Diversity concepts and applications

Diversity

Understanding the Diversity of Students

In this reading, Garcia talks of how much diversity is affecting education. The issue would seem to be with the students, but more often it is with the teachers. This is largely because most teachers in this country are white and speak English as their only language. In contrast to this, their students are from many different nationalities and backgrounds. They also have different cultural ideas and many speak English as a second language, and often not very well. There are more and more immigrants coming into this country today, and so there are many more children that must be taught. These children are getting an education, but there is some concern over whether they are really getting the high quality of education that they want and need because of language and cultural boundaries that still exist in many schools between teachers and students.

This is a two-fold problem. Many of these children who need an education have come to this country seeking a better life and more opportunity. Their parents also seek this, but they are having great difficulty finding it. Years ago, immigrants had to start out in low-paying and largely unskilled jobs, but their chance for advancement was good and they quite often were able to work their way up and learn valuable job and people skills as they progressed in their employment. Now, many immigrants still start out in low-paying and unskilled jobs, but that is where they stay. Without a good education, their children are going to find that they have this same difficulty.

Because immigrant families tend to gather in certain areas of the country in large groups, there is often a shortage of properly trained teachers in areas that need them the most. All available data would indicate that the amount of immigrants is only going to grow larger as time moves on. Since there are few qualified teachers and such a strong focus on learning English rather than everything that their peers are learning, these students continue to fall behind in many areas of the curriculum. When this happens, many of them drop out. They are not able to get the higher-paying jobs this way, and many apply for government assistance, putting a further burden on society. More training on the part of teachers and educators is necessary to help them cope with the rapidly rising amount of diversity that they are encountering in schools.

There are many important points in this article, and Garcia has many valuable contributions to make when discussing what could be causing the difficulties that many immigrant children are facing. However, one of the most important points made in the article is that this problem is very new, and teachers who have been teaching for some time are not really prepared for this. They received their training when diversity was not an issue, and because of this, they are ill-equipped to handle it.