Race, Ethnicity, and Language in the Classroom

Race, ethnicity, and language all influence a student's identity, culture, and behavior in the classroom. As educators, we must be aware of our individual students and discover their cultures and their language in order to educate them most effectively. As far as race and ethnicity, these aspects of a students' culture effect their home-life, their beliefs, and their interests. We need to embrace different races and ethnicities in our classroom in order to make these students feel at home in our class. We want to develop a community where everyone feels safe and accepted and can be themselves. In order to incorporate the individual cultures in our room, I have a few ideas that do not take up much time, but will give them ownership of the classroom and make them feel more comfortable. The easiest thing we can do is put pictures of flags around the room representing the nationality of each of our students. This isn't very personal, but it is a good start towards including all of our students. Another thing we can do is have each student bring in a picture of his or herself, or of his or her family, and we can post them on a bulletin board and when they put it up we can have them explain a little about their culture to the class, so the class can be educated on different cultures and accept all of their peers. If students are uncomfortable with pictures, they can also just bring in their favorite quote, or a picture of something that they identify with and post that on the bulletin board instead when they discuss their culture. We also must include the values of each culture into our lessons and into our assignments. We must realize that certain cultures can effect students' homework habits or they may not be able to relate to some of the assignments we are giving them in class and may need to modify it for them.  In response to language, an easy way to help students who are English language learners or who speak multiple languages is to learn a few words in their language and share them with the class so that the class sees how awesome and interesting different languages can be. Who knows, through this the ELL students may be teaching the native English speaking students about their language and they can learn from one another and feel more comfortable. Overall, it is important to be educated on who is in your class and learn about their race, ethnicity, and language in order to provide them the necessary elements for success and comfort in your classroom. (AM)