Running head: Interpreting Diversity

Interpreting Diversity
EDU 290 40 - Exceptionalities Child and Adolescent
Jocelyn Parks
Wesleyan College

Interpreting Diversity

As a child I always wondered why everyone was so different. Why we looked different,
act different and talked different. When I asked my great aunt she would say if we all were the
same then there would be no history and we would never be able to learn what is right from
wrong. While growing older I realized that diversity is what made us who we are individually
and as a whole. In this essay I will discuss diversity, what it means to live in a diverse world and
how to teach and organize a diverse classroom.
As a child I was very outgoing and interested in meeting new people and making new
friends. I was an awesome conversation starter and did not distinguish my friends by race and
genders. During the summers I would attend a summer camp program called The Boys and Girls
Club and although I came from a big city it was still a city that had a big diversity split. In our
city we had two Boys and Girls Clubs one would be predominately black and the other was
predominately white. Although, I grew up in a house setting where I was taught the difference
between races and knowing what is right and wrong when it comes to races I never had a big
relationship with others out of my race. That was until I reached elementary school and I grasped
an interest in cheerleading.
I began to express the interest I had in wanting to be a cheerleader with my mom. I
remember my mom taking it into consideration and taking me to sign-up for the cheerleading
team. Even though I knew the difference between white and black and I was not against cheering
on a squad with those of different races it was just a new experience for me to be on a squad or in
a setting with more whites than blacks. It also was a new experience for me to be in a setting
where people were more hesitant to accept you no matter what you did or how much you opened
up to them. In the Introduction to Special Education-Making a Difference, Deborah Deutsch
Smith states, All education professionals should understand that ones orientation, or way of

Interpreting Diversity

thinking about differences, results indistinct responses to disabilities (Smith, 2007). Smiths
argument talks about differences which discusses how the way students may have been raised is
totally different from how we think as educators. Students may find it totally challenging to
relate to someone who has no experiences with what they have been through compared to
someone who knows exactly what it is to be in their predicament. That goes to say that educators
who are not educated on children with diverse backgrounds and abilities do not have the upper
hand when it comes to working with those individual children.
Rolling into my middle school days, those were the years where my diversity went
beyond just race, but gender, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. During my middle school
years, everyone from teachers to students were very open with who they were or what they
believed in. So, it was easy for the teachers to know how to handle it, but just because they knew
how to handle it does not mean that there were not altercations where everyone was lost and did
not know what direction to go in. For example, one of my close friends during middle school
name Nicholas Gatlin was a regular six grader like the rest of us, but by the time we reached
eighth grade he was a full blown gay and did not care who knew it.
He wore dresses, heels, makeup, and even wore wigs. Which to him and our friend circle
was okay, but to some teachers it was what they would called disturbing and brought forth
class room disturbances. Personally as a student living in a world now where being gay is
being openly announced and accepted I am grateful for that experience. Without it I feel like I
would not have been prepare for the new generations to come and I most definitely would not be
prepared to teach in the new generation.
The ability to understand racism entails not only acknowledgment of harm associated
with prejudice, but also recognition that some are privileged and others disadvantaged by

Interpreting Diversity

systematic racial inequality and institutional racism. The advantages and benefits afforded to
White people by virtue of their racial group membership are described as White privilege
(McIntosh, 1988), (Cole, Case, Rios, Curtin, 2011). This article was sculpted around diversity in
the classroom setting, the authors discussed white privilege in teachers and how their attitudes
and presentations affects students. Not only to those of other races, but whites as well. It stressed
how whites believe that they have the right away in everything that they are a part of. Not only is
it white privilege, but to me it is people privilege and with that attitude as a society we will never
be able to get ahead and grow together with one another. As a future educator I feel as though
that would be a learning barrier since a common classroom setting in this time has become very
diverse.
For example, when I was in the eleventh grade I witnessed my school go through a
semester without a fully certified ninth grade literature teacher until they could find the right one
that was willing to take on the diversity of the classroom and the differentiation of the learning
skills of the students. As a student helper I use to be big on helping teachers and doing study
hours within the front admissions office of my high school and one day the teacher walked in on
the phone and she made comments such as she is not sure if teaching a bunch of out of controlled
non-diverse children like these is really what she signed up for. Take note that I came from a
mostly black school so she was referring to those of color. She continued to teach for a couple of
days then she left she blamed it on health reason, but we all knew the truth. As a future educator I
feel as though situations like those are what we are trained to be prepared for because there will
be some situations in life where we may get a classroom filled with one race, different beliefs or
abilities, but that should not matter when it comes to educating the students. Our goals as
teachers or anyone who has a career in relation to the education of students and impacting their

Interpreting Diversity

futures should be to educate them so that they are academically successful and on a road trip to a
brighter future.
When I think of that situation I think of the Ruby Bridges story. It was the life of a young
black girl who got the chance to be the first black girl to integrate an all-white faculty, staff and
student body elementary school. During her times at the school she was secluded and separated
from the other white students, but there was one brave Caucasian female teacher who took on the
task to educate her when no other teacher would educate her or allow her in their classroom
because she was black. Although, the teachers were wrong for their actions I dont fully blame
them because they were uneducated. They lacked experience on how to approach a student such
as Ruby so of course they would not know how to teach a student such as Ruby.
This also, reflects on the historical Supreme Court case Brown vs. B.O.E. on May 17,
1954. This was a case that highlighted Separate but equal public schools for blacks and whites
were unconstitutional. This supports the Ruby Bridges historical impact and my experience
because if the court believed that to separate students of different race and culture
unconstitutional, then for a teacher to disapprove or deny the education of one because of their
skin color or their differences compared to others shall be unconstitutional as well.
In their article Cynthia Cole Robinson and Pauline Clardy discussed the importance of
teachers being able to work with students of diverse backgrounds and how it can affect the child
negatively if the teacher is not prepared to deal with several types of diversity. This chasm
between the diversity of teaching force and student population is of concern as many teachers
report that they do not have cultural knowledge and experience of working or living in a diverse
environment(Robinson, Clardy, 2011). Granted it is hard to learn and fully understand
situations, cultures and experiences you have not been presented with, but if you do not try to

Interpreting Diversity

understand or relate you will never know what you can fully obtain and understand. If you never
try then how can you expect to succeed?
What is diversity in the classroom? Although, diversity is racial and gender based. It is
not only that. Diversity in a classroom contains race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity,
religious backgrounds, learning abilities, learning disabilities, and physical limitations. During
my middle school years I got the opportunity to work with my seventh grade language arts
teachers son as a tutor who had sever autism and was a Jehovah Witness as well. At the age I
was I was not as knowledge as I should have been about either of those things, but that did not
affect my performance with him nor did it affect or changed my decision to work with him. It
only made me curious and want to learn more and so I did I conducted research on autism and
Jehovah Witnesses and I felt more comfortable with working with him. Of course some days
wouldnt go as planned and he would have fits, but as a young child I felt as though I was more
prepared to handle the situation then some teachers would have been. Inherent diversity
involves traits you are born with, such as gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Acquired
diversity involves traits you gain from experience. (Hewlett, Marshall, Sherbin, 2013). Those
ladies made a very interesting point that I felt should be acknowledge.
To conclude, the biggest and most effective way I feel to deal with diversity is to find
ways to implement it in the classroom settings. Greater engagement with diverse peers in the
classroom in turn was related to greater intellectual ability, social ability, and civic interest; this
relationship was especially salient for students of color. However, previous studies were educed
specifically from structural diversity within the classroom, curricular content, engagement with
diverse peers in the classroom, or a more complex relationship between these factors. (Haslerig
et al, 2013). After writing this paper and conducting research I feel that in order to have a

Interpreting Diversity

successful classroom every educator, future educator or anyone in the position that works with
children should be prepared to be faced with diversity. Haslerig and many other authors
presented positive methods of how relationships with students should be arranged and if we as
educators take approaches like that we will not only help the world now, but we will prepare our
students and children for a more successful future.

Interpreting Diversity

Works Cited
Allen, Bernhard, Daye, Fuentes, Haslerig. (2013). A compelling interest: Activating the
benefits of classroom-level diversity. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, vol. 6. 158-173.
Brown v. Board of Education. (n.d.). Retrieved March 31, 2015, from
http://www.civilrights.org/education/brown/

Case, Cole, Curtin, Rios, (2011). Understanding what students bring to the classroom:
Moderators of the effects of diversity courses on student attitudes. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic
Minority Psychology, 17(4), 397-405.
Clardy, Pauline. Robinson, Cynthia Cole. (2011). IT AIN'T WHAT YOU SAY, IT'S HOW
YOU SAY IT: LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM. Journal
of Cultural Diversity.
Deutsch Smith, D. (2007). Introduction to Special Education Making A Diference (6th
ed., p. 7). Pearson Education, Inc.
Hewlett, Marshal, Sherbin, (2013). How Diversity Can Drive Innovation. Harvard
Business Review, 91(12), 30-30.
Ruby Bridges. (2015). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 09:37, Mar 30, 2015