Diversity in the classroom

I feel that getting to know your students as individuals and knowing their backgrounds is an extremely important tool for teachers to use which can help you reach your students and keep them interested in literacy. From the readings last week, “Putting Literacy In Context” we saw the importance in an urban setting particularly the importance in understanding where the students were coming from. For example, that piece discussed how from 8am to 3pm the students were actually children, but then from 3pm on they were adults taking care of their younger siblings, or how some of the children only got the one meal provided at school per day. You never know what kind of individual experiences your children bring to the table and those experiences influences the way they interpret different readings and activities. Many students may not understand the concept that was exhibited in the Delpit reading that fair does not mean equal and they may have to be shown that, however without getting to know the students individually it would be impossible to realize this or how to go about teaching the concept. As a future teacher I think that literacy can be used as a vehicle to getting to know your students’ diversity through the use of journaling. I think that students love to write about themselves and providing the students with a journal to write a memoir of their own lives can open the doors up to many different opportunities for the students to tell the teacher their stories. My MT also at the beginning of the year sends home a questionnaire for parents to fill out which asks personal questions for example, who does the child live with, what are the occupations of the guardians are, what does the child think about school, what activities outside of school are they involved in. I feel that this is an excellent way to get to know students and a good starting point to begin building off of. Also, during our Math section we discussed getting to know our students, and Faith discussed a book called, “Dream Keepers,” where the teacher each week would select three or four students to come in and have lunch with her where she would set up a table cloth and sit with the kids and talk about anything other than school. This would be a great way to get to know the diversity of the students.

            Learning the diversity of my students will be extremely important, because what they bring to the table affects their reading and learning. It is important to include students’ backgrounds in literature that reflect them correctly. Never being seen in literature could have a huge impact on a student growing up. Also, in the Alamasi reading it talked about how a student’s different views and experiences impact that student’s personal interpretation of the story. As a teacher it is important to be able to recognize that impact and understand it.

            I am placed in a homogeneous kindergarten classroom, however all of my students are very different and are being raised differently. I would not be able to do the journaling with my students, but I can talk one on one with each student over the next couple of weeks to further get to know my students’ lives outside of the classroom to help me see how that impacts their learning in the classroom. This will provide me with valuable information about how their diverse perspectives affect the way they perceive the stories they hear, and interpretations.