Experience in the Workplace
During the many years of working in the IT (Information Technologies) field, I have dealt with hundreds of people from all over the world, from as far as Asia, to as close as Detroit, and although all the people I have dealt with can speak English to a certain degree, most have what Amy Tan, writer of “Mother Tongue” would call “Broken English”. By this meaning, the words they use are the primary words of a sentence that just barely make the sentence itself understandable. To make matters worse, most of those people I deal with are overseas, so the only way of voice communication is the telephone. Even when speaking with friends just across town that have been brought up the same as I, and speak the same “tongue” as I, there is problems understanding one another because of the phone devices themselves – sometimes having static in the line, the call just breaking up, and even sometimes calls being dropped in the middle of a thought. Now, you put into account all of these factors, then make a business call to someone overseas who speaks with “Broken English”, and there is defiantly going to be a bit of frustration, trying to understand one another… This applies to people on both ends of the call!
Now, when it comes to matters like this and dealing with business, I must agree with Thomas Bray, writer of “Memorial Day and Multiculturalism”, when he states “Bilingual education is a bad idea.” I refer to this meaning, if everyone was taught and brought up speaking one language, then doing business matters overseas over the phone would be much easier, because it would be easier to understand one another, in my opinion. There have even been some instances where after dealing with someone on the phone overseas for quite awhile and not being able to get much accomplished, I’ll ask if there is any chance that I can to speak to someone with better English, kind of like the instance where Amani Ammari, a classmate of mine, had to speak for her mother because her mother only had “Limited English” as Amani stated in one of our discussions online.
To now turn this into a complete opposite direction, I agree with Maxine Hairston, writer of "Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing" and all of her ideas on have classrooms being multicultural.
Robles de Melendez, W. (2010). Teaching Young Children in Multicultural Classrooms: Issues, Concepts, and Strategies (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
...Teaching acceptance and diversity of different ethnicity is one of the key components that can be taught in our school systems today. Here in America we have many different ethnic groups and races, we are one big melting pot. During school these differences should be embraced in a positive manner and a proper learning experience. Diversity is often mistaken for the word division, and sometimes people teach that diversity is division. Diversity should be taught in a way that brings people together, not divide people into groups. Like Konig said, “I hadn’t really given much thought to the ethnic and national backgrounds of Sarah’s classmates. I can guarantee that Sarah, being two and a half gave the subject absolutely no thought.” (51) We can take a few lessons from Konigs daughter and learn to not give the subject any thought, and just accept people for who they are.
Diversity in the classrooms will give students access to experience other cultures and learn about one another. The different races effect how varied their backgrounds might be, and it will help the teacher engage a variety of ways to manage course material (Packard, 2017). According to Packard, it is up to the teacher to help spread the learning of diversity and use it to their advantage in their classroom. Throughout the years, diversity have grown in the classrooms, but the struggle of segregation continues.
The world is made up of many different types of people, each one having his or her cultural background. Over the years, the United States has become increasingly populated with cultural diversity. This influx has prompted school administrators to recognize the need to incorporate multicultural programs into their school environment including classroom settings, school wide activities, and curriculum as it becomes more evident that the benefits of teaching cultural diversity within the school setting will positively influence our communities, and ultimately the entire nation’s future. The purpose of this paper is to share the pros and cons of multicultural education in the classroom. Additionally, I will express my views compared to those in the reading requirements for this assignment, as well as, new knowledge obtained through the research. Finally, I will share situations where I was challenged introducing a multicultural issue during a class.
During this semester, I had the opportunity of working with a class of 2nd Graders in the Long Beach area. Even though in my last two serve rotations I was exposed to students from different linguistically and cultural backgrounds, this year I had the opportunity of truly experiencing multicultural diversity in the classroom. Since Jane Addams is located in the ghetto area of Long beach, the majority of the students are the so called minorities. Mrs. Chavarria classroom represented pluralism and world cultures; in her classroom there were Filipinos Samoans, African Americans, Latinos a couple of white kids, and a Hispanic/Chinese boy. This last serve rotation gave me the opportunity to experience my mentor teacher's pedagogical approaches which engage cultural multiplicity in many effective ways. My mentor teacher as expressed earlier in my journals has been teaching for the last thirteen years and has been open to learn about new concepts and ideas central to addressing cultural pluralism in the core curriculum and have tested some practices that have proved to be useful. Some of th...
As a teacher, I will have to keep this in mind for all my students. Fostering an environment that cultivates and promotes the pluralistic society that we live in will be beneficial. It can help to combat the deficit approaches in education that stifle or suppress minority culture and language while promoting acceptance of a multicultural and equitable society. I hope to be able to work towards this type of classroom. With self evaluation and acceptance of student ideas, I believe that I can create this environment.
Rothstein-Fisch, C. & Trumbull, E. (2008). Managing Diverse Classrooms. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Being able to speak more than one language is proving to be a valuable skill in modern society. Many children across the world are at least bilingual, leaving many American parents wondering if they too, should learn to speak another language. While this debate remains ongoing, many adults are seeking to learn a second language either to communicate with a new client base or to attain higher status within a corporate setting.
Diversity in classrooms is both positive and negative. However, if teachers are provided with the right resources and keep a open mind, their students can become successful civil human beings.
The cultural diversity in society, which is reflected in schools, is forcing schools not to solely rely on content-centered curriculum, but to also incorporate student-centered lesson plans based on critique and inquiry. This requires multicultural education to a dominant part of the school system, not just an extra course or unit. Further, it demands that learning itself no longer be seen as obtaining knowledge but rather, education be seen as creating knowledge. Multicultural education should be seen as affirming the diversity of students and communities, promoting the multicultural ideas of the United States, and building the knowledge and behaviors needed for students to be a positive and contributing member of society and the global community as a whole.
The world is currently undergoing a cultural change, and we live in an increasingly diverse society. This change is not only affect the people in the community but also affect the way education is viewed. Teaching diversity in the classroom and focusing multicultural activities in the programs can help improve positive social behavior in children. There is no question that the education must be prepared to embrace the diversity and to teach an increasingly diverse population of young children.
I can identify with the multicultural concept of the classroom because I am African American, a woman, and a soon to be a teacher. This subject is one that is of extreme importance. The multicultural classroom is a learning environment that should be most effective because of the simple fact that it should encompass everyone. As a future teacher one of my goals for my classroom is to make it as diverse as possible. Not only because it should be a standard operating procedure, but because I feel students will be able to learn more effectively in an environment where they feel that their heritage is included.
I believe it is important to first analyze the word diversity when examining the need for diversity within a classroom. According to Webster's New Pocket Dictionary, diversity means variety, a number of different kinds. I often discuss and read about diversity in terms of cultural backgrounds; the unification of histories and stories from people from all over the world. Although, I believe that in a higher-educational setting, diversity can also be discussed as the acceptance of the various minds within a classroom. I believe that it is important to recognize the thoughts and experiences of others in a learning environment. Collectively, students learn from teachers, teachers learn from students, and students learn from their peers. By allowing diversity within the classroom, a sense of community can develop. Diversity encourages an active, not passive, learning style. I believe that the culture of Columbia College Chicago is dependent on diversity. The motto “Create Change,” suggests students actively seek the change they want to see in the world. In order to obtain change a community developed out of diversity must be discovered.
We need to be aware of the diversity in the classroom. Cultural diversity includes: bi-racial, adoptive, immigrant, gay, and step-families. It is a large majority of the students today even in my generation. Focusing on making a balanced curriculum that exposes the students to all of these different backgrounds is very important. I know that it is likely that a teacher will not be able to cater to every student, but it is important to involve each of them. There is a large percentage of students that have dropped out due to the lack of having a connection with the curriculum. It is frustrating that we are lacking progress in our schools to help these children connect when studies show that each cultural group will soon be equal in numbers. We need to form a better
During my work experience at , I was fortunate enough to have experienced firsthand and learned, many different sides of what goes into a project, the general process of how a project is initially planned, developed and completed; as well as how much work and detail goes into every stage. Another valuable lesson I have learned during these 12 weeks, were the many different types of work an Engineer has to perform, which in turn, have provided me with more insight into the different types of roles and responsibilities that I could perform, as a Civil Engineer.