Do they get along with their peers? Part of supporting diversity in the classroom is creating a safe space for students and educators to talk about how issues of discrimination affect them on a personal, classroom- and school-wide level. The more diversity is a topic of discussion in your school, the less students and teachers will hesitate to address it.
Fair does not equal the same — fair means making sure that every student has what he or she needs to succeed both personally and academically. When you lead the conversation and follow through with action, you signal that discrimination will not be tolerated in your school.
Communicate your goals for diversity in the classroom to families. Ask if they have any questions or concerns, and then listen. Invite them to identify areas in the curriculum or in the school culture that they feel could benefit from more of a focus on diversity. Reach out to leaders in the community that can offer different perspectives, either as experts in their field, professionals, community workers or activists. Consider asking teachers to develop service learning projects that connect classroom learning with community initiatives.
When your students meet members of their community, they get to see examples of people from different backgrounds succeeding in their field and might be inspired to think differently about their own future. Some suggestions for making sure the classroom stays accessible and equitable:. The vast majority of teachers in the United States are white and female.
According to federal data , As a contrast, 47 percent of students are white, while 16 percent are black. In a study from the Learning Policy Institute , researchers found that having teachers of color increased the academic performance of students of color. As a school leader, you can directly impact the diversity of your faculty through hiring and recruitment efforts.
Some of the suggestions from the study for hiring a more diverse faculty include:. At the same time, work to challenge your biases and assumptions about what makes a candidate qualified. A staff that reflects diversity in the classroom will expose your students to different ideas and teaching styles, and make them stronger as a result. Your teachers will probably take on the bulk of the day-to-day efforts to promote diversity in the classroom. Offer professional development resources to help them effectively respond to challenges and opportunities.
At Blackstone Valley Prep in Rhode Island , teachers go through specific professional development sessions that illustrate how structural inequalities are present in classroom dynamics, and learn to elevate student voices above their own. This is especially important considering their student body has a great deal of economic diversity and aims to give at least half of its opening to students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. With professional development, teachers in that school are better equipped to address challenges and confront biases in themselves and in their students.
Diversity expresses itself in so many different ways, so it can be daunting to try and start conversations around bringing it to the classroom. The good news? Make multicultural messages a part of your regular themes and classroom practices all year long. For example, instead of inviting diverse families to share favorite traditions with the class once a year in the winter, embed these cultural experiences and conversations regularly throughout the school year.
During class discussions, point out how wonderful it is to have so many children in the class with similarities and differences, and how differences make each of us unique and special. Proudly displaying similarities and differences is an excellent way to teach students to value diversity.
Begin by talking with your class about how important it is to help other people feel good about themselves. Emphasize how scary it can be to feel like you are different from other people, and how brave it is to share things that are unique about yourself or your family.
Then provide your students with an opportunity to share interesting facts about themselves, their families, and their passions and talents. From the very beginning of their life, they are learning about their culture and the world around them from you and the other family caregivers in the child's life. Below is a resource for families on how to support young children's social and cultural development! From the earliest beginnings of a child's life, they are experiencing and learning about their culture and the world around them!
The following are three developmental characteristics of why starting in early childhood to provide culturally responsive and anti-bias education experiences for young children is critical to creating a more just and inclusive society for all:. Start with Us!
For instance, Clare realised one of her key children, Charlie, was very keen on exploring his vertical schema and currently obsessed with building towers. She deliberately wondered out loud how many bricks tall Charlie might be and helped him to find out. Charlie then wanted to compare his height with that of his friend and Clare supported them both in making the comparison. Charlie sustained his interest in heights for more than a week during which time he moved on from using bricks as an arbitrary measurement to using centimetres and measuring sticks to make a height chart for the nursery wall.
Open ended activities such as resources for heuristic play are particularly good for enabling children to pursue their own concerns and schemas. Because there is no right or wrong way to play with them children are free to explore and follow through their ideas.
The simplest of materials can enable this to happen — for instance Jim collected several carrier bags of conkers in the autumn and took them into nursery where he emptied them out on a large blanket and waited to see what would happen. It also enabled Jim to plan further opportunities for the children that he knew would be meaningful to them. The diversity children bring to their settings is another way in which their individuality should be acknowledged.
Viewed positively this provides richness of experience which benefits everyone, but sometimes a child who diverges from typical patterns of development may be seen as a problem and cause of concern. It is important that early years practitioners have in depth knowledge of child development and the stages which young children are likely to go through but too much fixation on stages of development is not helpful. Development is broad, variable and frequently unpredictable.
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