Blog E - Diversity

Diversity is being different. It’s the idea of people coming together and sharing their backgrounds and beliefs. There are many different types of diversity; it’s not just race and color, even though that’s what first comes to most peoples minds. Diversity can be about religion, about your different strengths as a person, where you’re from, what you’re into, and many other things.

Diversity can be a very huge part of education, although for some its not. In my schools, diversity based on race and color wasn’t something that was hugely evident. Growing up in a country style life, in a town with not much city style aspects, I don’t believe I experienced the diversity that some other kids do. Along with many other children growing up in Maine, diversity isn’t a problem. I do understand that people come from different places in the world and that many people have different ideas. There are some people in my family who come from different backgrounds and I have had the opportunity to learn about different lifestyles and see how different people live and what they believe in. I have had the opportunity to learn about people from Suriname and from Cambodia. I also have a cousin who lives in Louisiana, she experiences the many different people of the world, and I admire how open she is to different things. Race and color is something that I have never found to be a problem that I need to work to get by. I haven’t had that much experience with it but as I get older I hope that I will have the opportunity to see many more things and learn to understand all aspects of other people’s lives and what they believe in.

Diversity is something that everyone should learn about. As a teacher I feel as though I would be open to learning about all of the different cultures and teaching my students about other people. By doing this I would not only be expanding the horizons of my students but also mine. I think that by teaching students about other cultures, I would be helping them to not be critical of other people, so that they can accept people for whom they are, not necessarily what they look like. Accepting people is going to be a huge lesson that myself and students will need to learn, especially if I do have diverse students in my classroom. I honestly think it would be great. We would all be able to learn about other cultures and be understanding of what people think. I think that everyone deserves the same education and treatment. Therefore diverse students shouldn’t be treated differently, they should be understood.

Overall, diversity is a huge part of schools, because everyone is different and they all should be welcomed regardless of what they look like, talk like, where they come from, and many more things. It’s important for teachers to understand their student’s backgrounds, and I believe that teacher’s should help to include backgrounds into the classroom. I think it would be good for all of the students to understand the other student’s lives, and where they come from. Diversity is hard, but after all America is the melting pot, and I suppose we must conform to that.