Diversity in the School Community

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Diversity in the School Community

• University of North Carolina, Wilmington
• April 18, 2009
• Presented by
• Deloris Rhodes
• Audrey Toney, Ed.D.

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My Perceptual Lens
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My Perceptual Lens
What do you see?
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My Perceptual Lens
Quickly add these numbers in your head
1000 1000 1000 1000
90
100
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My Perceptual Lens
What is this?
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My Perceptual Lens
What is this?
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People always resist change.What prevents
them from seeing, accepting understanding new
and/or different ideas?
Why?
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• A paradigm is a set of rules regulations that
  establish boundaries and tells you how to be
  successful within the boundaries
• Joel Arthur Barker Future Edge

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• Paradigms act as filters

• Things that agree with your paradigm you accept.

• Things that disagree with it you reject, ignore
  or distort to fit your existing paradigm

• They dramatically affect our judgment and
  decision-making by influencing our perceptions.

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Directions Dont read the words, say the colors
quickly in which they are printed.
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Although we see both the color and the meaning of
each word, experience has taught us to pay more
attention to the meaning. James R. Stroop called
this the interference effect.
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Objectives

• To discuss how diversity informs an
• equitable, multicultural, learning environment
• To discuss the impact of stereotyping in the
  educational setting
• To examine a framework to measure educators
  development towards cultural competency in a
  multicultural context

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Why Should We Learn About Diversity

• Diversity can enrich your life and your world.
• Understanding and appreciating differences help
• Individuals gain new insights and outlooks while
• enjoying new relationships.
• Communities tap the varied talents of their
  members to help meet common goals.
• Groups of every size-from classrooms to
  corporationswhen uniqueness is respected, morale
  and productivity improve.

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Dimensions of Diversity

• Like trees in a vast forest, humans come in a
  variety of sizes, shapes, and colors.
• We share important dimensions of humankind with
  all members of the species.
• Biological and environmental differences separate
  and distinguish us as individuals and groups.
• A vast array of physical and cultural differences
  constitute the spectrum of human diversity.
• The various dimensions of diversity help shape
  our basic self-image and our fundamental
  world-view.

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Primary Dimensions of Diversity

• Age
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Heritage
• Gender
• Physical abilities/qualities
• Sexual/affectional orientation
• Mental abilities/characteristics

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Secondary Dimensions of Diversity

• Education
• Communication style
• Work background
• Work style
• Income
• Marital status
• Military experience
• Religious beliefs
• Geographic location
• Parental status

Dimensions of Diversity Handout
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• What Have
• You Heard?Activity

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Diversity Attitudes

• Test your attitude
• How aware are you about yourself and others based
  on age, race, gender, etc. ?
• To explore, complete one of the Implicit
  Association Tests at

https//implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selecta
test.html
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Objectives

• To discuss the impact of stereotyping in the
  educational setting
• To examine a framework to measure educators
  development towards cultural competency in a
  multicultural context

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Processing What Have You Heard Attitude
Awareness Survey

• What do many of the comments we have written on
  the lists represent?
• Are they true?
• Where did these comments come from?
• How would these stereotypes impact how we treat
  certain people?
• What are the implications for student achievement?

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What We Know

• There are differences between and among groups of
  people.
• Race is a socially constructed attribute that is
  a social phenomenon.
• Racism is a system of privileged discourses and
  discriminatory institutional practices, which act
  upon our individual perceptions of reality. And
  our understanding of what is real is
  intrinsically racist because we have grown up in
  and live in a society with racist
  institutions.(Making Race Visible Literacy
  Research for Cultural Understanding,2003)

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What We Know

• Race is undeniably an element of social status
  and is therefore, negotiated as a social process
  rather than as a biological determinant. Thus,
  the permanence of racism in our social reality
  means we have a personal responsibility to
  understand racism and work against its effects on
  our interpretations, our identities and how they
  play out in our classrooms to the extent which
  our discursive practices maintain inequity and
  injustice. (Making Race Visible Literacy
  Research for Cultural Understanding,2003)

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What We Know

• Cultural differences influence the
  teaching-learning process.
• Schools, like society, advantage some groups more
  than others.
• Schools adhere to a color-blind paradigm.

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What We Know

• NCLB is as historically important as
  desegregation of schools in 1954.
• Culturally responsive teachers value and build on
  students prior knowledge.

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Group Activity

• Personal ExperiencesSurvey on Attitude
• Pair / Discuss / Share

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Multicultural Education (defined)

• A progressive approach for
• transforming education that
• holistically critiques and
• addresses current
• shortcomings, failings, and
• discriminatory practices in
• education.

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Multicultural Education

• The underlying goal of multicultural education is
  to affect social change (transformation).
•  The transformation of self
•  The transformation of schools and schooling
•  The transformation of society

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Culturally Responsive Teaching Video
Dr. Geneva Gay, University of Washington
Complete the What Squares Sheet as you view the
video
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If our destination is excellence on a massive
scale, not only must we change from the slow
lane into the fast lane we must literally
change highways. Perhaps we need to abandon the
highways altogether and take flight, because the
highest goals that we can imagine are well
within reach for those who have the will to
excellence. Asa Hillard, University of Georgia
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AS OUR STUDENTS BECOME MORE AND MORE
DIVERSE SO MUST OUR WAYS OF TEACHING THEM.
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NC Teach II Diversity Class 1 (April 18,
2009)Homework AssignmentDue April 23,
2009. Reflect and identify a paradigm that you
currently hold that will be problematic for you
in working with students that are different from
you.As a classroom teacher, what strategies
will you use to adjust the identified paradigm to
work effectively in a multicultural setting with
diverse student? (No less than one page with a
limit of 2 pages using single spacing and 12-pt
font 1 margins)