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Cultural Diversity Field Experience

My intention is for this reflection to come off as a raw response to my experience with

the cultural diversity practicum and its influence on my knowledge of key issues in multicultural

education. During my 25 hours of service at the Osseo Area School District I obtained an

abundance of knowledge that I consider valuable to my future as an educator at the elementary

level, however only a fraction of this knowledge feels diversity centered. Throughout the

experience I probed for knowledge pertaining to diversity by asking questions I individually

came up with, but outside of this effort, the ways my participating school addresses key issues in

multicultural education were not directly being presented. I picked up some solutions to key

issues through my observations with the multicultural resource center and the immersive

experience, however the teachers and staff at my participating school did not seem to focus the

experience around cultural diversity and multicultural education. While I gained knowledge from

this trip on cultural diversity, much of the information passed down to me was more so teaching

related in general. Hopefully as I reflect upon this experience, I can develop an understanding of

the influence it had on my understanding of culture and diversity in education.

The school I was placed in was Rice Lake Elementary. This school instructed grades

Pre-K through fifth, and is located in Maple Grove, MN. I grew up in the Osseo-Maple Grove

area, so I am fairly familiar with the demographics of the region. From what I have researched

and experienced, Maple Grove is a city with an abundance of middle and upper class residents

with a majority of the population being white (United States Census Bureau, n.d.). I went into

Rice Lake expecting to see a reflection of this, however, I was delightfully surprised by the

diversity of students. I do not have the racial and ethnic distribution of the whole school, but the

classroom I was in actually had a minority of white students. I was placed in a kindergarten
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classroom with twenty students. In that class there were seven white students and thirteen

students of color. While completing the context for learning form with my cooperating teacher,

she informed me that the number of students in the school who required school lunch assistance

was at 45 percent.

As the principal toured us through the school on the first day of the experience, she

explained to us that their school had an abundance of English language learning (ELL) students;

my class had six, all of whom were students of color. She told us that the school had just

received, if I remember correctly, fourteen students from Ukraine who did not speak any English.

The ELL students came in all races and ethnicities. The population of ELL students were one of

the most insightful groups to observe during this experience. As I observed the classroom

environments throughout the tour, the staff demographics were what you often see at the

elementary level: a primarily white female staff. Aside from the janitorial staff, I believe I only

encountered one or two other male staff members, one I know for sure was the school counselor.

Diversity did not branch out much further than this. The only people of color I noted amongst the

staff were two ELL teachers; one was a woman we met during the tour who was also wearing a

Hijab, and the other was an asian woman who I met in the classroom. There were no noticeable

age discrepancies amongst the teachers; it appeared all age groups were represented.

I had a notable conversation with my cooperating teacher that provided me with an

example of how different variables of diversity influence the culture of a class. The discussion

we had was in regards to the demographics of students in each classroom. It was brought up that

one of our white male students who was new to the classroom was actually transferred from his

last classroom due to the lack of representation in this teacher's class. She said that there was

only one other white male prior to him joining, and with diversity in mind a change was made.
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She said that it is valued that students have familiarity, especially at such a young age where they

are new to a learning environment. She noted that it's also not just about student comfort in

finding familiarity, it also helps them feel represented by not being the only one who is “like”

themselves in a class. This conversation showed me that there is active thought behind the

diversity settings within each classroom. As a future educator, I can keep this conversation in

mind to notice any imbalance in my own classrooms.

The experiences I had with ELL students influenced my communication methods and

tactics. In my day to day life I am a fast talker, and I found myself needing to slow down to

intimidate my students less. I also altered my expectations of responses for individual students.

One ELL student was pretty much mute, and while helping her I often had to offer visuals and be

more interactive with my body to gain responses back. With other ELL students I would have to

point more, or repeat what I heard for clarification. These are extra steps I had to take to alter my

habitual communication skills with students.The last thing I want as an educator is to just assume

what students are saying without fully hearing them out.

Something I learned from this experience about my own values when it comes to

multicultural education is that I highly value the voice of all students being heard, especially the

voices of students of color. Throughout the experience I would often take note of which students

the teacher would go to for help, and which types of students were called on the least and the

most. For white students being a minority in the class, it did feel like at times there were some

discrepancies, but for the most part my teacher was fair in providing opportunity for all her

students to participate. I learned that this is something I want to ensure I get right in my teaching

career. Since I was participating in this experience with a multicultural outlook, I wanted to see
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how the voices of the diverse students in my class were being represented, which I think

demonstrates my own value in enabling them to be heard.

I feel like if the staff of my participating school focused our time on studying cultural

diversity, I would have been able to provide more insight on the lives of culturally diverse

students. However, there was one insightful conversation I had with my cooperating teacher

about names which I feel like aids my understanding of culturally diverse lives. In our class we

had a student with an ethnic name, one that was harder to pronounce and read. I noticed how

well she pronounced the accent in his name. It appeared she took pride in getting his name right.

I asked her what steps she took to ensure she says his name right, considering at such a young

age they wont make an effort to correct their teachers. She said it's something she starts from the

beginning of the year. She sits with the parents when meeting her students for the first time,

hears them say it, hears the child say it, and says it until it's correct.

This experience will definitely help me grow as a future educator. Adding depth to my

perception of visual cues for students holds great value to this growth. I have always agreed with

utilizing visuals with directions, as a visual learner myself. My perspective, however, was

limited; prior to the diversity practicum, I assumed these students utilizing and benefiting from

visuals would primarily be the visual learners. It had never occurred to me that these visuals

could be the only form of instruction for some ELL students, and a highly important tool for

them all. Although less so related to diversity and multicultural education, there are more notable

takeaways I gained through this experience. One of them was developing an understanding for

behavior check ins and body movement management. I was so thankful to be granted a

kindergarten classroom as that is a grade level I am very interested in working with. Body
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behavior check-ins that keep children focused may seem insignificant, but it was so prevalent

during my time in a kindergarten classroom filled with limited attention spans.

This experience provided me with a lot of useful isight on ELL students. I saw how

schools work to include these students throughout instruction, and also learned about the ways

diversity influences classrooms. Overall, I feel as though I benefitted from my time at Rice Lake.
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References

United States Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Maple Grove city,

Minnesota. Www.census.gov.

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/maplegrovecityminnesota#