Sunday, June 3, 2012

Education, Diversity, and America

The United States of America has truly evolved into a melting pot of cultures, and the diversity is expanding at a rapid pace and will continue to evolve for future generations. This has created quite the impact on our education system, and has influenced our teaching methods in many manners.

In addition to adjusting to different cultures, it is also pertinent to adjust to different learning disabilities, and to accept these differences with grace and compassion. These assorted personality traits and diversity elements call for an extreme amount of patience and perseverance from the teachers. Most importantly educators must be aware of the range of different students needs, from young children entering kindergarten, all the way to the young adults working towards college educations. Most importantly, different students share the same needs all over the globe, all youngsters can grow when need compassion from teachers to grow, and ask for understanding in order to develop.

Because of the different elements of upbringing and all the different cultural backgrounds, today‘s teachers face more changes and challenges than ever before. Teachers must remain open-minded and empathetic to all personalities, and also thoughtful to different types of characters including those with learning disabilities. Educators of all kinds have had to adjust traditional lessons and methodologies in order to meet the different needs of the new generations of multicultural and multifaceted students. This has required educators to abandon pre-conceived notions, and to set aside there personal belief systems, all in order to accommodate the variance of new learners. The changes in our education programs involve expanding elements of teaching, which may alter original old fashioned techniques, and demands an extension of knowledge and methods to meet the needs of all learners as equals. It is the educators responsibility to adapt to various changes, and to consider all ethnicities in lessons and processes. Teachers must remain open-minded and flexible and consider every child as an individual.

Each age group of students require different attentions. The younger the group of students, the more vulnerable they become, and more patients is important for teachers. Children this young are very susceptible to influence, and have only had their family as an example for the most part. As children get older they reach different stages development mentally and physically. For instance, children near 4th grade and older are facing many changes biologically, and age there is also a struggle with gender separation that may create a lot of anxiety in youngsters. As the mind compounds and grows through adolescence, the students may become more disassociated and distraught. Teenagers are medaling with so many factors in the current world; socially, economically, physically, and emotionally. Due to all these factors usually teenager need inspiration and guidance the most, they need guidance through their complicated journeys. It is necessary, particularly with teens, to consider all these changes, and to acknowledge the students struggles and insecurities, and to take into account all the various distractions that may keep a student from lessons at hand. Young adults are put up against so much stress as to who they are to become, and therefore require different paces, which teachers must learn to adjust with. Students in their teens may be distracted or preoccupied, but with the help of good teachers their focus can be demanded, and as teens are still being shaped and adapting to social environments can still learn to their full abilities with the extra attention of the educators.

Ultimately modern day teacher are endeavoring a huge but essential challenge. Lessons and techniques must be adaptable, and will continue to change as diversity expands. It is up to teachers to carve a path for generations to come and to hold the grace and compassions to allow different types of students to develop to full potentials.

Megan Smith

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