Diversity, Learning Style, and Culture

This article was basically about the disparity between the literature and knowledge that educators read and possess about the way students learn and the reality that is seen in the classroom. There are books and books that flood the market and line the home libraries of educators and administrators across the country and yet an observer would be hard pressed to find much difference between the classroom of 50 years ago and today. It is not because the teachers are indifferent to the needs of the students, lazy, or ineffectual. There is a choice and a compromise that has to be made between diversity and uniformity. Diversity is a well known fact; every student is different and learns differently. No one would argue with that. However, the problem stems from the need for uniformity and organization necessary in a system expected to educate the entirety of America’s youth. This system is for the most part effective. The majority graduate and can meet the demands of life. Most educators do believe that the majority isn’t enough though. This article suggests how that diversity can be used to help rather that separate the student from majority.

I thought two interesting points the article made were about information gather and use about cultures and how students deal with their surroundings as an individual. Implementing knowledge gained by studying other cultures can be tricky. Just because a majority of people believe a certain way that does not mean that the entirety of that group of people believes that. That would be stereotyping, which is dangerous and hurtful. An educator not only has to have the back ground knowledge that this is a widely held belief by a particular set of people but in that set of people there are individuals that are different and the educator can not lose sight of that. The other interesting point that the article made was that a student will succeed when the student’s internal beliefs about themselves and their world, match up with the culture and beliefs of their parents, and both of these match up with the culture and beliefs held by the school and subsequently mainstream America. Students struggle when the three areas are not in align. A few examples might be the culture of the home and that of the school is in direct conflict, or if the student’s internal beliefs or personality are not mainstream, or any combination of the three. Teachers could and should be sensitive to this in order to ease the conflict and friction of the situation for the student.