated than before Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, landmark case deemed racial segregated schools illegal; diversity in schools have been the main goal of all schools. In 2006, Orfield and Lee offers statistic demonstrating a racial transformation. Diversity in school have changed the landscape of schools. Orfield and Lee outlines in the school year of 2003-2004, Latinos were the largest minority group followed by the Black/African American community. While some scholars may offer this fact as no surprise it is to be noted that all of the minority groups are growing at a rapid rate in comparison to majority groups, Whites. Classrooms becoming more diverse, teachers must take

As a bewildering life of a teenager, you are so busy with countless responsibilities to complete you forget how valuable your youth is. Usually, high school is the last stop of your childhood, after that you move on to go to college and then become an adult to challenge the unforgiving world. Consequently, high school teens often struggle on how to use their last 4 years of childhood bliss; going to “cool” parties almost every popular kid and athlete is invited to, or maybe being too focused on getting into those outstanding ivy leagues—yeah being a teen isn’t so easy. In short, it’s just a severe understatement to claim its hard find direction in life, especially so young. Furthermore, that’s why I love clinical rotation so much, it’s so unique in the sense that it has that balance of a mellow and serious class in addition to acquiring prior knowledge of PHS, bonding with my classmates, not to mention the boundless opportunities bestowed to young minds like us. However, the

In today’s open world I think diversity in the newsroom in both print and other forms of media such as television and radio is very important. Without diversity all the stories that are reported would be slanted towards one ethnic group or another rather than being a diversified story that would show all sides of a particular newsworthy event. I think in our reading this week we read about the Wall Street Journal that we can see that diversity not only affects racial or ethnic groups but could also be looked at as far as social class goes. How they were worried about Mr. Murdock donor Wall Street Journal reporting mainly on businesses or stocks that would benefit his own widely spread conglomerate of businesses which could in turn shut out a lot of smaller investors or business stocks in favor of his own.

Latino’s are at a disadvantage when it comes to education, being that most minority groups/children and adolescents attend public schools within poverty-stricken areas. Many or several public schools lack a lot of resources to give a decent quality of education, depending on the location of where the facility is located. It has been discussed that lack of technology, teachers, and among other reasons, are the cause of minority groups, such as Latino’s, to have a high dropout rate.

Like it or not, there has always been diversity among students in the classroom. It is the fact that each and every student is unique. From every circumstance, students bring a varying set of values, perspectives, and beliefs to the learning environment. Understanding the character of students is important in order to become a competent teacher. In fact, teachers should be aware and recognize students, as unique individuals, all acquire information differently than others. Some of these differences are due to developmental variations in cognitive, physical, intellectual, moral, emotional, and social changes caused by maturation and experience. And this reality of classroom conditions makes instruction much more challenging for teachers and

Within the core of many educational institutions, diversity is a commercial tacit. While every institution cannot offer the same kind of diversity, the endorsement of such exists through various definitions. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges define diversity through the various classes: race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, disability, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and age (“Statement on Diversity”)

Bilingual Education or English Immersion, two very different methods of instruction that have been the basis of debate in the United States in order to figure out the most efficient and successful ways in which to instruct bilingual students whose first language is not English\English Language Learners (ELL). Even though extensive research has been done on both methods of instruction over the years, and new laws have been implemented regulating the ways in which ELL students will be taught in order for them to be more successful in their education, the majority of ELL students’ academic performance is below that of their peers. While the method of instruction is an important issue, the main focus shouldn’t be the language of instruction

There is a major disconnect occurring between teachers and their students in history classrooms nationwide. The main themes of United States history like freedom and liberty are individual to each person as well as each culture and ethnicity. This is an issue in the classroom because 92% of teachers are white while 80% are female. These predominantly white, female educators are attempting to teach a subject that is largely malleable among cultural and ethnic groups to a student population that is largely diverse. With the minority student population expected to increase by 30% within the next decade, it is imperative for secondary educational history teachers to understand the implications of teaching history to a diverse student