Teaching_Tolerance_Will_Foster_Diversity

Teaching Tolerance will Foster Diversity Cami L. Southwell AED 200 November21, 2010 Patty Smith Teaching Tolerance will Foster Diversity I greatly believe that tolerance should be taught in schools around the world. With the technology seemingly creating a smaller world the diversity of the world’s society demands that tolerance be practiced. Although many believe that tolerance is a value that is contrived from the moral base of a student’s home-life. I firmly believe that even if a student comes from a less than tolerant home practicing a learned behavior while attending school can spill out into the rest of their life. I also e should follow much curriculum on teaching tolerance. Teaching tolerance would have to be taught just the same way as we teach about respect for oneself as well as others; in the pre-k and elementary school levels. To teach students to not only truly respect themselves and others then tolerance will follow much easier. If teachers are allowed to teach tolerance to younger students just imagine how easy it would be to introduce a new concept like tolerance to them. Children are basically clean slate for us as teachers to “write on”. Yes, once children begin school they have already been exposed to whatever values their families hold dear, but it doesn’t mean that it is too late to introduce new ideas to them even if they are ideas that are different than what they have seen for the past four to five years. A perfect example of this is a program called the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teacher Tolerance Program which was started in 1991 (Thomas, Dece). This program offers free classroom materials designed to promote appreciation of diversity, which in turn allows the children who take part in this program a voice on how they want to learn more about kids that are different form themselves. One of the programs that have developed from this program is the “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” idea (Thomas, Dece) . This program has children sit with people other than their normal crowd at lunch to be able to better get to know each other. Since this program blossomed out of the original Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teacher Tolerance Program; it has spread across the country and allowed many children to reach out to their peers that they may not have the notion or even the opportunity to use their open-mindedness while they still have no prior prejudices to cloud their judgment. Such tolerance tools are great ways to begin to change the way that people look at those who not only look different, but also for those who believe differently, dress differently, or even if they are a person who is disabled (NYU Child Study Center, Dece). In 2008 a survey of the Mix It Up at Lunch Day organizers shows that the program leads to positive interactions between students of different social circles along with developing better awareness of social boundaries and divisions in the schools. Over four-fifths of those who responded to the survey stated that the students who participate in the lunch program ended up having more sensitivity toward tolerance and even more so in social justice issues (Ford & Young, Marc). Although many people believe that once a student enters school that it is too late to change the way in which they were taught to see the world from the family matrix. Well here is an example of how learned behavior can override the ideals of the morals in which their family holds. Yes; tolerance is based in the moral value system that each family has and holds dear to their individual thoughts. This is believed by the people who oppose teaching tolerance in the school; because they believe that trying to teach something that should be taught at home is going to be a fruitless endeavor. How can retraining a student’s train of thought when it is not reinforced when they are not in the school environment. If a child is at home and the family uses derogatory terms in order to describe certain people then what do you expect the child to do; as the saying goes; “A child learns what they see”. If that was a definite; then how is it that in the late 1960’s to is the early 1970’s; that children learned to accept that black children were going to be in school with them when the parents still used terribly derogatory verbiage to talk about a whole entire race. Now days it is common place for multiple races to attend schools together and it is not even given a second thought. Positive messages spread, maybe not right away, but education is the ultimate power and if students are educated with new ideas then they can pass it on to their children and so on. That is where learned behaviors can positively affect society in the near future. Think about how society would be different if tolerance of the blacks in the same public schools as whites was never taught and then accepted; it is the same type of concept when it comes to teaching overall tolerance. If parents or other adults are not interested in the value of being tolerant then they usually have the attitude that students need to toughen up and deal with it, or it will work itself out because intolerance is just a part of life. Many times we see this type of thinking in rural areas; where there is not such a diverse cultural mix; in these smaller school districts the students are generally around other children just like themselves. Once a situation pops up where there is some kind of noticeable difference then issues arise, and then it is up to the teachers to find an amicable resolution to the issue at hand because the students have not been taught how tolerate those that are different from themselves. A perfect example of how intolerance can be contagious as the common cold happened in October of 2010 in a school in Georgia. A teacher by the name of Dave Dixon was personally responsible for talking three different students down from committing suicide and many others in whom he mentored stayed in school when they were contemplating dropping out of school and not finishing their education (Jones, Nove). Today Dave is out of work; why; the school he worked for did not care for the fact that he was trying to create a more tolerant environment for students that were homosexual. In Dave’s fight for equal treatment within the school for these students ended up in him showing a film on tolerance of homosexuals, but by the time that film was only forty-two seconds into the film he realized that he was showing something that was not edited for language and he stopped the film immediately. Although the film had been ended the discussion had continued about anti-gay bullying (Jones, Nove), when students went home and let their parents know what the topic of discussion in school; the parents then complained to the school about such subject matter. In response to the complaints from parents the school decided that this was a subject that as not appropriate to be teaching. In the words of Dave Dixon; “it is too bad that the school isn’t interested in fostering and environment rooted in tolerance”. Instead the school originally suspended Dixon and then within a month’s time they made the final decision to fire him completely (Jones, Nove). Just think about how harmful intolerance can be to teens; teens are already going through many physical and social changes, but to have such bullying going on can be detrimental. Students who suffer with the bullying end up showing signs of eating disorders, suicides, drug and alcohol abuse, mental issues, and even feeling so misunderstood and/or ignored that they feel that they have no other resource other than to take the lives of those who torment them (National Crime Prevention Council, 2010) . Look at the shooting at Columbine, this was a student who didn’t fit into the mainstream of the school’s student body and he was picked on constantly for how he dressed, how he acted, where he lived, and who he felt that he could be friends with. If tolerance had been taught to these children when they were younger then would this particular student have been pushed into taking the lives of those who he felt had wronged him' This is where faculty of schools needs to be committed to encouraging diversity. Many of those who oppose the idea of teaching tolerance within the public school systems disagree because they wonder how such a subject can be incorporated in the states’ curriculum. To those people I have to say that teaching tolerance should be no more difficult to teach tolerance than it is to teach respect. Respect is a value that is taught from the time our children go to pre-school and kindergarten; and if we are able to teach respect in order to have safer schools for our students then tolerance should be taught right along with it. Learning about those who are different from you will break down the “walls” that we learn from the time we are born. We are made to believe that everyone is different whether it is differences in cultures, economic situations, religion, race, or even if they are disabled in some way. These feelings of separatism and segregation spawn feelings of misunderstanding where it is more likely to have a violent situation come about. Now it is a given when the government speaks of school violence; that it is an issue that needs to have a halt put on it. If our students cannot even get along with each other inside the smaller society of a school environment, then how are they going to learn about equality and tolerance for their future in the real world where they are going to have to deal with people that are different in many ways in the work place' Diversity of races, creeds, religions, and even economic groups is something that all schools should embrace and celebrate and not seen as an issue to be solved. The fact is that most schools are a mixing bowl of all different types of people just like life once a student has graduated from high school is full of diverse people. This is the exact reasoning for teachers to not only set the example for their students by being tolerant and fair to all students no matter what their background or beliefs are. If teachers can be that example for their students to emulate then it will bring a new way of thinking into society for the future. References Ford, A., & Young, E. (March 29,2009). Teaching Tolerance in the classroom. Retrieved from http://nyteachers.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/teaching-tolerance-in-the-classroom-by-angela-ford-and-erin-young/ This article discusses how the world we live in is has a great deal of diversity and different ways to teach tolerance to the students to ensure more peace within the world. Johnson, J. A., Musial, D., Hall, G. E., Gollnick, D. M., & Dupuis, V. L. (2005). Introduction to the Foundations of American Education (13th ed.). New York, NY: Allyn and Bacon. This textbook shows us different aspects of teaching and the issues that we may come across in our own classrooms when we get our teaching licenses. Jones, M. A. (November 9,2010). Georgia Teacher fired for Trying to Stop Anti-Gay Violence. Retrieved from http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/georgia_teacher_fired_for_trying_to_stop_anti-gay_violence This article talks about how a school in Georgia fired a teacher who was trying to put a stop to anti-gay violence. The incident was recorded but when the teacher tried to use the footage as evidence the school seemed more concerned with the teacher’s language seeing as though the footage was not edited for language. NYU Child Study Center. (December 3, 2008). Preparing Children for a Multicultural World. Retrieved from http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/preparing_children_multicultural_world This article gives advice to parents on how to deal with a potentially embarrassing situation with young children in a way that will help them learn to be more accepting and tolerant of those that they notice are different from themselves. National Crime Prevention Council. (2010). Strategy: Diversity and Tolerance Education in Schools. Retrieved from http://www.ncpc.org/topics/bullying/strategies/strategy-diversity-and-tolerance-education-in-schools This article put out by the National Crime Prevention Council speaks about the way that tolerance education can help stop bigoted attitudes which leads to violent crime as well as other types of crime. Thomas, J. (December 9, 2008). Kids Celebrate Diversity and tolerance by "Mixing It Up" at Lunch. Retrieved from http://www.america.gov/st/educ-english/2008/December/200812091155561CJsamohT9.968203e-02.html This particular article discusses a program that is sweeping the country and the positive effects that it is not only being shown in the schools that it is being put into use in; but in the students’ exterior environment as well.