Diversity has been defined by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education as, "Differences among groups of people and individuals based on ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, gender, exceptionalities, language, religion, sexual orientation, and geographical area."
Throughout my teaching experiences I have worked with diverse populations. I attended a private school all through grade school. This already has been a unique experience, especially after coming to a public university. After this I found myself in diverse situations all the time. Western Michigan is a very diverse school that offers a lot of diverse classes. I have really enjoyed this experience and have met many people from different cultures. I feel that this is an experience every needs to have. Everyone needs to understand that no one person has the same background. We all come from different places and that needs to be taken into account ALWAYS! When I pre-interned at Northeastern Elementary and Loy Norrix High School I dealt with very diverse populations. There were students that were African American, Polynesian, Japanese, Chinese, Hispanic, Native American, and more. I have also taught with teachers who have very diverse backgrounds. The last teacher that I worked closely with, and had the utmost respect for, had Chinese, Canadian, and European background. I have also come across diversity in other aspects. I have taught students with many different types of disabilities. I have learned to work with severely impaired students to mildly impaired students. There is such a broad range of disabilities and yet I have worked with so many of them. I worked at Croyden School for 6 months and saw many students that were severely impaired. I also pre-interned at Loy Norrix High School and saw students with very mild impairments. I have also experienced working in very low socioeconomic status, as well as very high socioeconomic status. I have taught in classrooms where a few of the students spoke in different languages.
Aside from all of my teaching experiences I have had personal experiences as well. Like I previously stated I grew up attending a private school. We had a lot of religion classes and all of my friends attended church. It was a very different story when I came to college. One of the people that I became good friends with through college was a bi-sexual girl. This was a very different experience as well. Along with this my boyfriend's older brother is gay. Spending time with these people has really taught me a lot about my own beliefs and values. I have learned so much by working and spending time with people who have different beliefs or lifestyles than I do. I believe that all of these experiences have made me a stronger teacher. I also believe that they will help me later in life and in teaching. I enjoy learning more about others and opening myself to be in diverse situations. The examples that I have listed are merely a small part of all of the diverse situations I have been in, but I appreciate and have grown from all of them.
Updated Last On: August 28, 2005