Like Maya Angelou, I firmly believe that “It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” While Angelou was not only talking about diversity in the classroom, this quote aligns well with my beliefs about diversity in the classroom. I believe that as a teacher, I must do as much as possible to help the increasingly diverse learners in my classroom be successful. I believe that diversity isn’t an “issue” to be handled in the classroom, but an incredible learning opportunity. Because of this belief, I interpret Angelou’s quote as saying it is a teacher’s responsibility in the classroom to teach students that diversity is truly a strength and should be used to its fullest potential,
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I believe that diversity is a learning opportunity and an asset for all students. For example, in my Instructional Design and Assessment practicum many students were bilingual, meaning that they spoke both English and Spanish. It was incredibly valuable for those bilingual students to be able to talk to each other and explain their thinking in their native language first before sharing with the class in English. During my student teaching experience, students came from many different familial, educational, and cultural backgrounds. Students benefited from sharing their differing perspectives with one another to gain a deeper understanding of the diverse world around them. For example in my student teaching experience we were reading aloud a book that included a parent going back to school at night. One student connected to this experience and shared her ideas and memories about when her mother was going to college at night. Diversity could also be found in interpretation of activities in my student teaching experience. The first graders benefited from hearing different perspectives on things like math problems and reading passages because it showed that there was no one right answer or way to learn. It is my personal goal to show students that there is no one right perspective or way of finding an answer in my classroom and to help students see the incredible value in their own as well as their classmates’
I believe that diversity is a learning opportunity and an asset for all students. For example, in my Instructional Design and Assessment practicum many students were bilingual, meaning that they spoke both English and Spanish. It was incredibly valuable for those bilingual students to be able to talk to each other and explain their thinking in their native language first before sharing with the class in English. During my student teaching experience, students came from many different familial, educational, and cultural backgrounds. Students benefited from sharing their differing perspectives with one another to gain a deeper understanding of the diverse world around them. For example in my student teaching experience we were reading aloud a book that included a parent going back to school at night. One student connected to this experience and shared her ideas and memories about when her mother was going to college at night. Diversity could also be found in interpretation of activities in my student teaching experience. The first graders benefited from hearing different perspectives on things like math problems and reading passages because it showed that there was no one right answer or way to learn. It is my personal goal to show students that there is no one right perspective or way of finding an answer in my classroom and to help students see the incredible value in their own as well as their classmates’