4.1.2016 EDEL 1010 Blog#6 Diversity in the Classroom

Today I observed in a first grade classroom in Heber City, UT. Wonderful experience! But this blog is to be about diversity in the classroom, so I'll talk about that first. This school has four sections of first grade, with one begin dual immersion (Spanish) and the other three all English. The classroom I was in is NOT Dual Immersion. Dual immersion is a great thing--in theory! But I'm not sure we have the right procedures here in the Wasatch School District yet. This particular elementary has had Dual Immersion Program for four years. Here's my biased opinion: Parents with higher socioeconomic status want their kids in Dual Immersion so they become bi-lingual. And students that have English as their second language (or in some cases, initially NO English) get placed in the Dual Immersion classroom. So dual immersion classes are larger and have wider range of ability levels in them. The non-Dual Immersion classes have almost no Latino students and also not all of the highest functioning kids. The Dual Immersion students stay with the same group of students year after year since only one section is Dual Immersion...this alone has it's disadvantages. The classroom I was in has 17 students (was 18 most of the year): all students appear to be Caucasian and from English speaking backgrounds. Seven of these students have Title One assistance (20 minutes pull-out time each day). I noticed slight differences in grooming and clothing, but by appearance the group was fairly homogeneous. Yet even in this thoroughly "Middle Class American" group of students I could see in my three hours in the classroom today that this gifted teacher sees each student as an individual with different needs and therefore deserving of different teaching structures. Yet the teacher, Mrs. P was so clever that I am sure the students are not very aware that she treats each one differently! Their was at least one student in the classroom with apparent Autism (I am not intending to label here!). The teacher does not isolate this student and expects him to take part in the classroom activities and follow classroom rules. She does, however, repeat the rules often and I am sure this is for his benefit as the other students seem to remember them. She also uses other verbal and gesture clues that benefit all students, but especially this student with apparent attention/distraction challenges. She seemed to know when to ignore him (when he temporarily threw himself in the floor over not getting to start with a certain center activity) and when to allow him to get out of his seat and come to her for a needed hug. Mrs. P is very tuned in to teaching each student based on their academic level: reading books, computer activities, and weekly homework packets are different for each student and enable brighter students to be challenged and students who are struggling with basics to also receive ability-appropriate work. This requires a lot of extra planning time, but I can see this teacher is will for it because (in her 31st year of teaching) she is still passionate about her students!