Cultural Diversity
...ectations, attitudes, skills and knowledge. Parents are the child’s first teachers where most of the behaviors are taught at home and in the environment in which the child has lived. Children look to their parents for examples of how to relate to people who are different from them. Many children adapt successfully to school environments; however, there are those who struggle with difficult circumstances such as acceptability and language barriers. Children whose language or culture backgrounds differ from those found in most American schools will feel accepted only to the degree that their classroom experiences are compatible with their home culture and language, hence a partnership with school and home is essential. For the elementary child, recognition and respect of the different cultures is a beginning point for teachers and parents. It could be a connector of the teacher to the student, the parent to the teacher and the students to each other The first challenge of the classroom teacher should be to develop an understanding of the different cultures. Teachers should understand and appreciate human diversity. Educators who recognize and respect their students’ ethnic and cultural identities will discover there can be multiple perspectives, unbiased opinions, and mutual respect in the classroom. Students must feel that their ethnic and cultural identity is valued. By exposing students to knowledge about cultural diversity and what each group has contributed to society, teachers may change negative stereotypes, find tolerance and enhance cooperation in the classroom. It is important for early childhood teachers to acknowledge that everyone has a culture, not just those who appear to be different. Children, just as the educators, who are taught to appreciate and understand their own culture learn to understand others' cultures in the process. During the busing period, teachers were forced to teach in a different cultural where they were not trained as to how to relate to the diversity. The teachers’ lack of knowledge dealing with diversity led to unrealistic practices. Confusing development with specific cultural accomplishments led to a misunderstanding of children’s abilities, resulting in poorly designed educational programs and practices. Unfortunately, in schools, behaviors characteristic of middle-class white children have been seen as the only valid representation of competence—the standard or universal principle by which all children are judged. Overlooking the different developments that are sufficient and normal in different cultures, in a sense undermines the very characteristics a culture. Consequently, children from poor and minority families have been judged to be inadequate because they do not already know or easily adapt to the school curriculum. Inadequate communication, inaccurate assessment, along with inappropriate education has been inevitable results, with poor and minority children being labeled as slow or delayed, with dysfunctional families. This stereotypical label is because these children have different resources, lifestyles and belief systems; however, children deserve the maximum quality of education that can only take place in the most diverse classroom. This brings on a great challenge for the classroom teacher. Teachers are a lot of times confronted with classrooms of children they feel ill-prepared to teach. Perhaps there should be a teachers’ education policy in the school system that will include training teachers in ways that will help them obtain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to work effectively with students from diverse racial, ethnic, and social backgrounds. Schools have a long way to go in preparing educators to teach in a diverse environment. Many studies and reviews have been conducted finding that some elements provide the framework for “Educating Teachers for Diversity”: 1. Develop a clearer sense of the teachers’ own ethnic and cultural identities. 2. Examine the teachers’ attitudes toward other ethnocultural groups. 3. Learn the dynamics of privilege and economic oppression and about school practices that contribute to the breeding of societal disparities. 4. Address the histories and contributions of various ethnocultural groups. 5. Provide information about the characteristics and learning styles of various groups and individuals. 6. Awareness to sociocultural research knowledge about the relationships among language, cultural and learning. 7. Learn various procedures by which they can gain information about communities represented in their classroom. 8. Learn how to assess the relationships between the methods they use in the classroom and the preferred learning and int...