Section 2.

4 - Culture
Outcome 3.7.7. Culture Growth and Development
3.7.7. Determine personal contribution to working with culturally diverse
communities

As a teacher you need to create culturally responsive classrooms, also be aware

of your own implicit bias, understand your bias and most importantly teach your

students so they can be aware of their implicit biases too.

As a teacher before you can recognize your biases you should start by learning

your culture. In class we made a presentation of our heritage and where we came from,

we got to walk around the room and looked at our peers' presentations and we also

filled out a identity wheel and shared that as well (evidence 2.2.1). In this activity we got

to share our similarities but most of all we got to celebrate our differences. It is important

for a teacher to know his or her heritage and be able to share it to your students so they

can learn to respect you and your culture. As a teacher you really need to get to know

your students. In class we learned about ‘The Iceberg theory’ What you see above the

water is much smaller than what is inside the water, which helps to understand what a

student us showing could not be what they are really feeling. Being a teacher is it

important to try and understand what the student is feeling so you can be able to help

and understand where they are coming from (evidence 2.2.2).

During our first teaching placements our teacher gave us a teacher survey to fill

out with our teachers about diversity in the classroom. One of the questions was “How

do you address or accommodate diversity? What alterations do you have to make in

your curriculum?” He told me about how teaching american history makes it a little

difficult at times, but he is able to look more into both sides of the story or event so each

student is getting the idea and so they do not bias just one side of the event and people.
Another one of the questions was “what types of diversity do you see in your class or

classroom?” He went on saying his classes are pretty diverse but he notices the people

that act and look alike are like one cliche and gets awkward when they have to works

with another student not like them, so he said that he tries to make a lot of table

grouping projects so everyone is talking, collaborating, getting to know each other, and

most of all building relationships (evidence 2.2.3). Being with him in the classroom I

have noticed those things and have experienced them in my own classroom

experience.

When I become a teacher to help my students understand respect through

diversity with a project, our teacher had to create a respect for diversity project for our

“students” we had to ask them the question “what is diversity?” and “how can we

respect diversity?” I had them create a chart or any format they desired of them and a

partner at random shared their similarities and differences in their culture so they have

1. Get to know each other and 2. Build that respect for one another's culture (evidence

2.2.4). We read a article on home visits for teachers, a teacher could not find out on

why this student would not come to class and when they would they would not have any

work done so she visited their home so see and talk to the parents later after the home

visit she realized why they were the way their were so she changed their due dates and

became more helpful to that student (2.2.5). Another one is a getting to know you

survey so you can understand their learning styles and their life. I will definitely do these

things to my students so I can be a friend and they can feel safe and comfortable in the

classroom.
 As a teacher you need to create culturally responsive classrooms, we need to do

this so the students can see the classroom as a safe space,judge free zone, and feel

comfortable.