Diversity in Today's Schools

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 This week I hit my 20 hour mark in my service learning. I have been having an... interesting time, but with finals coming up Im not sure I will schedule any additional days. Looking back at the few different classrooms I've sat in, it is based on my assumption that the largest area of diversity in the Jr High in general is a very large Latino student population. Almost every day before class starts the conversations I overhear tend to be in Spanish.

I think it is difficult to teach math in a... diverse way. There are some things I've noticed that I assume just to be their teaching styles, but in hindsight may be ways to cater to a diverse classroom. For one thing, every single math teacher I've sat in does demonstrates problems via a projector. This could allow students that don't speak as much English still able to follow along and learn by example.

Another interesting accommodation I noticed had nothing to do with language diversity, but in my opinion was still the teacher's attempt at making the classroom more accessible. One of the teachers Ive been sitting with replaced the analog wall clock in her classroom one day with a digital clock. She mentioned that some of her students ad a hard time reading it and not knowing what time it was was causing some of them anxiety. What really surprised me was how something so small was SO noticed by her students. Almost every single one of them walked in that day and immediately said something about the clock. They all seemed so excited about something so small.

In our online learning one of the videos talked about listening to the needs of your students. In a secondary setting where curriculum isn't as flexible, I think making small adjustments like that could be one of my best strategies for catering to a diverse classroom.

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