This module taught me many things about student diversity.

I learned about how English

only rules used to be in place in certain schools across the southwest (Spring, 2013). I
had thought these rules or laws were only applied to native American students in
boarding schools that they were forced to go to. I also learned about multicultural
education and culturally responsible teaching. I can see how multicultural education
could be seen as controversial but that also seems to be related to an older American
Nationalism mindset that American culture is one homogeneous thing, but it's not.
Culturally responsible teaching sounds really good for the students, but I do not know if
it is practical to do in all classrooms, especially if they are becoming increasingly diverse.
I can understand the benefits but it may be stretching teachers too thin in asking them to
tailor lessons around the variety of different cultures that exist in the classroom. The
example we discussed in class seems like a good way to include a variety of cultures
without making the teacher spend weeks to include them.
I will follow the example we used in class in showing students that not all historical
figures were old white men, and go out of my way to include minorities and women in
lessons. I will also accommodate different interaction patterns in my classroom, along
with making projects more open ended if I teach a world history class so students can
research their cultural homeland if they want to. I also need to be mindful in
demonstrating interest in the students lives, as it says in the book to ask about Jewish,
Muslim, Latin American and African American holidays and festivals (Eggen & Kauchak,
2021). I will ask these things if I know the students identities, but need to be careful as
to not stereotype students by asking them these things. I think instead of asking
students targeted questions I will throw the question at the whole class and let anyone
who wants to speak about the topic respond. If students don't feel comfortable then,
they don't have to share, but if they want to share some tidbits about their culture I
would let them go on for as long as they wanted (as long as it stayed on topic) I already
planned to do the other 2 things in ways to show students we genuinely care: devote
time to students by making ourselves available and involving all students in learning
activities (Eggen & Kauchak, 2021). I would hope the other 2 things were already
planned to be followed by everyone though.
One question I had was would you treat a student being bullied for their race any
different than a student being bullied for anything else? Is it a more or less serious
offense compared to say, their weight? I was also wondering where is the line in focusing
on students cultures? How much time can you realistically take out of your already
cramped lesson plans to include lessons on their cultures? I also feel like any real lessons
that aren't just tidbits only have a place in history class, unless you can find a clever way
to connect an algebra assignment back to a significant holiday.

Hey Reese!
One thing I noticed that was similar in our posts is we both talked about multicultural
education. However, a difference I noticed is how you focused more on information
from the chapter (at least in the first part) while I wrote mostly my opinions on the
topics. I like how you talked about instead of trying to make everyone the same and
homogenous we should recognize that everyone is their own person with their own
identities, and agree. Seeing your comments on the disadvantages of a same sex
classroom, would you rather have a single gender classroom, and if so how far up in
grade level would it go, would they have electives together? I can see that a mixed sex
classroom has its disadvantages, but I feel like a same sex classroom has more in
students not getting used to interacting with the opposite sex for a very long time. I had
a buddy who went to an all boys Christian Elementary school, and he had an extreme
amount of trouble talking to girls until around high school I think. I have no evidence
except for what I experienced in school, but mixed sex classrooms would also make
students less rowdy than if it was an all boys class, maybe not compared to an all girls
class. But I know in elementary school, at least a few times my teacher used a line like
"aren't you boys embarrassed acting like this in front of all the girls?" and that would
usually get us to somewhat calm down.
Moving on to what I would do to deal with a student who was affected by another
students comments on their race and gender, I would first off make sure that they know
the comment the other student made was not OK to say. I would then help the student
feel better in whatever ways possible, before making sure my class knows that things
like that are not OK to say. I would then punish whoever said the thing that hurt the
student.

Hey Cara!
One similarity between our posts is we both learned what culturally responsive teaching
is! One difference between our posts is you provided solid statistics in yours on the
amount of students that have technology dependent on their ethnicity, while I provided
no stats in my post. I didn't really look into this part reading the chapter, and you make a
really good point about knowing students technology access for work, though we have
to be careful in approximating this as we don't want to stereotype the students.
In terms of helping a student who doesn't speak English primarily, it certainly is a
struggle. I do not believe that insisting on teaching your lessons in your language of
preference is stripping and/or depriving students of their culture, but I believe insisting
that they always speak English does strip and/or deprive them of their culture. Now
there is a difficult line to toe there, in making sure they are involved and included in
lessons while not forcing them to speak English all the time. I also feel before any of this,
when you realize English isn't their primary language, you should speak to someone
higher up (if you are over middle school, instead speak directly to them) about possibly
changing them to a class taught in their primarily spoken language. If you know the
language, maybe help them along, and if they want help them learn English a bit, but this
would be insanely difficult considering how little time teachers have on their hands to
just teach, much less make a personalized lesson plan for each student (even though I
believe this is what we should strive for, eventually). I feel like as long as you don't insist
on them speaking English and maybe get them one of the mobile translators to help
them out in class if you can afford it, you aren't depriving them of their culture.