Discovering diversity takes creativity, extra effort, diligence, and courage on the teacher's end. As an educator, it is very essential to have within their portfolio information that will analyze how one will use each students differences as a foundation for growth and development. Teachers in multicultural classrooms must be open to their students and put forth the effort needed to get to know their students inside and outside of class.
When teachers are teaching in diverse classrooms, they should implement culturally sensitive instruction by using varied communication strategies, cooperative learning, and by understanding the different learning styles that match multiethnic and cultural cognitive styles. By incorporating different strategies into their lesson plans, teachers can teach and work with culturally diverse classes with ease. By creating a culturally sensitive environment within a classroom teachers open the door for a variety of opportunities for their students and themselves, they include:
1. learning about one's own culture,
2. learning about other cultures,
3. learning to appreciate other cultures, and
4. learning to interact with other cultures.
The first goal in maintaining a multicultural environment is to assist children into examine the differences as well as similarities, among all people. Allowing young minds to explore various cultures creates opportunities for them to see that that although people have different customs and traditions, they all are the same in some way. Children will learn that people are different and unique, yet still have a lot in common. Such realizations help young children learn to accept differences and aid in eliminating prejudice and racism, These realizations assist children with accepting and respecting people from all different walks of life.
The second goal is to encourage cooperative social skills, As children begin to accept differences and similarities among people, they will start getting comfortable working and getting along with others better. They will begin to see other's viewpoints and individuality. The multicultural classroom assists children from minority cultures in developing cooperation and social skills in a setting that may be unfamiliar to them. They feel good about themselves as other children recognize the worth of their traditions and customs. The plan is to create a culturally sensitive environment that will build the self-confidence of its children by integrating the cultures of all the children into learning experiences.
What I plan to accomplish in creating a multicultural climate is to take the time to learn the backgrounds if each student, as well educating myself on there beliefs, values, and customs. By maintaining knowledge of each student will help me to incorporate their cultures into learning experiences. This will encourage children to ask questions that will help them understand each others background. As a teacher, I want to implement a culturally diverse classroom environment which will provide an attitude of acceptance and respect for other cultures. Helping children to compare, contrast, and learn about a number of cultures without making judgements will lead them towards accepting others for who they are and what they practice,
As I reconstruct a way to make the classrooms culturally sensitive I will begin to use different strategies to enhance sensitivity to different cultures, I will treat my students as a special, unique and by letting them know they are recognized by teaching them about there own cultures as well as open them up to other cultures of the world.
The first strategy is to exchange information with parents about race, language, and culture. Orientation will be an open doors between myself and the students parents, it can help me to set a foundation for being more open as well as discussing sensitive topics, which includes race and culture.
I will begin to ask the parents question like:
How would
