[MUSIC] Welcome back to week six of course eight on recognizing diversity and developing relationships. This lecture, I'd like to look at some of the strategies that we could use for addressing diversity and making sure that we are inclusive in terms of the way which we go about our classroom behavior and classroom management. First of all we need look at some of the typical responses that we get to diversity. And as you can see from this list there are six different ways in which people respond to diversity. In one and two, it's not what you'd call a very positive response. It's either denying that diversity is a positive thing or there's an awareness that's it's there but people are frustrated because they don't particularly like it. If we get into the middle section there, we can find that people start to tolerate other people from a diverse background. They don't do much about it. And then at the next level we start to do things that might encourage an opportunity for people to operate together. To work together. To start remediating the negative feelings that people have for each other. And then the two top levels where we might involve ourselves in active engagement with other people. In other words we're not just simply recognizing that diversity is there, we're embracing it. We're suggesting that diversity actually adds something to us, makes us better, in some way. And we seek to engage with different ways of thinking. And we can be doing this on an individual basis. But if we then have a number of people in our school that start to do the same thing, we're starting to look at inclusive social change. We are changing the culture of the school from one that perhaps did not recognize diversity to one that embraces it. So, if we are to move from denying that diversity is a positive thing, to embracing diversity, what are the sorts of things that we have to consider? Well, diversity is about respecting individual differences. And as you can see from this slide, the individual differences that occur within a community are quite substantial. There are differences based on who people are and where their form. There are differences based on what they believe and what they say. What we need to recognize is that an inclusive classroom supports every single student, where every student, no matter what their background, no matter what their beliefs, feels accepted and feels supported. If we look at life as being a game, where some people win and other people don't, we have to suggest that this sort of competition is not necessarily a good thing in our classrooms or in our schools. So we could argue that inclusion is changing the rules of the game. What we're trying to do here is to get a situation where everybody can play, but not only that, where everyone can win. So if we're going to be an inclusive classroom, we have to make diversity work. Here is a list of things that we need to identify and consider. The top one I want to spend a second or two on because it is really really important. We have to believe that all children can learn. Mahatma Ghandi once said that all children learn from school but not everybody learns the things that were being taught. Some of the children learned that school was not for them. Other children learned that they were a failure. And other children learn that they could be successful. So all children can learn all the time. But what we need to do is recognize that we as teachers have to believe strongly that all children can learn and they can learn what we're teaching. We may need to change the way in which we work with them in order to tailor to their individual styles, in order to cater to their individual backgrounds. But if we believe that every child can learn, then we're at least at the starting line. So we need to think of these other things as well. How are we welcoming for all children? How do we bring their diverse backgrounds into our classroom in a really positive way? Could we talk about the different foods that different people have? What do they eat at dinner? If they go to dance, what are their different dances? We can share these things and in sharing them every child in the classroom learns new things, learns more about the world that we live in. But more importantly learns how important each cultural background is and we need to think about that. So here's a list of things that teachers can do that might support diversity, embrace inclusion and get you to think about some of the issues that you can work on that will enable us to work together better in the future. Some of the ones that are listed there are quite important. Work closely with parents to understand student strengths and needs. If you have a diverse classroom, then you need to work with the parents because the parents know their children best. They know their cultural backgrounds, they know their belief systems and so on. So working with parents becomes really, really critical. But you also need to work with the other teachers, because other teachers may have more experience than you do. Other teachers may have a better understanding of some of the cultures. Other teachers may even be from some of those cultures. So, with the school working together with parents, teachers, and students, all working together, we can identify what will work in our classroom. So the expectations would be what does a student need to do in order to be successful in your classroom? What are the things that we want students to be able to achieve that will allow us to see that student as being successful? And of course John Dewey had a comment about this more than a hundred years ago, what the best and wisest parents want for his child, that must be what we want for all children. Anything else is narrow and destroys a democratic view of the world. So we have to argue the case that as a teacher, what I'm trying to do for the children in my classroom is what I would like to have done for my own children. The relationships that I've tried to establish in my own classroom, are the relationships that I would like to have with my own children. If we are able to manage that, then what we have is the opportunity to establish a new way of looking at the school. We have the opportunity to establish a school that is inclusive, that supports everybody within the school, no matter whether they are a student, a teacher, an administrator or a parent. We give them the opportunity so everybody in the school is able to be a learner, is able to be a teacher and is able to be a leader, at different times and for the things that they know best. So what we're looking at is relationships as being the glue that is so important to keep all this moving, to keep it all going, to keep it all together. So what we've now done is we've come to the end of course eight, and Dr. Fawaz and I would like to thank you for being involved in this particular course. We hope that you have learned something new. We hope that you've been able to discuss things in a way that has made you see the world slightly differently to what you were able to see it before. And we hope, with your colleagues at school, with your students, and with the people in this class that you've been able to form new relationships based on inclusion and based on positive questioning. But we've also come to the end now of all all eight courses on the program Foundations of Teaching for Learning. On behalf of all of the people that have been involved in the program, I want to thank you for being involved. I want to thank you for being involved in all of the courses if that's what you've been able to do, and if you've missed some courses along the way, remember that they will always be coming around again, so that you'll be able to pick them up. We hope that you've enjoyed the courses, and we wish you well in your work as a teacher. Good luck. Thank you. [MUSIC]
