Building a Classroom Community...

My group is focusing on building a classroom community while trying to meet the needs of all the various students we will encounter. I am focusing on students that come from racially and culturally diverse backgrounds. Upon doing my research, I only thought about the minorities I will be teaching, therefore closing myself off from the idea of what it means to come from either a racially or culturally diverse background. As my research broadened, it occurred to me that this isn't just about race or culture, and that "diverse" isn't limiting to only the minorities. We are all diverse. We all come from different backgrounds. Just because a student is white or male or middle-class or whatever, that doesn't mean that they are at more of an advantage at attaining a good grade and meeting our stereotypical expectations of good student performance in the classroom. All of our students will be coming in with their own various strengths and weaknesses, and it is up to us as the teachers to recognize this in our individual students to influence our teaching. Which also serves as a good wake up call--it is extremely important that when we ask our students a question in regards to the content we are teaching, we can't expect the students to know what the "correct" response is. Just because what we have learned to be the answer, doesn't mean it is the only answer. Students, and everyone else, think differently because they come from different backgrounds. Therefore, we all get something different out of what we learn. This may pose a challenge for when students are required to take standardized tests (and that is a whole other issue at hand), but that doesn't mean that the students didn't learn something when they were taught in the classroom. And, it may be very difficult for most of us to understand how some of our students are learning, but if we are patient enough and pay close attention to all of our students, we will be able to pick up on the strengths and weaknesses of our diverse, individual students.