Describe your school or community’s greatest asset when it comes to diversity. How can this be brought into your curriculum?

 I am student teaching at Mather High School and my school's greatest asset when it comes to diversity is immigration. My school caters to many immigrant and refugee students. I teach 3 ESL classes so many of my students are from countries around the world. A lot of my students came from Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. I brought this into my curriculum in a lesson during which I introduced China. We began a new unit in my world studies class on Ancient China and I introduced it through a discussion of culture. I started out by having students look at a website with live statistics on the world population. First students had some time to explore and play with the website, then I directed them to look at China. Once they saw the statistics, I told them that people are not just numbers, they have culture. We watched a video in which two Chinese women explained some cultural differences between China and the West. Once they concluded speaking on  a topic, I asked my students how their culture regarded the topic. Was their culture like the West, like China or something different? One example was weight. The ladies said that in China it is a complement to say someone has gained weight. It means that they have been eating good food but in the West, it is very rude to say that someone gained weight. Other discussion on culture would be amazing ways to brighten up history curriculum.

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