Student
diversity
(Anna
Harris)
Anna Harris was Kelvin Seifert's grandmother as
well as a schoolteacher from about 1910 to 1930.She used to make comments, like
the one above, that sounded odd but that also contained a grain of wisdom. In
this case her remark makes a good theme for this chapter—and even for teaching
in general. Students do differ in a multitude of ways, both individually and
because of memberships in families, communities or cultural groups. Sometimes
the differences can make classroom-style teaching more challenging, but other
times, as Anna Harris implied, they simply enrich classroom life. To teach
students well, we need to understand the important ways that they differ among themselves,
and when or how the differences really matter for their education. This chapter
offers some of that understanding and suggests how you might use it in order to
make learning effective and enjoyable for everyone, including yourself.For
convenience we will make a major distinction between differences among
individuals and differences among groups of students. As the term implies, individual
differences are qualities that are unique; just one person has them at a
time. Variation in hair color, for example, is an individual difference; even
though some people have nearly the same hair color, no two people are exactly
the same. Group differences are qualities shared by members of an
identifiable group or community, but not shared by everyone in society. An
example is gender role: for better or for worse, one portion of society (the
males) is perceived differently and expected to behave a bit differently than
another portion of society (the females). Notice that distinguishing between
individual and
group differences is convenient, but a bit
arbitrary. Individuals with similar, but nonetheless unique qualities sometimes
group themselves together for certain purposes, and groups unusually contain a lot
of individual diversity within them. If you happen to enjoy playing soccer and
have some talent for it (an individual quality), for example, you may end up as
a member of a soccer team or club (a group defined by members’ common desire
and ability to play soccer). But though everyone on the team fits a “soccer
player’s profile” at some level, individual members will probably vary in level
of skill and motivation. The group, by its very nature, may obscure these signs
of individuality. To begin, then, we look at several differences normally
considered to be individually rather than group based. This discussion will
necessarily be incomplete simply because individual differences are so numerous
and important in teaching that some of them are also discussed in later
chapters. Later sections of this chapter deal with three important forms of
group diversity: gender differences, cultural differences, and language
differences.
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