Diversity In Lit
Hello all and welcome back to my blog!
For this blog I will be speaking on the subject of Diversity in schools/ literacy.
My experiences
In our small town we do not hold very many different cultures and it is a predominently white town. Because I grew up with mostly Cuacasion and African Americans it is hard for me to say if my school discriminated other cultures. In my classrooms as a child I do not remember reading very many diverse books we did however go over Black History month activist. I would say that working in a school now days Black history month is not nearly as celebrated as it was when I was little. In 2019-2020 I worked at the school I graduated from and as expected most of the students were caucasion, latino, and african american. We did how ever have students from the middle east and other students were not as receptive towards them because of how reserved they were. I consulted my boyfriend about his experience because we are from the same town and he responded by "the only culture expression for him was during black history month". I use to work at a daycare and before I worked there I did not realize how important it was for there to be large diversity selection in our library.
As an Educator
Being someone who has been in a very long relationship with someone not from my own culture I have realized just how important diversity is in the classroom. For me a culturally responsive educator is someone who does not expect every students to follow the same social rules, holidays or stories, and being inclusive to all ethnic backgrounds. In todays society I expected classrooms to be more diverse in their content. I work in a first grade classroom and every now and then we have a diverse book to read but for the most part it is not as diverse as it should be. Classrooms are very mainstream when it comes to holidays as well because teachers do not include everyones culture in the classroom. As a teacher I would want to celebrate cultures around the world, not just what we see in the classroom becuase students need to learn at an early age to be culturally sensitive.
thank you for reading! I hope this message finds you well and until next time!
Katy,
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting the culture of your school had compared to the one I went to. My was almost an even split between most races, with the smallest being middle eastern. I love how you plan to address different cultures in your classroom, especially holidays which I think get overlooked.
Katy,
ReplyDeleteI have always enjoyed reading about other people's experiences when it comes to diversity during their early school years. I actually visited The Rio Grande Valley, Texas and I was amazed at the lack of diversity there is, the majority of the population being hispanic. Being exposed to different cultures is super beneficial in my opinion, specially for those wanting to become teachers!