About Me

My photo
My name is Jenn and I am 20 years old. I am a Junior at Salem State College. I transferred to Salem from UMass Boston in the spring. I have been a Preschool teacher for 3 years in Lexington, MA. I have wanted to become a 1st grade teacher ever since I was in Elementry School. I love being able to observe and help the children grow academically, physically, and emotionally. My boyfriend John and I have been together for almost 2 years. I love to play sports and I go running 2 miles every day to stay physically active.

Countryfest

Countryfest
Best Friends

Celtics Game

Celtics Game

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Eliminating Racism in the Classroom


From my perspective, racism is a problem that teachers have to deal with on a day to day basis. It can start from as young as 5 years old continue on up throughout high school and college. In my opinion, there are many different ways that racism can be prevented within a school setting. From my personal experiences, I observed a 5th grade classroom for my freshman year education class. The theme of the week was diversity and racism. When I entered the classroom, the students were in the middle of doing presentations using poster boards and acting out scenarios in which racism is used and how negative it is. As I was continuing to observe these children, I looked around the classroom to see their peers reactions to what their classmates were trying to establish with their presentation. Almost every single student had amazing eye contact with their classmates who were doing the presentation. They were really interested in learning about racism and how to help prevent it within a school district.

After doing some research on the topic of racism, i found a website that discussed ways to help eliminate racism in the classroom. Within this website, the author gave ideas and strategies to help teachers teach and prevent racism from happening in the classroom. One of they ways that the author uses is by using multi sensory learning styles. Multi sensory learning styles helps students to get a feel for what other cultures are like. In this specific article, the author uses examples such as children making posters and doings skits in order to show what racism is and what it is like. After doing these posters and skits, the students are able to discuss and understand what it feels like for these diverse children to come into a place to which they are different.

Also on youtube, i found a video that shows a teacher using racism in his classroom. He was caught using a negative slur to one of his students. How are teachers supposed to teach students not to be racist, if the teachers are provoking it?

No comments:

Post a Comment