claim 6: let’s talk about diversity

Prompt: What if your school has no obvious ethnic diversity? Can it still be culturally diverse? What would be some of the striking differences between students at your school? Are these differences cultural?

When we were in senior seminar a couple weeks ago, someone talked about culture at one of their schools in reference to what people were interested in. She said that her students were big into hunting and skinning animals, things she has never been interested in and things she does not know a lot about. She said that the students and their families are all bonded over this culture of hunting and using the various parts of the animals for different things. I had never thought about a people group bonding over a specific interest/hobby/occupation being a culture but I believe she was right to define it that way.

That comment during class made me think more deeply about the meanings of a classroom being ethnically and culturally diverse. An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other through a common heritage/language/culture. It is much more easily defined. For example, the students in my classroom are all of Puerto Rican ethnicity. They all share the Spanish language as their native language, and specific cultural traits-talking loudly and often while others are talking, eating certain foods, not looking the teacher in the eyes when they are being disciplined, calling the school bus the “gua gua” et cetera. However, culture is less easy to define.  Cultural groups can be large, or small, and can be based around different things.

Claim 6 states that teachers prepared at Houghton College are professionals who respect cultural diversity in the school context, and devleop culturally relevant learning communities that strengthen students’ sense of self and promote community development. I believe that whether cultural differences in your classroom are obvious (Such as students who dress in a certain way, or speak a certain language or what foods they eat/don’t eat or what kind of gestures/body language they use to communicate) or if they are more subtle, it is still important to get to know your students and base your learning experiences around what you know about them and their culture. When I teach, I am trying to be cognizent of my students’ Puerto Rican culture, but also their sub-cultures, the other, smaller cultures that they are still very much a part of. I think it’s interesting too because while they will always have their Puerto Rican culture, they’re now adopting a certain American culture as well and it is so fascinating to watch the two combine; and it is important now more than ever to strengthen their sense of self.

I also believe that we send subtle messages to students by what we teach and discuss but also by what we do NOT teach and/or discuss in our classrooms. It is impossible for us to embrace diversity remaining set in our ways, beliefs, and thoughts. We have to teach tolerance; to be open to shedding old practices and altering traditions and points of view. If a school simply adds studens who are not Caucasian, this will not make a school diverse. Statistically, it will. There will be more ethnicities represented. However, in the atmosphere of the school, it will not. Schools must then work to create a climate of diversity and doing that means altering the “but we’ve always done it this way” mindset.

claim 5: collaborate, collaborate, collaborate some more

Prompt: Doesn’t partnership mostly benefit the teacher? How would collaboration benefit the student? The list of partners make sense-except for community members. How could they be a benefit to my students’ learning? 

Claim 5 states that the purpose of collaborating with students, educational professionals, parents, and community members is to foster students’ learning and development. We as teachers can only do so much. While we like to think that we can make an awesome art craft, that we know a lot about technology, that we can do an active game, that we can find the best books, that we can connect learning to student’s lives, we can’t. Not by ourselves. We need other people to help us to help our students. We need their ideas and their expertise to help us. While this seems like it is only benefiting the teacher, it absolutely benefits the student because if we just shut the door to our classroom and didn’t seek any outside input, our students would only know what little we know. By allowing others to help us teach, we enrich students learning experiences. 

At PS 30, I have been collaborating, but I think I’m missing the part about doing it for my students and talking in seminar reminded me that the point is not for me, but for my students. I’ve been collaborating to find out things, to ask questions, to get assignments done, which is good, but it’s not as good as it could be. I need to instead focus on using what other professionals know, what community members know, what parents know, (what their strengths/skills/talents are) to make my teaching more meaningful and memorable. 

I think there is a lot to be said about bringing others into the classroom. This is something I want to do a lot of when I am a teacher. It’s great for them to see that I do not know everything and even I, a college graduate, need someone else to help me understand things sometimes It expands their worldview and helps them to take a different perspective. Perhaps a student had never thought about life beyond their own neighborhood. So many students find school pointless. We need to find ways to make it meaningful. To make it purposeful. Bring in someone who uses math everyday in their job to show students that they do need to learn how to add. Bring in someone who has traveled who knows about life in another part of the US or the world-students will be captivated, and they’ll remember that more than you showing a YouTube video. 

It’s hard to do-to ask for help to enrich your teaching, to ask others to come into your class. It’s easier to shut that door and do your own thing all day long. But if we want whats best for our students, lets collaborate, lets put our heads together and share what we know with one another. 

claim 4: teaching diverse learners in diverse ways

Prompt: What can a teacher do to address the many different needs of her students? Why would learners need to be assessed in a variety of ways? Won’t that spoil them for the “real world” where people are not going to always allow them to work to their strengths?

Just as there needs to be a balance between eating the appetizer and main course and dessert of a meal, I think there should be a balance of how the teacher presents content throughout the day. You wouldn’t want too many appetizers at a meal or you wouldn’t eat the main course. You also don’t want an overload of kinesthetic activities in a day. Within one day, I try to teach to all of the learning styles (visual, kinesthetic, auditory, logical, social, verbal, et cetera). To learn students’ learning styles, both last year and this year I have done a learning survey and it’s been great! It is an awesome activity for them to start thinking more metacognitively. Once I know their strengths, I can make sure that the input & output for lessons are a mix of their strengths & weaknesses so that they can have a time to shine, but have a time to grow and to learn how to learn differently. This is very much the real world; they will have to solve problems and do things that they have never done before and if they can learn to take on those learning experiences positively & to use their strengths & skills, they will be empowered and will have a high level of self-efficacy.

Teaching a variety of learners is difficult because it requires us as teachers to adjust the way that we feel most comfortable teaching, too. It means that instead of teaching from a PowerPoint presentation all the time because that is what I know the best, that I am willing to teach using songs and dances and movements to accommodate my kinesthetic learners even though I don’t feel as comfortable teaching that way (Let’s be honest, it makes me completely nervous!). By keeping the needs of my students always at the forefront of my mind when planning a lesson, I can hope to give all of them multiple opportunities to grow in their strengths and their weaknesses in my classroom.

I’ll admit that it seems difficult to connect all that I am teaching to the students lives. Sometimes it is hard to see the importance of some topics that we have to teach. It’s hard to think of things that second graders are experiencing in Buffalo and then to relate that to math and ELA and social studies. While I do my best to make these connections as best as I can, I think I focus more on making learning a positive experience so that when they are learning new things in the future, in the “real world”, they can feel empowered and excited. I also try to give them opportunties to teach each other (to shine) and to listen and learn from each other (to grow).