What I like most about schools is the opportunity they can offer us to learn how to deal with diversity. Especially in Brazil, the differences are everywhere, you just have to open your house’s door. But how do I learn to accept the different styles, understand different cultures, deal with different opinions? How can I be a fair teacher?
Teachers were once learners who had other teachers that (hopefully!) taught them some special skills that would be passed on in the future to other students. That should be a cycle teachers participate and have a huge responsibility over. Was this explained in Universities?
I guess the appearance of the differentiation topic in the curriculum gave teachers a chance to become better in their job of passing on the culture of respect to the differences and the ability to look at each student with “neutral eyes”.
Mr. Y’s class is just like any other. He has only 21 students that differ from each other just like any group of human beings together. I was there since the very beginning of the lesson. Students seemed to know him well and when he gave instructions, pupils were ready to follow as he said. Similar to some classes I’ve taught and watched, there is always that special figure who asks: “What are we supposed to do?”, seconds after the instruction is given. Story of a teacher's life…
So, instructions were the same for everyone. Children were gathered together in the front part of the classroom. Maybe there was one or two who discussed what they were thiking on doing. Just making a quick comment, I believe this is the best kind of conversation. I usually get close to them to listen to what they are saying. The sharing moment among them is a treasure for my ears! Coming up soon a post about sharing.
I ask you reader to imagine the scene: students receive instructions from the Mr. Y who uses a PPT on the screen to help the ones that use more of their visual than auditory intelligences. Teacher opens for questions and asks students to have a sit and start their work. They get the material necessary for the task and start doing what they have to. What is the result? Check below:
What does that mean? Does it mean the teacher did not give the instructions correctly? Or maybe that he did not give enough time for students questions to be answered? No, no and no! It means we can prove the diversity really exists in the classroom. Mr. Y’s reaction before the pieces he received within the assigned time was a practice I want to share today. He just accepted the work and complimented the students for their effort. He accepted the different styles because they all reached the objective in a different way. The instruction was the same, but the way it was received by each child was different.
Dr. Jay Giedd of the National Institute for Mental Health says that: “there are differences in the sizes of certain structures in the brain that could account for some of the differences in the ways boys and girls function”. Based on this line, how can we expected similar results from both genders? When talking about emotions, we all know these genders function in a totally different way too. Now, we haven’t even mentioned the culture, background, social class, race… so many aspects that differ these children! How can we think about receiving the same thing from everyone?
I was glad to see Mr. Y did not expect the same from every child, but the best of the class was for me to see that children also knew and accepted the differences. They shared their work, showed them to their peers, but not in a comparison kind of showing. They were just proud they were different. This is the message of this post then, we have to teach our students to be proud of their differences and this can be empowered as we, as teachers, accept that each one of us has the right to come up with a result that best suits our profile. That is called fairness in my opinion!
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