What Can You Do to Help Provide Equal Educational Opportunity?
The Situation
Assume you have just obtained your first teaching job in a city or suburban school with a relatively diverse mixture of students. You have been given a school profile indicating that about half the students are nonminority whites and the remaining half are minority students, including African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans. Many of the minority students are from low-income families, as are some of the white students, particularly those from families that recently immigrated from Bosnia and Greece. The profile also states that the average class size is thirty students, that emphasis is placed on including disabled students in regular classes as much as possible, and that the staff includes several Title 1 teachers as well as specialists who work with students who speak little English. It seems certain that your class or classes will include students who differ greatly from each other in current achievement level, racial and ethnic background, and readiness to benefit from curriculum materials commonly used in your grade and subject.
Thought Questions
- Who on the staff might you want to ask how you can best work with a class that includes a very wide range of achievement levels?
- Where might you find curriculum materials that can be used effectively with limited-English students or with learning-disabled students?
- To what extent will the preparation program at your college or university help you prepare for this teaching assignment? What more can you do while you are in the program to build your skills in handling so much diversity among students in a classroom?
- What attitudes should you cultivate that might help you succeed? To what extent can you overcome the feelings of failure you may well experience occasionally or even frequently as you cope with a very challenging beginning to your career in teaching? Which, if any, of your attitudes do you think are likely to be modified as you confront difficult problems in your own classroom?
