Teaching Children with
Diverse Needs
What stereotypes come to mind
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Women
Men
African American
Anglo American
Asian American
Hispanic American
Native American
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A person with a
disability
A person who is
homeless
Stereotyping
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Along with visual stereotyping sayings
should also be discouraged in
stereotyping-No way Jose’ and Indian
giver
Children from Diverse
Backgrounds
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African American Children
Hispanic American Children
Asian American Children
Native American Children
African American Children
(Bennett, 1995)
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Feelings oriented and personal
interactions
Nonverbal communication
Teaching strategies that stress
cooperative learning rather than
competition
Rich tradition of oral story telling and
listening
Hispanic American Children
(Garcia, 1992)
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Family and ethnic loyalty
Interpersonal relationships
Parents and teachers are highly valued
Asian American Students (Feng,
1994)
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Respect for authority and submergence of
individual
Responsibility for relatives
View teachers as having high status
Respect for elders and deferred
gratification
Native American Children (Banks,
1994)
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Cultural preservation
Holistic and shared view of the world
Elders are highly respected and held in
high esteem
Value sharing and cooperation
Learn through observation and patience
Other Key Factors
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Development of language is closely
connected to cognitive development
Learning in the first language helps a child
gain knowledge more than attempting to
learn the same knowledge in a language
in which the child has little
comprehension.
Recommendations
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Recognize all children are cognitively,
linguistically, and emotionally connected to
the language and culture of their home
Acknowledge that children can
demonstrate their knowledge and
capabilities in many ways(diverse learning
styles)
Instructional Practices of
Culturally Response Teachers
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Hold high expectations for all students
Achieve and maintain high levels of
student involvement in learning tasks
Have a strong sense of self-efficacy
Create meaningful classroom activities
built on students’ home cultural
experiences
Where Do I Begin?
Before the school year starts
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Access information about the community
your school is in
Access basic information about schoolpopulation, test scores etc.
Get to know your families
During the School Year
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Get to know the families
Review your student’s files for information
regarding-name of primary caregiver, home
language(s) spoken, special academic needs,
possible ethnic background
Develop list of possible methods of
communication for families (notes, person-to
person, e-mail, telephone, fax etc) pages 126127 letters)
Developing the Curriculum
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Anti-basis curriculum-curriculum that challenges
prejudice, stereotyping, bias, and the “isms.”
Bias- any attitude, belief, or feeling that results
in, and helps to justify, unfair treatment of an
individual because of his or her identity.
Multicultural curriculum-teach other’s culture so
that they will learn to respect each other and not
develop prejudice
Tourist curriculum-teach culture through
celebrations and through artifacts such as food,
traditional clothing and household implements
Multicultural activities are separate from daily
ongoing curriculum
Assumptions and Issues involving
curriculum and diversity
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Teacher assumes multicultural curriculum
in needed only in a multicultural classroom
Multicultural curriculum is standardized
and not addressing the unique needs and
backgrounds of the students in the class
Multicultural Education may focus on the
information about other countries and not
issues related to Americans.
Recommendations (A.B.C. Task
force; Derman-Sparks, 2000)
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Dangers of tourist curriculum should be
avoided instruction
Focus of Curriculum should incorporate
all students particularly those in the
classroom
All students should participate in cultural
diversity in instruction
Creating an Positive Atmosphere
in the Classroom
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Images of children and adults of various ethnic
groups should be in the classroom
Avoid tokenism-representation of only one or
two of a certain ethnic group
A fair balance of men and women shown in the
classroom doing a variety of jobs ( in the home
and out of the home)
Images of persons of various ages and abilities
in the classroom
Materials
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Books,Dolls, manipulatives -reflect diversity in
gender roles, ethnic and cultural backgrounds,
abilities and range of occupations
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Present accurate information and images
Variety of parents and family roles
Different languages, Braille, sign
Art should have various colors-tan, brown, black, and
variety of artwork should be shown from various
artists-ethnically diverse, women, men etc.
Various forms of music and song from diverse
cultures should be included
Holidays and Curriculum
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Issues- Halloween-Witches and Healer
Evil and the Color Black
Christmas, Easter,Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Winter
Solstice
Approaches to instruction
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Include holidays from several cultural groups
Do not celebrate holidays and allow children to share
what the did for breaks and mention similarities and
difference
More on Lesson Planning
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Equity
Relationships for parents student and teacher
Knowledge of various cultures
See and think from a multicultural perspective
Correct distortions of historic and scientific
record
Improve society
Willingness to cross ethnic and cultural
boundaries
Terms
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Lesson plan- a plan of instruction for a
single lesson
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Instructional objective
Materials
Methods
Evaluation
Time
Origin
Ways to incorporate diversity into
instruction
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Lesson sequence- series of individual
lessons( one lesson builds on another)
Instructional activity-integrated part of the
lesson or an activity that can be the lesson
itself (field trip; oral presentations, class
meetings, programs)
Unit of instruction-comprehensive,
multidimensional plan of learning