Diversity, Learning Style, and Culture

In the opening text of this article it talks about how too little has changed in the last 50 years. Recently I have finished student teaching and learned a lot about being in a school environment from an adult perspective. The biggest observation I have made is the fact that most teachers there are from another generation. Of that generation, it seemed like only 30% at most had adapted to change. I believe it is entirely possible that things haven’t changed much because a lot of people still in schools today teach the way they were taught. One teacher told me that she was only a few years from retirement so there was no way she was going to change anything. There are plenty of people of different generations that are willing to change but in some ways the system isn’t ready for that change. The article talks about diversity and how it’s easier to teach to sameness than it is for difference. In Maine, 97% of people are white. It could be that sameness that gets teachers to teach in one way to all the students. It is something as simple as seeing similar visuals that gets people to treat everyone the same. Basing things off appearance is a long tradition that human beings have. If some people can’t see right away that someone learns differently than they lump all in the same group. Fortunately, future teachers learn about this in school about how to find those diversity’s and differences. Differences and diversity was the biggest thing that I got out of this article because I see a problem with it in more than just a school setting. I believe it’s something that is so important and something that needs to be focused on in school. If it can start in the school than it can go much further than just in the classroom.