Week 5: Addressing Cultural and Socioeconomic Diversity

The question for this week is: How will you become an effective multicultural teacher? What teaching methods will you use to guarantee you are effective with your students?


I believe that being an effective multicultural teacher is no different than being an effective teacher. To be an effective teacher, you have to look at your students, take into account how they learn, how they typically behave and plan accordingly. Whether your students are from different ethnic backgrounds or low or middle income families, you need to take into account their needs as well as the needs of the rest of the students in your class. I’m not saying that you need to grant them special favors, such as reducing the amount of homework. But you do need to take into consideration where they will be able to find the resources for an assignment. IF you have an assignment requiring computer research, have the class use the computer lab during a specific time (or two). If it requires special supplies, have supplies in the classroom, and allow students to work on the assignment during free time, or another time that you set aside during the day. The goal is to try not to single individual students out. If a student needs extra help with something, such as English, take time to help that student, whether before/after school, or other times through out the day. If a lesson is taken from the view of one ethnicity, maybe we as a class can look deeper into how other ethnicities influenced the situation. I, as a teacher, do not want to be ethnocentric. I want to teach my students that everyone is equal.

A summary of what you have learned from the chapter readings.


I learned from reading the chapter that there are several ways to help my students accept the diverseness of our world. I can use technology to help educate my students about other cultures. I can teleconference with other classrooms, whether they are from another part of our country, or another part of the world. I can have my students work on group projects with another classroom (also from another country/state/city). I also learned that there are several ways to deal with bilingual education. There is total transition into the language, where you rapidly shift to the new language. There is a maintenance program, where you try to maintain or improve the student’s native language. There is a two-way bilingual program, where part of the time you use one language, part of the time you use another language. I can try to have a bilingual student teach us, as a classroom, some of their language and use it in the classroom. Peer tutoring is another way to help a bilingual student adjust to a new language.

Compare what you have learned from the reading with what you have experienced in life so far.


In high school, I had a family move in across the street from me, from Columbia, South America. To help this family (students) adjust, they paired them up with other students fluent in Spanish, to help them in the classroom. They also taught English as a Second Language classes during their study hall or before/after school.
We would have culture days in various classes, to show us how various cultures lived and learned in each subject. It was a tremendous help for us to know how people lived outside our little community.

Describe if keeping this journal has helped you organize any ideas for teaching; come up with new ideas; etc.

This journal is great in helping me organize my ideas for teaching. Figuring out what kind of teacher I want to be, how I want to handle various situations, what learning styles I want to use, or can keep in the back of my mind for various needs, this journal is helping me keep track of it all.

A summary of the educational blog you have chosen.

For my educational blog, I've chosen this blog: http://clifmims.com/blog/
He seems very interesting, and really shows how to incorporate technology with teaching. In his blog, he has a section called, 1Thing. It features a different person each time, and it is One thing new teachers should know. I think this is a great thing, for new and old teachers. This week, the guest blogger talked about planning. She said to over plan. Plan to have a successful year. Plan to have a great relationship with the parents. Plan your classroom management. Plan your expectations for your class. It is a great idea and definitely one that i will take to heart. I am a planner, but I guess it hasn't occurred to me that I can plan "to have a successful year and great relationships." It is a great idea, and one that I plan (haha) to take full advantage of. I look forward to reading more and learning more from this blogger.

Comment on anything new and exciting you have learned from the discussion boards that you feel will help you in becoming a teacher.

"Those students who are not as fortunate as others still deserve the same chance as everyone else."
This comment was made today on the discussion board, and it really made me think. Every student, every person, deserve the same chance to succeed. Whether a person is of a different ethnicity, or from a different social class, everyone deserve the chance to succeed in life. How we, as teachers, make that happen is up to us. We can either help them, by giving the extra help that they need, or we can fail them by just letting them getting away with excuses. Using ethnicity and circumstances as an excuse is just that, an excuse. Our situations make us stronger. We can either give in to our situations, and just be normal. Or we can use our situations to make us stronger, and greater. Which type of teacher do I want to be? A teacher that helps my students become better and stronger? Or one that lets my students get by with excuses?