Diversity in learning is such an interesting and important topic in the field of education. In order for us to become good educators one day, we need to be able to reach people from every kind of cultural/racial background. Sadly, however, the topic of diversity and race in schools, is something that our education system has done a poor job at addressing. So today I would like to talk about the evidence we see that proves there are still problems involving diversity in schools, as well as ways in which I plan on addressing this problem when I become an educator.
As we see from this video, many black students do not feel integrated into their school systems. Instead they feel singled-out and stereotyped before anyone gets a chance to know them. In the doll experiment in the video, we also see a majority of very young black children recognizing the white doll as the “good” doll, because they are white and not black. These children have already made the connection that they are singled out, and that they are not as “good” as white people. How are black students supposed to go to school to get an education, when they feel put down because of all of these negative stereotypes? This is not even including the achievement gap between black students and white students, but that is a whole different topic to be discussed. The point that I am trying to make is, is that no matter how much people say that, “racism is no longer a problem in our country”, this is simply not true. I have heard so many stories about stereotypes and racial remarks in schools, like the ones in this video, that prove that there are still problems with race and diversity in schools, which needs to be addressed.
Now that we have seen this problem of race and diversity in schools, I would like to talk about some practical resolutions to this problem. We see from what Jane Elliot talks about in her videos, that people are taught how to be racist. It is therefore our job as educators to bring light into this topic, and to teach students that everybody is different, and we therefore cannot judge people on something as arbitrary as their skin color. In the book, Everyday Antiracism, I feel that Heather M. Pleasants really illustrates how I would want to help tackle this issue in my classroom. “My proposed antiracist move involves teachers’ individual out-of-school identities with students, which facilitates the formation of authentic relationships between teachers and students in which both parties see each other as complex and rich human beings.”(Pleasants 2008) As we can see, Pleasants is trying to break down the boundary that has been generated between white and black people over the past two centuries. In order for educators to achieve this, there needs to be a genuine relationship between the teacher and the student. Just like many other parts of the role, the teacher is the person that needs to be proactive with this area, because often times students are not going to be the ones to initiate this sort of conversation with their teachers. This is something that I am therefore going to try and integrate into my classroom one day, to help tackle this issue of race in the classroom. I hope to be someone that a student can have a genuine relationship with, and see that they are a unique individual that should not be judged on something so simple as their skin color.
Race and diversity in the classroom is such an important topic, which poses many problems in our education system. It is therefore vital that we as future educators be cognisant of this problem, work to establish healthy relationships with students of different color to break down this racial barrier, and to be constantly educated on this topic so that we can most effectively educate students of any sort of racial/cultural background in the future.
Sources that I referenced: