Why Are Today 's Classrooms More Diverse Than They Were Several Decades Ago?

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).

Immigrant youth are a significant proportion of our national student population today. Many of us don’t realize how many immigrant children there really are. In her interview, “The Education of Immigrant Children”, posted by Harvard Graduate School of Education on December 11, 2014, Mary Tamer, a graduate student, speaks to Harvard Professor Natasha Warikoo in order to inquire into some of the issues immigrant children face in their lives. According to Tamer, by 2050 more than one-third of school children will be an immigrant, or the child of an immigrant (Tamer). One-third is a largely substantial number, and reflects this as a substantial issue. Though how much is our immigrant population growing? In March 2005, during the National Conference of State Legislators, Ann Morse brought forth a report that she had drafted to reflect on the details of immigration and to announce how programs were doing which had been created and funded to improve and support immigrant youth. Due to this report, there are “current high levels of immigration - over 1 million per year” (Morse). Again, as our immigrant population grows, it increasingly becomes apparent that we cannot ignore this issue. But this large amount begs the question, what about our teaching population? Well, according Professor Warikoo, “our teaching force is more than 80 percent white, while over half of children today are racial minorities” (Tamer). Most teachers today aren’t able to personally connect or relate with

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.

When we teach different cultural backgrounds, students from other backgrounds can be more informed about their classmate’ s culture. “Although about 80% of Latinos in Utah originated from Mexico, many other nationalities are represented here. Many individuals raised in the U.S. speak only English and have assimilated to European American culture.” There are a distinct few of people who have different ethnic backgrounds can not speak their home language. This is why schools should help students embrace different cultures, so they can learn different languages and help their brains develop. Learning about classmates languages and cultures, can help people have a bond with each other. Students learning about how other cultures affected America, other than white European, can give student another point of

Today in classrooms there will be any students that come from different backgrounds. It is the teacher’s reasonability to make sure that each student feels welcoming in the classroom whether they come from a different background or not. Teachers need to make sure that they know their students and were their students come from. By doing this the teacher can create relationships with their students and the teacher can use that information to incorporate in the classroom.

America’s schools are challenged to meet the academic and interpersonal needs of all students regardless of culture, race, or ethnic background. Hawley and Nieto (2010) claim that race and ethnicity significantly impacts students’ learning in their article, “Another Inconvenient Truth: Race and Ethnicity” (p. 66). They contended that educators should be “race and ethnicity -responsive” to effectively understand the challenges students from diverse races and cultures face (Hawley & Nieto, 2010, p. 66). Moreover, the article noted that schools should have practices in place that promote an inclusive, supportive, and enriching learning environment for all students including students from different races and ethnicities.

It is no secret that America, and America’s classrooms, are getting more diverse. The Census Bureau estimates that by 2043, the majority of students will be minority students (United States Census Bureau, 2012). The American melting pot meme

As educators, it is important for us to understand the cultural diversity we face in our classroom. We can strengthen our relationship by communicating with the student, as well as the family. Cultural diversity can help us when we expand our search in this area to better educate us and help prepare a curriculum to better educate our students in communicating with all cultures.

Developing the ability to communicate with culturally diverse students allows for teachers to create a positive learning experience for every individual. The author states that not only is it important for teachers to be prepared to work with students from different backgrounds, but also from a young age students in today’s generation should be developing an understanding of the world around them. Dr. Keengwe refers to multicultural scholars as he

For example, research done by Bryant (2015), tells of a school in Rochester that took a survey and realized that 65 percent of their students were African American and 20 percent were Latino;however, 65 percent of the teaching faculty was caucasian. This ratio means there is a lack of instructional diversity among their students because of this students are taught from only one perspective of culture. Students need to experience other cultures and ethnicities because the world we live in has a plethora of kinds of

The United States of America is known for being a country filled with people of many different ethnic backgrounds. Likewise, the student population in schools is just as diverse as it continues to grow. Lynch (2015) notes that schools are expected to teach their students “how to synthesize cultural differences into their knowledge base” as this will help “facilitate students’ personal and professional success in a diverse world” (para. 8). Educators must be able to provide for the diverse needs of students and are expected to equip students with skills that can lead to healthy development as it can affect higher levels of student achievement and students have more opportunities of success in their future. Providing students with tools and skills requires an awareness and acceptance of their ethnic identity. Once students have developed self-acceptance about their ethnic identity, they can begin to feel empowered and motivated to do well. Through cultural empowerment, students of color can develop intrinsic motivation and achieve academic success.

People of color in the classroom are challenged by tough circumstances that many of their mainstream counterparts may not be exposed to on a daily basis. Whether it is ethnicity, family sizefamily size, first language, poverty or any other number of characteristics that people of color face, they do in fact, have a strong impact on a student’s development.

In the United States out of every four people one is from a different ethnic background other than white. These progressions are reflected in population of schools. Moreover, 2000 census data show that there are around 1% Indian/Alaskan Native students, 4% Asian/Pacific Islander students, 16% black (non-Hispanic) students, 15% Hispanic students, and 63% white (non-Hispanic) students

In the 21st century American classroom, educators will find students with varying races, cultural backgrounds, economic statuses, and even academic backgrounds (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2008). Understanding students’ strengths and weaknesses, along with their individual likes and dislikes, will help educators in reaching their students. De Jesus (2005) points out that many educators treat culturally and diverse students as though they cannot learn or that it is normal for them to suffer academically. Because they are not of the European American culture, they are considered lacking in the ability to learn.

I do agree that classrooms are more diverse. Taking all the education courses that I have has made me think about this. When I was in elementary school I never remember having any wide diversities in my classrooms. My teaching people of other cultures teacher provided us with ELL statistics in the US from last year and all I had to was WOW.