Diversity in the Classroom

The best opportunities that I have had so far in the classroom, have been when I am working with small groups of students. One of the assignments that we did was drawing a picture of what their family did on the past weekend. When asking the students in each group what they did on the weekend, it was really cool to see how different they all were. In our class we have all kinds of different nationalities. We have a young boy who is from Mexico, a few colored students, and a young girl who's parents are from Korea. These students do the same work in the classroom, and it has been a privilege to see them interact, and become friends. 

When looking over the student's drawings after class, everyone had such different activities over the weekend. There were traditional clothes depicted in some of the drawings, maybe like a festival or something they must have attended. Students drew different types of food, places, and people. It was cool to see the different cultures and diversity when looking through the artwork. 

These students really don't have any sense of racial judgement yet, but they are also very blunt with their questions. "Why is your skin that color?" is a question I heard the other day, and the student just responded that is how they were born. The student asking the question just replied "That is so cool!" This is the kind of interaction that I love seeing in the classroom.