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Nathaniel Lockard

Prof Althauser

EMS 300W

December 9, 2019

Diversity in the Classroom.

I am bringing forth a proposal to the SBDM council at Grabthar High School located in

Central Kentucky. The student population is 81.3% white with 4.8% of the whole school being

biracial. With the school only being 18.7% students of color, it is hard for them to be placed in

classrooms with other students of color. This low population of students of color is not supported

through the schools displays in both the classrooms and in the texts that are in their programs.

The program I want to focus on is the Sophomore pre-AP English course which had very little

literature that supported students of color. Because of this, the SBDM council should act in

implementing more diversity in the classroom, especially in the AP program.

In the classroom that I had observed there were zero pieces of literature on the class

syllabus that were authored by people of color. The literature included Frankenstein and Lord of

the Flies but again not a single piece was authored by a person of color or any sort of

intersectional group. Therefore, I propose an inclusion of these texts because it helps students

that may not have a large minority population in their school, like Grabthar High School. In a

study by the United Kingdom Literacy Association they talked about how a “students’ intrinsic

motivation in reading can be nurtured by a rich literary environment, with sufficient

opportunities to interact with different types of reading materials in meaningful and interesting
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ways” (Ho & Lau 659). For these reading materials to be relevant to the students it is necessary

to give them a variety of diverse books for them to read.

So, the lack of inclusion of literature from diverse authors is at a detriment to the students

learning. In Sidney Li’s study titled “Advancing Multicultural Education: New Historicism in the

High School English Classroom” she makes it clear that even if classes in history or social

studies are talking about multicultural stories it is definitely not enough, and history classes

cannot tack on more information on some cultures experiences stating that “the examination of

the literature/English classroom as a parallel space for multicultural discourse could be fruitful

for the future of American education” (Li 19-20). All of this can be beneficial to the students but

it may cause some problems with the cost of purchasing of new books. While this may seem like

a disadvantage, I assure you it is a benefit as it will lead to the support of writers of color which

in turn will allow students of color to feel like they have a future in literature. When the students

have no one to look up they do not care for the readings that we discuss in class. So instead of

purchasing more copies of William Faulkner or Charles Dickens there can be more Toni

Morrison or Ralph Ellison.

Another solution to fix the lack of diversity in the classroom is an inclusion of more

students of color. This one is more difficult to accomplish but it is imperative to helping students.

Now it is important to have students of color in classrooms but I also feel it is necessary to have

those students in the classrooms together.“…we documented that as the ethnic diversity of

middle school increased African American, Latino, Asian, and White youth all reported less

social vulnerability, defined as feeling safer at school, less victimized, and less lonely” (Juvonen

et al. 1278). I understand this data applies to middle schools however the fact remains that a lot

of students may suffer from these feelings in the classroom, especially at Grabthar where the
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student of color population is so low that the students might feel this way if they are isolated

without their peers being of similar ethnicity or race than them. With an inclusion of these

students in the classroom I believe there will be less students feeling isolated. To amend this

problem, I believe it is important to try and support students from diverse backgrounds into the

schools we have now and support them in getting an education. Potential ways to encourage

faculty to be more welcoming is training in diversity and inclusion, as well as hiring diverse

faculty members, and pushing for diverse student engagement in leadership positions so the

future students will see a representation of themselves in the school.

In conclusion diversity at Grabthar high school is lacking, both in the classroom

instruction and in the school itself. Due to a lack of diverse representation in the school there

needs to be effort to support the growth of more students of color or an inclusion of books from

people of color so that way the students can better get a grasp of the problematic viewpoints of

others. This will help to expand and develop a multicultural classroom which is imperative to the

success of all students. In a perfect world these would both be approached and granted viability

in the high school and I would hope that the SBDM council of this school would want to live in

that perfect world.

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Bibliography

Ho, E. S. C., & Lau, K. (2018). Reading engagement and reading literacy performance: effective

policy and practices at home and in school. Journal of Research in Reading, 41(4), 657–679.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12246

Juvonen, J., Kogachi, K., & Graham, S. (2018). When and How Do Students Benefit From

Ethnic Diversity in Middle School? Child Development, 89(4), 1268–1282.

https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12834

Li, S. C. (2015). Advancing Multicultural Education: New Historicism in the High School

English Classroom. High School Journal, 99(1), 4–26. https://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2015.0015