The diversity of the class

Nowadays, the modern school has an uniform curriculum, classes with a lot of students and divided by ages and we can't change that but what we are able to change is the tradiotional method of teaching and we could adapt those things we can't change to the principles of diversity of the class. But... What does it mean diversity of the class?

To start with, I have to clarify that the diversity of the classroom happens in every classroom, why? Because as Gardner says in the multiple intelligences research (which I would probably talk another day because I think is a quite interesting topic), every kid learn in a different way so that’s what make every class full of diversity. If education is applyed equally to every student, the differences will grow. So what diversity of the class is trying to do is to provide every student with what they need, how do we get that? If you want to get this aim there are two rules:

• You have to know every student, but also you have to know your class, this is to said, the whole group (how the group work better, which are the flaws and the strengths...
• One word, FLEXIBILITY: as a teacher you have to have flexibility in the methods, materials, classroom... This also means that you have to know perfectly these methods, materials, evaluations... This is really important because if we are facing the diversity of the class we have to know a lot of methods to cover every student needs.

Maybe you don’t have yet a clear idea about what is and what is not the diversity of the classroom, here are some hints:

·         NO:

o   Personalised.

o   Chaotic.

o   Another way of creating homogeneous groups.

o   Trying everyone to understand the same curriculum.

·         YES:

o   Proactive education which tries to cover a range of necessities.

o   More qualitative that quantitative.

o   Based on the diagnostic: the diagnostic isn’t just test, it is everything the the pupil does.

o   Multiple standpoints.

o   Focus on the pupil who has more responsibilities.

o   Combines individual learning, group learning and global learning.

Furthermore, we have to make sure that the educational environment (activities, the classroom, timetables...) encouraged each child to act to learn. Now, I’m going to introduce you the two keys of the attention to diversity in education:

·         Autonomous learning: each pupil has to know that he or she is responsible of his or her education that they have to create their own knowledge.

·         Cooperative learning:  the group is another responsible of the learning, the pupils have to get the knowledge by working together too because each of them has some flaws and strengths so if they work with their strengths they are going to go further and their flaws will not impediment their learning process.

Focusing on the topic about how the people learn better we have four keys:

·         Finding sense of what they have learnt.

·         Organised knowledge:
                 --Clarity knowledge.

                 -- Firmness knowledge.

·         Active participation.

·         Being motivated because they are learning something that they are interested in.

In general we could have two types of students, the advanced ones and the ones who have difficulties, as teacher we can’t deny this fact. This is just a general idea because this may vary on different subjects, moments... Furthermore there aren’t only two types of students but to start with we can focus in these two types.

• Advanced students could be bored because the tasks are easy for them, so they could end up being lazy students who haven’t acquired the habit of study. Also they could become in perfectionists who are never happy with their work and don’t accept the mistakes because they think having a mistake is fail. So with these students we have to challenge them so they have to make efforts in their education and also we could give them more responsibilities as trying to help another student who has difficulties.
• Students with difficulties: could end up being frustrated. As teacher we have to show them their good skills and make sure that those subjects in whom they have problems don’t affect the other ones. We can’t give them easy tasks so they don’t get frustrated because they have also to make an effort in their learning, this is to say, finding a middle point in which they make an effort but don’t get frustrated. We have to get them to learn the important, not specific details.

We have said that with this kind of education the group tasks are very important, here comes the problem how should we make the groups? The diversity of the class bet on the hetereogenous groups but we have to be careful on it, in this scheme you can see the advanced students, the middle-level students and the students with difficulties in a particular subject. With middle-level student I’m not saying that there’s a standard student those are the students between the advanced ones and the ones with difficulties. So the groups has to be homogeneous but can’t mix an advanced student with one who has a lot of difficulties because both are going to end up frustrated. But if you put an advanced student with a ‘’middle-level’’ student, the advanced one can help the other one and learn by teaching that also happens with the ones with difficulties and the middle-level students, the middle level students can help the ones with difficulties so neither of them gets frustrated or bored.

In this kind of education the role of the teacher has changed, the teacher is no longer the one who has all the information and provide it to the pupils, know the teacher has to create a bridge between the students and the learning. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t important the knowledge of the teacher. The teacher has to fit the task with the class and students, of course it’s almost impossible to cover every student needs every time but we have to try it by using a lot of methods, materials, evaluations... so nobody is forget in this kind of education. The teacher has to let the students chose some tasks but also gives them some task, this has to be balanced. Both the teacher and the students are essentials in the class so they collaborate to get the aims.

A teacher has to create a climate of community, respect and security in the class and also has to plan every task carefully thinking about which could go wrong and having alternative plans. Let’s say that a teacher is a coach, a coach know the sport deeply and so their players and the team. The coach has goals to each player and to the team. In each practise the coach plan some individual activities, sections activities and group activities. The coach knows how to motivate each player and he promotes team work. He encouraged the team, makes an effort, give instructions and give responsibilities to some players to get his aims. But the most important thing about a coach is that he doesn’t play the game.

In conclusion, we could summarize everything in the triangle theory which explains that a triangle is not a triangle if it has not its three vertexes. Every vertex is essential for education forgetting one of those would mean that you are not educating properly.

As we have seen, a diversity class is not easy but if we focus on it, it will be much more educative. We have to understand how our pupils learn and how do they enjoy learning and try to cover it as much time as possible. Something as simple as changing the normal classroom and going to the hallway, playground... can catch their attention so they would learn much and better. The kids has to go to the school excited because they don’t know what they’re going to do so every day is different. Everyday has to be a challenge for the kid.

All this information has been provided by a book written by Tomlinson called ‘’La diversidad del aula’’.