Blog 3-Diversity in the Classroom

I think that it is a difficult thing for a teacher to get to know each and every student from multiple perspectives but it is also a very necessary thing to do. A diverse classroom is a great thing and to be able to recognize all the students and their diverse backgrounds makes every child feel important and proud of whom they are. I want to know each and every one of my future students in this way. One way to learn about the background of your students is to implement the “I am from” poem exercise. We talked about this in class and I enjoyed making my own poem. It brought about good memories and it made me proud of who I am. I think this is a great idea to use in the classroom in order to get to know the students better. They will love to create their own poems and share them with friends. I really learned a lot from the article by Triplett on book discussions. I think they are a great way to bring together a diverse group of students. Every child might have a different interpretation of a story and if they can all talk about how the story made them feel they can bring different perspectives to other students in the class. Also, in the article Triplett mentions that the vocabulary discussions are important because the students have such varied background knowledge. By discussing key terms a lot of misunderstandings are cleared up. The book discussions would especially be a good idea to have in diverse classrooms because as the article states, “book discussions with elementary students can provide opportunities to discuss their developing awareness of racial, ethnic and gender issues”. I would use these discussions to prompt students to talk about their opinions on these issues and to clear up misconceptions they might already have. Chapter two in the Gibbons book gives examples of activities for English language learners that I think would be excellent for a diverse classroom. These activities can also be very helpful for students who are native English speakers as well. I especially liked the “Find the Difference” types of games. These work well because of the information gap. The children must use their language to find the missing information and complete the puzzle or picture. This is good for not only English language learners but also for young native speakers. Overall I think that there are many ways to learn about and promote diversity in your classroom. I hope to implement many and learn as much as I can about all of my diverse learners.