The Background And Culture Of My Students Essay

As an educator today, there is information about my students that I need to know to be an effective teacher. It is important to me that I get to know the background and culture of my students. This information is going to help me prepare and better understand my students. Our classrooms today are very diverse with students of different nationalities, religions, ethnicity, and socio-economic backgrounds. To be at my best, I need as much information I can get from my students. Being able to observe a student that comes from a different culture, socio-economic background, and geographic region, as well as seeing how that student interacts in other classrooms and with peers, will better prepare me as an educator. It used to be that the largest immigrant population came from Europe, but since 1970, 75% of the immigrants coming to America come from Mexico, Latin America, and Asia (Laureate Education, 2009). Another interesting statistic, during the 2000/2001 school year, there were approximately 4.6 million students identified as English language learners (Reed, & Railsback, 2003). Since the 1989/1990 school year, the ELL population has exploded and increased approximately 110% (Reed, & Railsback, 2003). I observed a student that is an ELL student, and he is a senior in high school. For the purpose of this observation, I will call this student Juan. Juan was born in America, but soon left with his parents and moved to Mexico. Juan came back to the Fort Worth area around the age…