Handling cultural Diversity – resources for

teachers written by Nithya Vasu

Diversity makes us smarter.
A few anecdotes from my life experience on exposure to
cultural diversity, born in a country of diversity we have learnt’
Unity in diversity ‘at school. We have different languages,
different customs, different perspectives yet we appreciate
each other’s customs and culture through exchange programs
and community living. As a spouse of a armed forces I had an
opportunity to travel across the country and live with diverse
people in the armed forces campus, teach kids from diverse
background ,interact with them in everyday activities that
helped me to understand and empathize their life in villages,
towns deep inside the country. Discussions with our frontline
soldiers on the drastic weather conditions they face to keep our
borders intact and the measures they take to keep fellow
countrymen safe is outstanding deed. Later I moved in to one
of our neighboring countries for brief period of time. I had to
learn a new language and new art form that depicted their
lifestyle. It was interesting to dive into the new sea of life,
struggle to swim, hold each other and learn about cultural
diversity successfully. It’s a proud moment to talk about
diversity in our country yet live together in a same community
and enjoy the integrity learnt at school, ‘Together we stand for
our nation’ and I confide Diversity made me stronger and
smarter.
Diversity is that differentiates people from each other. While
we travel across any country, we find diverse customs and
beliefs, varied language accents and interesting food habits. A
traveler enjoys the diversity, tries to learn about the differences
and highlights it in a travelogue while at learning environment
it’s a challenge for the teachers to handle cultural differences
and inculcate the habit of appreciating diversity in class
environment. While planning the lesson the teachers prepare
differentiated learning strategies to enable learners with
different learning styles. In a culturally diversified classroom,
it’s the added responsibility of a teacher to involve learners
from different countries or culturally different into one whole
set and teach. Instead can segregate them as mixed groups, let
them interact, understand the differences in their backgrounds
and let them explore the beauty of diversity. Let’s look into
ideas and suggestions of psychologists and researchers on
cultural diversity ,The University of Rhode Island defines
diversity I classroom as “understanding each student brings
unique experiences, strengths, and concepts to our classroom
… Diversity is that the exploration and incorporation of those
differences to complement learning in our classroom.”

Richard Messina, principal of OISE’s Dr. Eric Jackman Institute

of Child Study, defines this practice as “idea diversity:”
“To understand a thought is to know the ideas that surround it,
including people who substitute contrast thereto . Idea
diversity creates an upscale environment for ideas to evolve
into new and more refined forms. This pedagogical approach
may help students to understand and value all sorts of diversity
and the way diversity enriches learning.”

A culturally responsive curriculum schools that acknowledge

students from diverse background build better thinkers.
Diversity in classroom includes capacity to appreciate different
perspectives and draw stronger conclusions. Learning about
diversity improves academic outcomes, improves critical
thinking skills and builds confidence among learners to
understand life outside their home. Studies reveal that
effectively integrated schools can achieve less misbehavior, low
dropout levels and better performance that are socially
acceptable. Challenging learners to consider different
perspective can enhance their interaction with their peers,
improve their social skills and equip them for rest of their life.
Culturally responsive curriculum includes diversity in all aspects
and involves more students to acknowledge differences.
There are variety of ways to incorporate diversity in a class
environment. It involves the goals and expectation of the
learners.
• In an inclusive classroom the instructors turned facilitators
are aware of the diversity of work to create a safe and
collaborative learning environment.
• The facilitator fosters cultural awareness, demonstrates
genuine care to understand cultural, emotional and intellectual
needs of the learner.
• The facilitator focuses on learner centered activities to ensure
that the learners express their ethnic background and celebrate
their uniqueness.
• The facilitator indulges in research and analysis of the learner
background before planning an inclusive classroom session.
• The facilitator nurtures the environment to reduce power of
differences through questionnaires and knowledge-based
questions.
• Incorporation diverse ideas into the course content or
teaching about cultural differences provide valuable
perspectives to the content being learned.
• The facilitator maintains sensitivity in language while handling
nonnative speakers of the language.
• Instructions to be marginalized with correct level of fluency to
enable the learners to actively learn the language.
• Culturally responsive instructions help the students to
appreciate their capacity to understand and follow.
• The facilitator can introduce methods of self-testing that
ensures praises for learners’ accomplishments.
• Learners turn into active participants and they learn to
reframe the concept of testing.
• Learners have wide scope in problem solving and brain
storming ideas in a diverse group.

Diversity can be conceptualized in multiple ways in the

classrooms. Each learner brings unique experiences from their
background and express their ideas from their perspective. The
varied dimensions can be based on race, ethnicity, socio
economic status, political beliefs and ideologies from their
family tree. Socially diverse groups inside a classroom are more
innovative than homogenous group because different
backgrounds provide opportunities to share new
information .Simply interacting with diverse group members
enable learners to prepare , anticipate alternate view points
and to reach consensus will take effort .The first step towards
teaching multicultural awareness is preparing the
resources .Teachers can utilize the resources to create unique
activities to teach English While teaching sciences, mathematics
and humanities teachers can incorporate ideas from various
parts of the world and integrate subjects to present a novel
idea. Teachers as facilitators identify that diversity is the
exploration and incorporation of diverse thinking to enrich
classroom learning experience.

Teaching for a change encourages teachers and students to

rethink, rediscover their classroom, analyze the world inside
and outside build more equitable multicultural society and
evolve into globally responsible citizens. If it’s difficult to bring
about the change in the classroom question the learners to
identify the challenges that restrict the change and trigger their
critical thinking skills .Let all learners in the school identify
themselves a unique individuals and use that fact to build
diverse inclusive class environment. With every data in mind it
may be difficult to start an innovative program as an individual.
Here are some smart ways to move on:
• Schedule time out of your day to visit classrooms, connect
with colleagues, build a relationship with learners and share
your thoughts with them.
• Communicate your visions and goals and be ready to listen to
their inputs. Encourage learners to involve in planning
activities.
• When you know the learner’s strength and weakness, exploit
their individuality and diversity to equip yourself to promote
diversity in school.
• Create opportunities to talk about discrimination and be
willing to accept issues related to inequality.
• More diverse the topic you raise, the less learners would
address them. So, be prepared to face failures and challenges.
• Encourage learners to address neutral issues around them
and highlight the core issue to be approached in a different
perspective.
• Use positive language, reduce discrimination thoughts among
learners through multi-cultural activities.
• Be more creative, diligent and hard working towards the goal.
• Introduce adaptive learning. Adaptive learning provides
learners with physical or learning challenges to learn along with
peers.
• Encourage team of colleagues to use different teaching
learning strategies to enable learners with different needs to
participate in the event .
• Make sure all learners are involved and track their
participation and appreciate their effort.
• Morning messages can help welcome students to school and
reinforce academic skills.
• To conclude I share with you my formula of inclusion in
diversity.

“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think that , more
talented than you recognize , and capable of quite you
imagine.”- Roy.T Bennett
Materials required: supplies unlimited, time 24*7, energy
within
Procedure:
Step1: Stay calm, talk to Self.
Step 2: Plan your day
Step 3:Implement to best of ability
Step 4: Achieve goals in small packets
Result: Every small task is mission accomplished.
Inference: Tiny drops of water make a mighty ocean