Bridging Our Differences

What happens inside the classroom can profoundly effect the lives of students outside of the classroom.  Like parents, teachers are models and exemplars.  The complexity of this role can feel daunting.

When students enter our classrooms, they bring with them different cultures, languages, religions, and socio-economic backgrounds. They possess a variety of learning styles, cognitive, and social-emotional skills.  Their families are comprised of parents, step-parents, adoptive parents, siblings, cousins, friends, and guardians.  Some students have been abused, neglected, over-indulged, entitled, criticized, adored, and violated.

As teachers, we have to consider the similarities among our students and honor their differences. In the face of the diversity of our student population, this task can seem overwhelming.

It doesn't have to be. Here are a few tips.

• Be Inquisitive.  Lead as a learner. Be willing to ask questions, when you don't know the answer. 
• Select Instructional Content that reflects Diversity.  Look for content that expresses the diversity that exists in the world.  Use the content as a springboard for meaningful discussion that raises awareness and understanding of our differences.
• Emphasize Similarities. We are all human.  Our humanity connects us.  Everyone loves a good laugh, a friendly gesture, and compassion.
• Be Human.  Remember none of us is perfect. It is ok to make mistakes.
• Set Your "Shoes" Aside.  It is easy to get entrenched in our own perspectives, backgrounds, and beliefs.  Remember to step outside yourself and practice humility.

Diversity is a beautiful thing. If we were all the same life would be uninteresting.  We would be clones. We would have no motivation to learn about or from one another.  Above all else, dare to be you and allow others to be themselves.  If you do your classroom will be an engaging place where connection between others will ignite learning.

#EPIC Failure

We fail far more than we succeed.  It is our failures that allow us to move closer to our best. Failure knows no limits. It touches the old and the young, the wise and the numb. Everyone suffers a skinned knee and a wounded heart.

As a teacher, I feel that our curriculum says little about failure. Certainly, there are stories of failure that are told and gaffs in history that are reviewed. We examine the world in hindsight. But, we do not teach our students to examine themselves. 

We should. 

I would like to teach a course called, Failure.  As a part of this course, students would become intimately familiar with failure and how to move beyond it. They would examine their feelings and the reactions of others, including their peers, their parents, and their teachers. 

They would learn to identify the reasons for their failures and ways to rectify them moving forward.  They would learn to be experimental and take thoughtful risks. They would develop a metacognitive relationship with failure. The ability to embrace their wounds and analyze their actions. Failure would become a laughing matter. A part of life that is accepted and expected.

Students would become comfortable sharing successes and failures. Laughing, teasing, and bolstering one another. Facing their failures, with eyes open, and the tools needed to persist when success looms beyond their reach.