Hello everyone! Today I will be talking about the differences I may encounter in my workplace. This will have to do with the co-workers and students that I will be interacting with on a daily basis. When I think about schools, and look back on my experiences, schools provide a wide variety of cultural and individual differences all packed into one building. When I start working in a school I will expect many of my co-workers and students to have differences from me and others, but I will always try my best to understand what their point of view is and learn to accept everyones thoughts and opinions.
When looking deeper into differences in my students, I think that it will be more difficult to deal with those differences than ones with my future co-workers. I believe that this will be more difficult because students tend to go along with opinions and beliefs of others without forming their own thoughts about the topic. This reminds me of what we discussed in my class about Jane Elliott. We watched a video of a teacher named Jane Elliott (link to the video is added below), and she explained how she told her class that one eye color of students was “superior” to another and the students in the class went along with what the teacher said. This shows to me that teachers have a lot of influence on what students think and say to other students. Teachers a viewed as role models by most students and the influence of their thoughts and actions are strong.
In another reading I found online it discussed cultural differences and how it can effect students in school. The example explained, “Kids from many Latin American and Asian cultures show respect by avoiding the glance of authority figures. A teacher who’s unfamiliar with this cultural norm, however, might interpret the lack of eye contact as just the opposite — a sign of disrespect” (Staff, 2016). This example shows that by not being aware of all the differences in my future classroom, it could allow for me to be misinformed and unaware. This is why it is good to be able to know the differences in the workplace and respect and value them.
References
Staff, G. (2016, March 14). Great Schools. Retrieved from http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/cultural-differences-student-performance/