My class is diverse. It has little more girls than boys. There are whites, Asians, African Americans, Hispanics. If I had to put the groups in order from greatest to least in would be Hispanics, whites, African Americans, and then Asians. This is completely different from my school experience where there were only whites and one African American throughout my entire education. Infoworks shows that the entire school is just as diverse as the classroom, with 35% white, 33% Hispanic and 26% African American. As far as poverty I cannot tell. They all seem somewhere between middle to lower-middle class but this is by looks alone. Infoworks says that 68% of the entire school meet the requirements for free or reduced lunch which tells me to never judge a book by its cover. As far as special education goes, there is a special needs child in the class who has his own aid. The aid not only helps him but takes over looking after the class when the teacher has to leave. One of the children I tutor has opened my eyes to even more sociocultural diversity. The first day I met her she told me that she asked her dad a question and because he didn’t know the answer he promised her that they would look in the bible. I was taken back because religion is such a touchy subject with adults, that I was not use to it being an answer but for this girl it was, along with other students because if she felt comfortable talking to me about it she probably told her friends. She also informed me that she is bilingual and can speak Spanish better than any of her cousins which she was extremely proud of. Her mother is from a different country and her grandmother is trying to gain citizenship to America. The other student I tutor I have only seen once since I started volunteering over a month ago. This is unusual considering the attendance percent is 94. These students have the ability to be raised in a diverse environment which can help make them more understanding of other peoples’ cultures and traditions. The educational theorist John Dewey would agree that even though these students come from a multitude of different backgrounds a shared interest can bring them together in the learning processes. By them being together they will take everything that is good about their own individual groups and create a new group in the classroom that will harbor the good of each other based on the common interest that each group share. The problem is that the school environment is not interested in their individual lives, enough to try and integrate them. The teacher teaches. She does not have the time to hear stories about big brothers and silly cousins.
Students are on a tight schedule to complete as many academic activities as possible. There is a sense that if the class does not finish everything that day it was a failure. Talking even to help each other is forbidden and students are yelled at to the point that it becomes background noise. Its no one persons fault, the teacher is told what to teach by higher authorities. The curriculum does not take into account the diversity of the classroom and therefore the students do not know that there are differences between them and that those differences are important. However, the school’s test scores are higher than other schools like them so what would be the point of changing?
This is a Youtube clip of a dance crew that is a prime example of what a diverse group of people can do if they share just one common intrest. Enjoy!!
Hi Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your attention to the diversity of your classroom and your integration of Infoworks data. You connect this diversity to the theories of John Dewey. Your representation of his idea of democracy is close, but not entirely correct. Although he might have agreed that there is something good in all individuals, his point was a bit different: A society's strength is in proportion to their expanding common interests and their communication across differences. You are correct that the classroom in which you are tutoring has the potential to enact this Deweyan principle. Kudos for attempting to integrate Dewey :)
Keep thinking on these things,
Dr. August
During my son's parade of nations on Friday, I realized how diverse their school is. This is same for almost every school in America.
ReplyDeleteThese are children from immigrants parents all over the world bringing their own culture into the classroom and society.
Dewey argues that "In order to have a large number of values in common, all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity to receive and take from others. Are our teachers equipped for teaching in a diverse classroom? or it is too overwhelming for them with so many sculptural issues to deal with in the classroom. Do they take time to learn about the cultural background of their students.
This can also be connect to Delpit, we need to start the conversation about educating children from different cultures. There should be a conuseling for parents and teachers. Parents should be told what to expect in a different school culture and teachers should learn how to work with students, parents and the community. Delpit also said that if told the rules of the culture in power, you would be able to operate in that culture. Most parents are trying to learn a different language and also be operate to operate within the norms of society, learning a new culture.
Most parents are intimidated to approach their child's teacher, some because of language barrier and some because they are not educated enough to hold an academic conversation.
Unless the rules of the school system is change and the problems of diversity are been address, I'm afraid that the problems with inner cities schools are going to get worse.
Hearing about the diversity ratio in your classroom and seeing that it is different from mine makes me wonder what the other schools out there are like. My classroom had no white children. I don't know if location has something to do with this but I do believe that based off the description of the class that you started with, you could definitely relate this to Johnson. He states that minorities are becoming the majority. That seems to be true in my classroom. As for yours, it seems to be in the middle stage because the population of white students in your class is still pretty high even if the Latino's have taken over. I think it would be pretty interesting to run a survey to find out just where is the 'fire' starting in our 'house'?
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