The Need for a Developmentally-Appropriate Multicultural, Anti-Bias Classroom - Essay Sample

Introduction

Early age is the best time to develop positive attitudes of children regarding their perception of fellow students who do not appear similar in physical considerations as attitudes of prejudice builds through learning from a tender age (Kurawa, 2010). Cultural background affects how successful children would be in forging social relationships in school settings. Social relationships between children and teachers promote an environment that emotionally and psychologically supportive of each other. For instance, exposure to anti-bias and multicultural ideas reduces cases in which children of minority backgrounds experience discrimination, teasing, bullying or any other form of prejudice (O'Donnell et al., 2016).

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Being anti-bias is not all about appreciating that every individual has a special place in society and recognizing that there is value in diversity (Kurawa, 2010). Even if the class does not have a student from minority backgrounds, it is crucial that the classroom is attuned to multiculturalism and anti-biasness since, as the world becomes diverse, these children will at least encounter an individual who does not look like themselves in life. In such encounters, those who have been educated about diversity would embrace people who are different hence are likely to promote it in their daily interactions as teachers or ordinary of members of society.

Classroom Multicultural, Anti-Bias Goals

Reduction of Prejudicial Aggression To Negligible Levels

Aggression is a significant source of conflict among students. It is exhibited in teases, tripping, verbal abuse, and assault, among others. Such conflicts can be even more damaging if they are done based on prejudice (O'Donnell et al., 2016).

The teacher would accomplish the goal by requiring the students to suggest class rules about aggression and the punishment that would be meted out to those who show aggression to others. This would be preceded by explanations on how aggression based on prejudice affects the classroom environment negatively. After suggestions have been made, the rules would be debated and agreed as the regulations for classroom conduct and consequences spelled therein for reference and all students would be required to report any cases of aggression to the teacher. The expected outcome of the goal is to enable all students to take responsibility in reducing incidents of aggression motivated by prejudice amongst themselves.

Create Significant Levels of Social Competence Among Students

O'Donnell et al. (2016) describe social competence as the skillfulness of students at managing frustrating and challenging experiences with others- students or teachers. It is about having the ability to respond to instances such as prejudice in a manner that is socially appropriate even when such persons feel extreme frustration and anger.

The goal would be realized by forming groups in which students study and conduct other school activities. The teacher would enforce the requirement to study and work in groups on a regular basis. The expected outcome of the goal is to promote cooperativeness among students, thus enhancing their ability to handle cases of prejudice or bias on their own.

Teacher Multicultural, Anti-Bias Goals

Enhance Personal Awareness About Multiculturalism and Anti-Biasness Significantly

The teacher is mostly responsible for promoting fairness in the school. For them to effectively do this, it would be imperative for them to be informed of the need for diversity in classrooms and how such appreciation positively contributes to classroom environment. To achieve this goal, the author as a teacher would seek feedback from both the students and fellow teachers to get a sense on others' perceptions regarding their ability to deal with multiculturalism and anti-biasness. The expected outcome of the goal is increased understanding of personal strengths and weaknesses in embracing diversity hence design an appropriate mechanism to strengthen or enhance personal attributes that affect undermine multiculturalism and anti-biasness.

Improve Emotional Competence to Exceptional Levels

Social competence refers to one's ability to identify, understand, express and regulate their emotions of others (Brasseur, Gregoire, Bourdu, & Mikolajczak, 2013). To accomplish this goal, the teacher would observe how they feel at specific intervals during school hours. A timer would set, and observations on personal emotions would be made to note the level of emotions/stress at that particular time. This would be repeated for several days to note the variation of emotions. The expected outcome of the goal is to ascertain personal variations of feelings and reactions and how such deviations affect the teacher's classroom management.

Child Multicultural, Anti-Bias Goals

Understanding the Different Languages Spoken by All Students

As classrooms become diverse, there is a significant increase in the number of students who do not speak English as their first language. The goal is to get to know the language, and this would be attained by requiring all students in the classroom to script down their first language and send the script to the teacher. The teacher will peruse the written responses to understand them. The expected outcome of the goal is to know the language needs of each student and how language affects students' ability to grasp concepts in a different language.

Increase the Level of Understanding of the Home Environment of Students

The goal is to get the feel of the conditions that children while at home and are linked to classroom performance. This would be achieved by interviewing and interacting with all the parents of children. The expected outcome is to learn how parents perceive prejudice and ant-biasness because their perceptions can influence those of children and such influences can be manifested in school classroom settings.

How the Goals Will Contribute to a Successful Multicultural, Anti-Bias Classroom

Classroom Goals

Reduction of aggression would reduce reported cases of aggression directed certain to students based on their physical identity. Since children would feel motivated to embrace others due to the possibility of reward, respect for others is likely to be realized. As Postholm (2013) notes, recognition and reward arrangements by teachers and students work best in managing the classroom environment.

Social competence is an essential ingredient for students and adolescents to comfortably live in an environment where cases of bias or discrimination occur. It enhances the capacity of students to react to prejudice and bias in a way that does not cause further frustration or anger hence promotes social interactions (O'Donnell et al., 2016). Doing things together would enable students to learn each other as well as increase their ability to communicate cases of prejudice or bias to others and teachers. Working and learning in groups not only helps students to access peer support but also encourages students to value others in the group (Kurawa, 2010). As a result, the students acquire the knowledge necessary to increase their understanding of those that do look them, especially regarding individual student culture and gender.

Teacher Goals

Increased personal awareness about multiculturalism and anti-biasness enhance teacher understanding of diversity. As Postholm (2013) finds, it is important that teachers understand themselves and others in their own context if they seek to understand their own differences and those of others fully. When teachers understand diversity, they easily promote it in the classroom.

Dealing with student issues in the classroom settings can be draining for teachers. Increasing the ability to deal with emotions enables teachers to approach bias issues soberly thereby contributing positively to multiculturalism and anti-biasness in the classroom environment. Higher emotional competence is associated with greater happiness, better mental and physical health, and greater occupational success (Brasseur et al., 2013). These outcomes are crucial in solving conflicts and frustrations related bias and prejudice in the classroom.

Child Goals

Understanding the different languages helps the teacher to understand the culture of children. This would help the teacher to instill a culture of diversity by fostering respect among the different cultures as expressed in language hence helps the teacher to build social competence(O'Donnell et al., 2016).

The home environment plays an influential part in determining the ability of students learn and also behave conventionally in the classroom. This is because home settings affect student behavior in school (O'Donnell et al., 2016). This goal will help teachers to collaborate with parents in cultivating attitudes that uphold diversity in their children.

References

Brasseur, S., Gregoire, J., Bourdu, R., & Mikolajczak, M. (2013). The profile of emotional competence (PEC): Development and validation of a self-reported measure that fits dimensions of emotional competence theory. PLoS ONE, 8(5), e62635. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062635

Kurawa, G. (2010). Teaching diversity in a primary school: examining teachers classroom strategies for inclusion. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 5(2010), 1585-1591. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.07.329

O'Donnell, A. M., Dobozy, E., Bartlett, B., Nagel, M., Spooner-Lane, R., Youssef-Shalala, A., & Smith, J. K. (2016). Educational psychology. Sydney, Australia: John Wiley & Sons.

Postholm, M. B. (2013). Classroom management: What does research tell us? European Educational Research Journal, 12(3), 389-402. doi:10.2304/eerj.2013.12.3.389