Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

An especially effective method to deepen one’s grasp of any topic is to listen to and then reflect on the ideas of others. This week, you have an opportunity to use that method and ask other people what they think about diversity and culture. You can then blog about the answers you received as well as your new insights.

Culture and diversity responses:

·         "Culture could be thought of someone's background whether it be religious, artistic, personal etc. It's how someone was brought up.   Diversity is the multiple ways and differences in every single human being. Today we live in a diverse society that bring many different cultures to the table."

·         "Culture: central concept in anthropology. A particular society at a particular time and place which can include language, manners, art, religion, etc.  Diversity - the state or quality of being different or varied. There are lots of different types of diversity and can refer to contents, communications, science, and politics and law - a few. Different elements or variety - the inclusion of different types of people."

·         "Diversity is having a mix of people from all different ethnicities and cultures. Culture is what defines your roots not your race. For example, being a hillbilly is a culture not your race"

·         "Diversity simply means many different types. It isn't exclusive to just people.  Culture refers to a certain group's set of norms. It is large in scope and can encompass things such as language, dress, rituals, foods, likes and dislikes, etc."

·         "diversity- various types/options/selections of anything Culture- the quirks, oddities, traditions, styles, habits, beliefs,...etc. that influence a people group"

·         "Culture are all of the traditional aspects of a group of people... Diversity is respecting the differences between the groups."

·         "Simply put- cultures are the ties that connect a group of people together; diversities are the distinct differences among individuals (singularly or individual groups)"

·         "Culture could be thought of as commonalities/traditions/ties that a group of people share, or the shared knowledge & art through the ages...which would also be a part of the first thought... Diversity is just having more than one type of something-from a diversity of colors of M&Ms to the diversity of languages worldwide, as well as people"

I posted on a personal social media site for some help in understanding each person's personal opinion on these two words.  I have a great group of encouragers and supporters, so I knew I would get answers quite quickly.  My anticipation upon responses were that people would be thoughtful and real with their replies.  The answers that they responded with are congruent with what we have been studying in our text.  They intertwine as we discussed on our discussion board this past week in regards to traditions and how we can bring our community of culture in the classroom that would combine things such as language, attire, and other rituals (including food).  One of my responders mentioned these exact items when they described the word "culture."  Also, one responder described diversity as simple as a bag of colored M&M's.  Sometimes, relating terminology like culture and diversity to something as simple as a bag of colored M & M's is what our families need from us.  We try so hard to be professional and use educated terminology.  I thought this was such a great example, because while we do have some families that expect more educated responses, we do also have families that need an example as simple as a bag of colored M & M's to relate to the concept being taught.

While the discussion wasn't as deep as I had hoped on this social media site in regards to this discussion, there wasn't much left out.  There were no suggestions on how to incorporate culture and diversity within a classroom setting; so I went back and asked on the same social media site "How would you incorporate a diverse culture into a classroom setting or a community of different cultures?"  Here were some of their responses:

·         "I would have a world map displayed. Using yarn and stick pins, students' names would be strung to different countries and attached to our city.  When my students were reading a story of where the character was bilingual, I had someone read the story to them in Spanish."

·         "Brown egg white egg crack them open."

·         At our center we celebrate EVERY holiday with different activities! We have guests read, dance or bring items in. We also have multicultural items in our rooms at all times...instruments, music, books, puzzles, dolls, animals, etc! In February we will have our own Olympics! Each class is a country and we decorate, learn all about that country with our kids! Each class gets medals according to how their is doing in the actual olympics!

·         Read a lot of books with the main character from different countries and with different cultures

Hearing another person's view on a topic, like culture and diversity, assist in understanding the community I am within.  When I understand this community, then I can relate and meet the needs of them more.  This discussion about culture and diversity influenced my brain to start moving in regards to how I can incorporate more diversity within my classroom setting and using some of their suggestions, tweaked a bit for my classroom age group.  I began to search on the Internet some different sites and blogs that other teachers use to share their diverse classrooms.  Here are a few of the things that I found as well as ideas that I thought would be great to incorporate and show the diversity and cultures around us.  Maybe you will like them as well.

·         What successful teachers do in classrooms, this is a book that offers 71 Research-Based Classroom Strategies for New and Veteran Teachers.  http://www.amazon.com/dp/141291616X/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

·         Family tree or family photo area.  Not only does this supply children with the comforts of seeing their loved ones when they are sad; but this will showcase their culture as each family brings in their photos.

 ·         Music Mondays, allowing each Monday music from a different country to be played and the children can dance to it or even make their own sounds from it.  You can connect this with a story (as suggested from one of my interactions above).

·         Family Fridays, showcase a family each week and let them make a poster all about their family and their culture.  How awesome would it be if we could also let them bring in their favorite snack to share during this time as well!

My Family Culture

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

When I first read this assignment, I thought to myself I feel like I would go crazy and end up with "Wilson" like in Castaway or something on a deserted island. I also tried to think of just three items, and I so badly wanted to choose our family safe as it holds documents and other valuables that I would never want to lose.  In this circumstance though, I will showcase the top three items. 

The first item I would take would be my Bible.  While there are plenty of Bibles to choose from I do have one that I've had throughout my undergraduate work (at a Bible college that we attended chapel daily).  This Bible is filled with verses highlighted, written encouragements from messages, and markings from travels during trips.  My Faith represents who I am, what I desire to be more like, and what I pour into my children, family, and community.  Without my Faith, I am scared to know what life would be like.  Having my Bible with me would offer me the encouragement that I would need when I would feel like I couldn't go any longer.

**side note, this picture is not of my actual Bible although it resembles what it looks like really well**

The second item I would take would be a collection of family pictures.  While memories will last a life time, my children are young.  If it was only our immediate family chosen, I would want them to visually have a representation of who "The Eldridge's" really are!  Family photos of my childhood, my husband's, my parents, and of course any other relatives we could take.  As silly as it sounds, we recently got a safe for our house that holds important documents.  Something on a list for me to do is to located family photos that I couldn't live without if our house burnt down and place them within the safe (at least copies of them as some are in frames around our house).  

The final item I would take would be important documents as to "who" we are.  Social security cards, passports, birth certificates, marriage license, immunizations, etc.  Having lost my wallet that contained my social security card and license once, I never want to go through that process again!  If we were transferred to another country, we would have to get work in order to supply for our family.  Obtaining employment, if anything like the States, would require these documents.   

If I arrived at location of transport and found out that I could only have one personal item, while it would be painful and I would be so hurt; I would have to choose the identification items.  My feelings would already be destroyed, my moral would be in an attempt of looking at the brighter side.  BUT let's look at reality, I just lost my entire world and family.  I lost my life support system of health care, luxury items, and everything that I knew to live a day to day life.  If told I could have three items, then upon arrival be told that I could now only choose one . . . I would expect the next stop a concentration camp and think they're attempting to wipe out the American population of blonde haired blue eyes beauties.

A Bible can be replaced.  And frankly, I can get on Facebook to get pictures if I needed to print them out although older family photos would not be available.  Is this country a remote area of the world?  Will we have Facebook?  Maybe the best question to spark our conversation would be what would we do if we didn't have social media for a month.

No new insights were gained from this exercise.  While I do love sharing about who I am, I am very much looking forward to hearing and understanding more about my classmates during this exercise.

Social Identities

Very excited to start this semester!  Looking forward to a great 8 weeks!

This week we discussed different ways to possibly take away a social identity and be able to meet a child where they are instead of expecting a child to transform into what we need them to be and do within our classroom setting.

I shared that in my classroom setting, one way we understand a child and family more is by doing our parent surveys and All About Me posters by the kids.

Below are our beginning of the year and mid year All About Me posters (the children fill these out and bring in to share) and then the parent surveys.