Promoting and celebration of diversity in early child hood is only achievable by breaking all the cultural ties, assumptions, and beliefs. Further the celebration of diversity is also achieved through consideration and identification of individual differences that is found in all people regardless of the culture and race. Consideration of these individual differences is one of the fundamental things that help in promoting learning.
However, provision of an environment, in spite of the differences, in which each particular child can grow, calls for a way that goes beyond the curriculum that is provided in school settings, and incorporating the values or principles of diversity and those of social justice in our teaching methodologies and the way people interact. Therefore this topic of celebrating diversity can be discussed under these four areas, namely; culture, race, teaching methodology and multicultural sensitivity. These four areas can be discussed as under:
Cultural diversity Culture refers to the way people are organized, beliefs and their patterns of behavior. Culture dictates the way people dress and their language. There different forms of culture namely; social, political, historical, and economical. The historical culture focuses on how people create or construct meaning. Therefore the experiences of the learners are always informed by history. The economic culture further helps a person to understand how factors (for example money) and materials act on almost everything in our culture.
Economic culture usually in education as this determines the kind of school one has to attend. In the context of education, some cultures have a great concern on gender. For example, there are some cultures that lay a great concern on boy child education and only boys are allowed to go to school, whereas the girls are not allowed. They are expected to stay at home and be taught some domestic chores that will enable them to good house wives once they get married. This type of culture conflicts with the rights of a girl child because every child regardless of gender should be subjected to the same opportunities.
Therefore in the efforts to celebrate diversity, all these cultural practices of providing unequal opportunities should highly be discouraged and eliminated in those communities that are still holding this a-thing-of-the-past culture. Teaching Methodologies Teaching methodologies refers to the techniques that a teacher uses so as to make learning more effective and comprehensive. This is composed of various related tasks and activities. For effective learning, the teacher is supposed to establish a rapport by choosing a focus and then design the task.
The teaching methodologies analyze the so called “theory of language and language learning. ” They involve careful examination of the goals, syllabus, the teaching activities, the learner and teacher, materials, and classroom techniques. This task should include the learning abilities of the learners taking into consideration of the individual differences of these learners. Individual differences include such factors as quick and slow learners physically and mentally challenged learners.
Learning disabilities are issues or factors in development and therefore more care should be taken to those who possess these disabilities. Also the teaching materials for theses young children should be easy to understand and should be the ones that they are familiar with. The reading books must be written in a language that they can read with ease. This means that the language should contain no vocabulary and if it happens to be there, these words should be well explained so as to deliver the intended meaning. This also calls for checking on the needs, knowledge, and experience of the learners.
The activities should be well established and they need to achievable at the end of the day. The teaching methodology should also into account the use of technology in the classroom so as to involve the students actively in their own education, though it is not the most effective means of encouraging critical thinking and the desire to learn. It is evident that technology has transformed and revolutionalized the approaches to education, and therefore it is important to incorporate it as we celebrate diversity in education. Racial diversity
There is a need put a campaign on the people are treated regarding their race. There should be a link between the choices we make regarding schools. It is important to open up doors for all students to attend school they wish if they qualify for that. This means that all people have the right to interact with people from all races. Racialism may be fueled due to the racial income disparities which dictate the attendance rates. The lower level of income among the black people as compared to the whites, greatly contributes to the under representation of these people in the school setting.
This therefore implies that schools should be set up in a way that they take into account the income earners regardless of the race where every child can be admitted and pursue his or her studies from there. These schools should ensure that adequate and up-to-date learning resources or facilities are provided to ensure smooth learning. Multicultural Sensitivity This provides an opportunity to build a strong foundation in knowledge and skills that further boosts competency, effectiveness, and efficiency in education setting.
This is done by presenting wide range of interesting and relevant topics that will help the learner to develop multicultural competence skills. Multicultural sensitivity focuses at training an individual to become an all round person. This helps him or her to be able to work with others in harmony. Further, learners are also input with ability to listen to others and share ideas together. This increases independency where by an individual learn and possess those skills that promotes working alone and being independent while at work. Every person is made up of various physical and mental parts.
The learners are supposed to be taught on developing positive attitudes, which is eliminating negative perceptions about themselves. Many learners are subjected to negative attitudes due to the fact they come from a poor background, they have some physical deformities, and others cannot cope with others due the feelings of inferiority. It is the duty of a teacher to help all these students by trying to deposit positive mentality about prosperity and that their situations are changeable. This also increases their intrinsic motivation which leads to greater achievements.
Intrinsic motivation also promotes good mastery of content and better performance of an individual. Thus for us to celebrate diversity, there is need for teachers and caretakers to help these young students in realizing that there is more that is required besides the class work activities, and that classroom activities are not sufficient for one to successful in life. Teachers and caretakers can only be successful in doing this if they plan carefully, and a using proper pedagogy approach that takes into account even the outside activities that will enable them to adapt and eventually be competitive in the labor market.