Diversity, or multicultural education, should be a collaborative effort among educators, children, and families in order for students to learn about their own culture and those of people who are different from them. Preschool programs need to reflect, acknowledge, and celebrate diversity and their curriculums should utilize children’s funds of knowledge to help children connect their world with their learning environment. When teachers fail to understand the importance of acknowledging and celebrating diversity, it is up to the administrators to enlighten them about how children develop their self-identities by helping students to learn acceptance of themselves and others. Training sessions can be given demonstrating ways in which teachers can learn how to prompt children to express their thoughts and ideas about differences through planned conversations, pictures, questions, or books. And, teachers can be shown how to display items that show diverse cultures, languages, and traditions; males and females in nontraditional roles; or “differently-abled children and adults demonstrating strengths and abilities” (WGBH, 2014, par. 1). Early childhood educators must learn how to give children the appropriate language to respectfully talk about differences. When teachers come to understand the importance of celebrating diversity, they will be better able to help their students recognize and reject bias against race, language, culture, gender, and abilities (WGBH, 2014).
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Chapter 11 of Transforming Multicultural Education Policy and Practice, written by Pedro Noguera and Esa Syeed, details the myriad of policies, ideologies, academic approaches, and individual actions that have built racialized structures within American culture and continues to ensure inequality in urban schools through race. They go on to call the reader to action; we, as educators, must actively strive for and demand anti-racist policy, (help to) create programs that recognize with race and trauma, sustain culture and community in our curricula, and be reflective of our practices and policies that lend us to serving the interest of dominant society (p. 307). Similarly, in Chapter 2 of Bettina Love’s text, Love outlines historical and contemporary
Here at this child care we strongly feel and are committed in encouraging children and families from all social class, religion, race and disability to achieve his/her full potential. We are very aware of just how important it is to share awareness of diversity and cultural experiences to help others become aware of
A classroom should be filled with a wide variety of languages, experiences, and cultural diversity. An effective teacher understands the importance of culturally responsive teaching, and recognizes the significance of including students ' cultural references in all aspects of learning. Having an enriching classroom that engages all students does not mean making judgments about a student’s culture based on their skin color, gender, or socioeconomic status, rather it means knowing each student in a way that is individualized. According to the authors of The First Day of School: How to be an Effective Teacher Harry Wong, race, gender, religion, financial statue, and skin color is the least important factor determining a student’s achievement. Moreover, demographics and culture are not an excuse for students’ lack of achievement.
In the book, Other People’s Children, author Lisa Delpit does and excellent job compiling her experiences as a black educator through various essays and responses. It is though these essays and responses that Delpit tries to educate the American educator on the diversities we see in the classroom. She makes it known throughout the book that we need to make sure all students receive the same educational opportunities regardless of cultural background, race, or ethnicity. One thing that really stood out to me in this book was that she suggests that we appreciate linguistic diversity in the classroom. Stating that some student’s don’t have access to the “politically popular dialect form” also known as “Standard English”, and these particular
Gary R. Howard’s “We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know” offers an insightful look into multicultural education and the ways in which white educators can, and should, consider the diversity within their classrooms as a necessary part of the learning process. Although an admittedly difficult topic, the author strives to help the reader understand the problem of diversity in our schools and the ways in which our approach to educating multiracial students can help or hinder students. This report seeks to provide an overall review of the book and a discussion of the positive and negative aspects of the opinions presented. Book Synopsis
In addition, it is critical that educators respect all identities regardless of their beliefs. Sparks and Edwards (2012) states that teachers should " pay close attention to the larger societal contexts as well as the individual family and life experiences that influence the racial identity and attitude development of each child we serve," (p.79). Educators should understand that cultural beliefs change and varies from person to person. However, racial and ethnicity does not
Diversity is key to helping students develop into understanding humans are all different and become more aware of the world and cultures around them. According to the article “The Importance of Diversity in Books”, Dilloway, an author of middle-school level texts, states how “it’s also important to read about other peoples experiences, and understand what it's like to walk around in their skin” (Prescott 1). Diversity in books exposes children to learn about people who might be different from them and step into someone else’s shoes. This helps them show the challenges and problems other people have that they might not face.
I am interested in diversity for my storybook. The theme “diversity” is important for children to live in diversity world. Diversity is better to learn as soon as possible from children because the rejection about differences is hard to change after the segregation is formed in mind. Most children are built the images about the different ethnicities by what they read, see and hear. Since people’s perspective is formed when they are little, how parents educate children is important.
2.2.5. Cultural diversity in Classroom: There are various cultural differences that teachers are likely to come across culturally diverse classrooms including Gender, Age, Cognition, Norms, beliefs, Primary language, Exceptionality, Cultural heritage, Socio-economic status, Opinions, ideas, Attitudes, Expectations, Behavioral styles, Geography, Learning styles, Communication Styles, Decision making styles, Ways of Communicating Non-verbally, Ways of Learning, Ways of Dealing with Conflict, Ways of Using Symbols and Approaches to completing tasks etc. According to Pratt-Johnson (2005), there are six basic cultural differences that teachers are likely to encounter in the culturally diverse classroom. Familiarity with these differences will begin
Tokenism occurs when cultural diversity and difference are not affirmed and embedded in everyday practices in the program (A. Kennedy, 2010, p 17). Therefore it is important to ensure that the educator understands the child’s culture as there is the potential to be more than one culture within a country, therefore it is important not to stereotype different cultures when addressing them. When discussing these cultures with children it is important to find similarities within the cultures, which will connect the children and ensure there is not any biases towards other cultures. Tokenism can be avoided through continuing to have a close relationship with families, to ensure where change within the family dynamic is occurring, continuing to undertake
To resolve these relating to segregation and educational inequity, educators must face racism upfront. Educators have to confront their own, sometimes unmindful, racism, and then move toward integration that will lead to a better cure of racism or at least a prejudice reduction. Important aspects of a multicultural curriculum include critical thinking, emotional intelligence instruction, character, moral education, peace education, service learning, antiviolence education, and the comprehensive of education etc. Sandra Parks, a successful educator, believes that by adapting the curriculum and by addressing expressions of racism, schools can help students improve to by understanding and dealing with other people, of peoples color and cultural differences. She believes that teachers have to show respect towards their students, their families, and their students' cultural backgrounds.
It is all about proud about families and themselves, justice, the knowledge that when human being together can make difference, voice out the rights and each of the child have equal opportunity. As the world now is dominant by different culture families. Thus, implication for implementing anti-bias education is a must. Regarding to the discussion above, it is clear that early childhood educators need more training opportunities, anti-bias knowledge and skills that meet the needs of early childhood education for anti-bias education.
The purpose of this essay is to identify how important it is to have a diverse classroom setting. Students from all over the world enter the 21st century classrooms bringing a little bit of home with them. It is crucial that teachers are aware of what is happening and educate themselves in how to reach a student. Children are similar but different at the same time. Students learn in many different ways like for example observing, listening, demonstration, speaking and etc.
Multicultural Education: Theory and Application For the purpose of this study, Multicultural Education as conceptualized by Banks (1984) and complimented by Campinha-Bacote’s Process of Cultural Competence in the Delivery of Healthcare, partially forms the theoretical framework. Banks identified the following five concepts as dimensions of multicultural education: Content Integration, Knowledge Construction, Equity Pedagogy, Prejudice Reduction, and an Empowering School Culture and Social Structure. According to Banks (1993), the many passionate debates on multicultural education generally obscured the theory, research, and growing consensus among multicultural education specialists about its nature, aims, and scope and a significant gap
The definition of multiculturalism is when you have cultural diversity within a society. Many people assume that having a multicultural society is a great thing, and in most ways it is. However, with a multicultural society, some problems will occur. In this essay I will debate whether or not a multicultural society is a good thing, and will be pointing out advantages and disadvantages.