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Managing diversity in the classroom
Importance of managing diversity in school
How to implement diversity in the school curriculum
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Recommended: Managing diversity in the classroom
Principal Gibson provides an example of a school leader who due to his embracing of a colorblind perspective possesses all four lacks. The multiple lacks in responding to the unique needs of students of color are sustained and reinforced by his colorblind perspective. Gibson works at an outer-ring suburban elementary school that has less than 5% students of color. His articulation of identifiable characteristics of his school reveals something of his lack of experience in working with students of color. The purpose of this question was to determine how school leaders identify salient features of their school. The following is the response provided by principal Gibson to the question regarding identifiable characteristics of his school,
Identifiable
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We do have our gifted population. We have a very small group of students that are advanced—we advance them in math. So they’re taking math courses a year ahead of where their grade level is. And we have, of course, our identified tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 students. Tier 3 probably needs some work, but we do have some additional student that we give more intense and more often interventions to. But we have our [tier] groups that we work with at an identified time each day, and they’re made up mostly of our tier 1, tier 2 kids. But our tier 3 kids do go to special education teachers during tier time. Anything specific I’m missing there that you’d like to ask …show more content…
In addition, he ends by asking me if there are any groups that I desire to highlight. By all indications, a major focus for the response to intervention taken at principal Gibson’s school centers on supporting students receiving special education services. Principal Gibson also demonstrates both a lack of language for thinking and talking about race and thinking about race-conscious practices. Gibson’s lack of thinking about race-conscious practice is profoundly influenced by his acceptance of a colorblind perspective. Principal Gibson, when asked to provide a response to the value that black and Latino students bring to his school, replied,
I think every student brings value to your school, it doesn’t matter to me what race or color you are. I think—so I don’t really specifically think of individual students that way, in what value they bring. I think every single individual kid brings value. I mean, they bring a unique perspective, they bring their own home life culture. All of that, for every student, contributes to what makes a school community a school
E. D. Hirsch and Lisa Delpit are both theorist on teaching diverse students. Both of these theorist believe that when teaching diverse students, teachers need to see their students for who they are. Seeing your students for who they are, means you look past the color of your students’ skin and recognize their culture. According to Stubbs, when teachers look at their students equally, no matter the color of their skin, then the teacher is considered colorblind (2002). Being colorblind is not a great thing because we should not treat all of our students the same, since each student is different. It is important to see our students for who they are because our classes are unique. Instead, our classes represent a rainbow underclass. According to Li, the rainbow underclass is the representation of families who are culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged (2008). In order to meet these student’s needs, teachers need to think about the struggles that each student face.
Another school in the same district is located “in a former roller-skating rink” with a “lack of windows” an a scarcity of textbooks and counselors. The ratio of children to counselors is 930 to one. For 1,300 children, of which “90 percent [are] black and Hispanic” and “10 percent are Asian, white, or Middle Eastern”, the school only has 26 computers. Another school in the district, its principal relates, “‘was built to hold one thousand students’” but has “‘1,550.’” This school is also shockingly nonwhite where “’29 percent '” of students are “‘black [and] 70 percent [are]
In Schooltalk: Rethinking What We Say About - and to - Students Every Day, Mica Pollock provides readers with fact-based information to “flip the script” of the misrepresentation of students in the education setting. Pollock demonstrates how race, gender, and ethnic labels can be detrimental to student achievement. She, then, dives in to 600 years of myths regarding social race labels and how they continue to affect humans today. By correcting race, gender, and ethnicity label myths in our minds, we can effectively advocate for these students. To conclude the book, Pollock focuses on how to devise a plan to correct our own misconceptions and foster a supportive environment for diverse students. Throughout
There are eleven thousand children in public schools in Detroit. Out of those eleven thousand children, only twenty-six of them are white. Third graders wrote a paper to Kozel on what they think about their school day in and day out. The children wrote back how they have nothing. They don’t have a clean school or a clean place to study.
Courageous Conversations About Race: Chapter 5. Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom. The first step towards addressing the racial achievement gap begins with educators addressing their individual racial attitudes for, as the authors purport, “As we become personally aware of our own racialized existence, we can more deeply understand the racial experiences of others” (Singleton, Linton, 2006). In all honesty, I think Singleton and Linton hit the bull’s eye by suggesting that the first step towards initiating culturally relevant teaching is for the teacher to really examine his or her attitudes, values, and principles.
Special focus needs to be allotted to not only the kids struggling but the kids who are excelling. Learning is the sole purpose of school, and for advanced students who already mastered the classroom skills, they need an extra challenge so they are learning too. Gifted education is essential for fully developing and engaging precocious children. Lubinski said, “If you’re trying to solve problems in the world like climate change and terrorism and STEM innovation, and transportation and managing our health care, you want intellectually precocious youth who have had their intellectual needs
Over the semester I have done a great deal of listening, reading, reflecting, and a good bit of talking as well. I realized early on in this course that in order to look toward the future, I had to dig through the past. I began by examining myself and the looking into the history of the independent school movement. I examined my own feelings about race and privilege, the founding of Rocky Mount Academy (RMA), and spoke with Tony Shanks, RMA’s first Black student. I came to the conclusion that in order to shape the future of RMA, I must accept who I am, examine the history of the school, and proactively transform who we were into who we can become. I believe we should continue to strive to be the finest school in Rocky Mount by providing the best education to students regardless of race, religion, class, or economic status. Although I still have more to learn and more to do as an educator, I feel I have begun an important journey to help me be a part of a transformation at my school.
The students in the school are shied away and even denied opportunities for higher education by the teachers, “Many have been discouraged or prevented from pursuing academic or work goals” (Kivel 44). From not believing in the students to not wanting them to get further ahead in life, the teachers in this low budgeted, racist school are sacrificing the students future in the name of institutionalized racism. This causes the students to remain in the same social class for another generation, once again, starting the cycle of integrated racism in the schools and surrounding
Donovan, M. Suzanne and Christopher T. Cross (2002, August). Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/lib/drexel/-docDetail.action?docID=10032383.
Education has always been valued in the African American community. During slavery freed slaves and those held captive, organized to educate themselves. After emancipation the value of education became even more important to ex-slaves, as it was their emblem of freedom and a means to full participation in American Society (Newby & Tyack, 1971). During this time many schools for African Americans were both founded and maintained by African Americans. African Americans continued to provide education throughout their own communities well into the 1930’s (Green, McIntosh, Cook-Morales, & Robinson-Zanartu, 2005). The atmosphere of these schools resembled a family. The teachers along with principals extended the role of parenting and shaped student learning and discipline (Siddle-Walker, cited in Morris, 1999). African American Schools were embedded within the community and were viewed as good.
The exhaustion of the long commute to Monroe Elementary School everyday had upset me, the feeling of being powerless overcame my mentality. I constantly thought to myself about the all whites elementary school only seven blocks away, what made them so surprior? I, as a third grader, grew up to the discriminatory profiling. Of course it was nothing new, but I could not comprehend why. Recalling back to Monroe Elementary; the broken ceiling tiles, the wore down floors, and the cracked windows was not an ideal place for any education to take place. It had only proved to me that the segregation of white and black children made us African American students feel inferiority to the white American students.
The students in our classrooms, both special education and general education classrooms, require individualized education to reach their full potential. Each child’s potential is different just as each child’s road to reach it is different. Our job as teachers is to be there for the student’s to help them reach their potential through their own unique way.
Author unkown (2003, March 9). In gifted classrooms is diversity lacking?. Salisbury Daily Times. Retrieved March 10, 2003, from http://www.dailytimesonline.com/new/stories/20030309/localnews/1142640.html
The world was once made up of black and white nations. The color of one’s skin was an indication of where someone came from. This was most likely the scenario of the world, at the very least, a hundred years ago. Racism was rampant and very public throughout the world, but now racism is not as transparent especially in the United States. For this reason people must become more open and attuned to different attitudes held by individuals. One area where racism should be looked at is in classrooms. It is well documented that people have preferences or cognitive preferences without even realizing it. A teacher therefore, has extremely powerful ability to not only give certain children preferences but also treat students different with or without realizing it themselves. At an early age of six children of exposed to this and will likely in turn mimic these behaviors. Schools have rampant discrimination tendencies throughout The United States however this does not have to be the case there must be solutions for Teachers and students a like to become more aware of discriminatory actions and to at least limit these action by becoming aware of them.
Special education is universal, thanks to the efforts of IDEA and USDE. The exceptionalities are all present in districts no matter the size, culture, state, budgets or ideals. They exist as our best effort to ensure that all students in all places throughout the US educational system have a fair chance to be present in the free public education that we market. They represent a diversity of students that is challenging for leaders and classroom teacher to fully understand and sometimes accept