Running head: DIVERSITY

Diversity
Kiara Walker
College of DuPage

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Imagine if someone was in a classroom full of people who looked nothing like them.
Everyone else looked the same but that one person. That one person may feel like they arent
accepted and feel out of place. The other children may pick on them because they look different.
Its important for everyone to feel equal in the classroom and in life. There are many topics that
go along with diversity. Many people are affected by it and its still involved in the world today.
Its been around for a while and it probably always will be. Diversity is where there are different
kinds of things, like a variety of things. An example of this is like people of different race,
religion, gender, culture, etc. Also it can be things like objects too; it just means a variety of
different things. Its also important for people to know that its okay for a place to be diverse.
Not everyone has to look alike or act alike. Everyone needs to be their own person and accept
who they are, not for anybody else, but for themselves.
Religion, gender, and race were always a big part of diversity. Prior to the Civil War,
Black Codes were enacted, predominantly in the South, prohibiting the education of slaves,
(Powell, 2015). Back in the 1800s that felt like if slaves got an education then the slaves would
feel like they were equal and just as important as the Caucasians. They eventually created
separate but equal schools. This is where African-Americans went to one school and Caucasians
went to another school. They werent allowed in the same schools but they were at least able to
get an education. Even though African-Americans were allowed to go to school, they still didnt
get as good of an education as a Caucasian person would. Later on around the 1950s there was
a case called the Brown v. Board of Education. This was a case about getting schools to
desegregate from being separate but equal. They wanted African-Americans and Caucasian
students to be able to go to the same school so that everyone could get an equal education. After
this more acts became active for diversity in education. Those acts were Vocational Education

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Act of 1963, Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. The Civil
Rights Act was a very important Act. The reason for this is because If schools discriminated
based on their race, color, or national origin, they would not be eligible for federal funding,
(Powell, 2015). This is a good thing because it forces people to come together. Then when
people come together they may end up liking one another. Once people got use to seeing people
of different culture they end up accepting each other.
The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 was also very important. The BEA of 1968
validated childrens native language and provided funds to assist non-English speaking students,
who were dropping out of high school at a rate about 70%, (Powell, 2015). This is very
important because this helped a lot of non-English speaking students make it through school. Its
still around today because in many High Schools there are a lot of students who come from out
of the country and need help with their English. They are able to get help from teachers that
work with them but they are also still involved with other people of different cultures. Even after
that more acts came into play with helping people to not get discriminated against in education.
Those acts were Title XI of the Education Amendments Acts and the Education for All
Handicapped Children Act. Title XI of the Education Amendments Acts, which prohibited
sexual discrimination in any education program receiving federal funding, took effect in 1972,
(Powell,2015). In 1975, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act passed. These two acts
were very important because it helped out people who were discriminated against because of
something other than their race or religion. Sometimes people forget about how theres more
than race and religion discrimination. Its all kinds of discrimination that still affects us today.
When it comes to diversity, children dont know much about it. It is important to make
sure the students understands diversity and what it is. Teachers today are trying to incorporate

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diversity into their everyday class. With the growing cultural diversity of the world, the K-12
classroom has become a critical launching pad for understanding cultural differences. Education
about cultural differences begins with the teacher, (Jones, 2009). More and more cultures are
being introduced into America and some people dont know how to react to this. Dr. Stephen
Jones talks about how teachers can help their students understand diversity. For example, Instead
of taking traditional field trips to places like museums, the teacher would take the students to
different communities. Jones talks about how the local residents could talk to the students about
their culture and then the students would compare their cultures with the local resident, (Jones,
2009). This could be a good thing for the students because they could learn many different things
about peoples culture and they wont be so bias when they meet new people who may look
different from them. Another good idea for helping students understand diversity is learning
about their own cultures themselves. When children are young, they dont really think about
what they are. All they really see is what they look like and if someone looks different than them.
This can teach them to learn about themselves and that its okay to be different.
A primary goal of culturally responsive education is to help all students become
respectful of the multitudes of cultures and people that theyll interact with once they exit the
educational settings, (Lynch, 2012). There are many things that teachers can do to remind their
students every day that all these different cultures in America is okay and a good thing. For
example, the teacher can have photos of people of different ethnicities, shapes, and sizes. This
gives the student an opportunity to see people that look different from themselves and their
family engage in the same activities as they do, (Lynch, 2012). This gets the students excited and
makes them want to learn more and more about different cultures. Theyll want to tell their
family what they learned in school and would like to meet people of different cultures. Minority

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students can sometimes feel pressured to dispose of their cultural norms, behaviors, and
traditions in order to fit in with the prevalent social order, (Lynch, 2012). Many minorities
know this oh too well. When a minority doesnt have a lot of people like them around them they
tend to try to be like everyone else. They dont want to feel alone, they just want to be accepted.
This is why diversity is important in schools because if a school isnt that diverse, someone is
going to feel left out and not comfortable. Also people wont learn a lot about other cultures.
Theyll only know what is in front of them and theyll think that is the only culture that is
acceptable.
The people who are mostly affected by diversity in the classroom are the students.
Sometimes the student can feel like their teacher feels a certain way towards them because of
their race. A survey was constructed to measure fourth-grade students attitudes and perceptions
of their teachers concerning fairness concern/care for students, understanding, treatment,
classroom management, individual attention and motivation, (Burts, Ortlieb & Cheek, 2013).
There were four different teachers and each student was placed in the class based on their
reading schools. Some of the questions on the survey asked how did they feel their teacher feels
about them, how they thought their reading skills were, etc. Depending on the class, a lot of the
students felt like their teacher liked them. They felt like the teachers respected them and didnt
think of them any differently. Caucasian teachers often bring with them negative stereotypes of
African-American children, especially males, which often leads to over representation of
African-American students in special education classes and overall lower achievement for
African-American students, (Burts, Ortlieb & Chee, 2013). This would make the students not
like their students. Its not all teachers but some teachers need to change the way they judge their
students before they even know them. Its wrong because the teacher may never know how much

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potential that student might have and they might end up being a greater person than they would
think. Thats why some teachers should do a get to know their students game so they wont judge
them. Instead, teachers need to value differences and not try to assimilate differences into the
dominant culture, (Burts, Ortlieb & Cheek, 2013).
An example of an interactive activity and a teaching technique is that students followed
the reading a multicultural storybook with related hands-on activity such as an art project or a
role-play, (Wright, Calabrese & Henry, 2009). A group of college students went to an urban
school to read a book to them and to get to know them. When this was first constructed they did
a survey to see if the students would ever consider teaching in urban schools. At first almost all
of the students didnt consider teaching at an urban school but after the experience, half of them
changed their answer. Some of them liked learning about how to teach students they arent use to
teaching. This is a good thing for people to do because it gets rid of all of the stereotypes of
teaching at urban schools. People never know how it is to teach certain people until they do it.
The college students felt like the children need a friendlier atmosphere in their classrooms. They
said that the teachers had attitudes and it wasnt good for the students. This was important for the
college students to see because maybe they would want to change that. They could come back
when they become teachers and make a difference. Its important for college students who want
to become teachers to care about their students. They need to make sure their students can get the
type of education that they were able to get. Students gained experience working with diverse
populations while service and learning came together to promote cura personalis, one storybook
at a time, (Wright, Calabrese & Henry, 2009). Its good that they got to experience working in a
diverse community because they got to see what its like and could actually learn from it.

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The nation has not yet committed itself to changing k-12 education in a way that would
put more studentsfrom every population and sector of societyon the path to high levels of
talent, (Olszewski-Kubilius & Clarenbach, 2014). In this quote they were saying that the world
isnt willing to make everyone successful in life. They want the teachers to teach the students in
a way where they would want to do well in school and actually learn what they are good at
because everyone is good at something. Something is obviously wrong when students with the
ability to achieve at high levels fail to reach those goals, or when high-achieving students lose
ground while in school, (Olszewski-Kubilius & Clarenbach, 2014). They gave an example of a
study where they found that African-American students who were initially high-achieving
students fall behind the Caucasian students between kindergarten and fifth grade. They also say
that they fall behind twice as fast as the initially low-achieving students do. This can be fixed if
schools offered more classes that need to be taught, especially in high school. That way they can
be prepared for college. For example, while 55% of high schools offer calculus, only 29% of
high schools with the highest enrollment of African-American and Hispanic students offer this
course, (Olszewski-Kubilius & Clarenbach, 2014). This isnt fair to the students because since
that class is not offered they dont really get to learn what they need to learn and will end up
taking remedial classes. If they offered those classes and made the students take the class instead
of making it not required, theyll have a better chance at doing good because theyll know they
need to pass the class to graduate. This would push them to do better and it would actually make
them feel better. If a school doesnt even offer the class to their students, the most likely will fall
behind when they go further in their education.
Diversity has been around for years and it probably always will be. Diversity is important
because if everyone comes together, the world would be a better place. People of different

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shapes, sizes, race, culture, gender, etc would feel welcomed and would enjoy being in school.
When it comes to diversity, people need to know that its okay to be different. In the past, slaves
were treated like they were nothing and not important. They couldnt even get a real education
because Caucasian people wouldnt let them. This impacted our world greatly today because no
one wants to be treated how slaves were treated in the past. A lot of schools are diverse now and
thats a good thing. People need to know about other peoples culture so they wont end up
discriminating against someone. Schools should learn more about diversity and know about how
it started and how important it is.

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References

Burt, J., Ortlieb, E. T., & Cheek, E. R. (2013). An investigation of the impact of racially diverse
teachers on the reading skills of fourth-grade students in a one race school. Reading
Improvement, 50(4), 205-216. Retrieved from
https://cod.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d
b=eric&AN=EJ1023303&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Jones, S. (2009). Incorporating cultural diversity in the classroom. Teachers of Color. Retrieved
from http://www.teachersofcolor.com/2009/04/incorporating-cultural-diversity-in-theclassroom/
Lynch, M. (2012). Promoting respect for cultural diversity in the classroom. Huffington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-lynch-edd/promoting-respectfor-cul_b_1187683.html
Olszewski-Kubilius, P., & Clarenbach, J. (2014). Closing the opportunity gap: program factors
contributing to academic success in culturally different youth. Gifted Child Today, 37(2),
103-110. Retrieved from
https://cod.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d
b=eric&AN=EJ1020999&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Powell, S.D. (2015). Your Introduction to Education: Explorations in Teaching. (3rd ed.). New
Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Wright, A., Calabrese, N., & Henry, J. (2009). How service and learning came together to
promote "curapersonalis". International Journal Of Teaching And Learning In Higher
Education, 20(2), 274-283. Retrieved from

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