In the Spring of 2016 I took Psychology of Exceptionality. In this class, we discussed various disabilities that we may come across in our future classrooms and how to adapt our teaching to fit those students needs. My field experience for the class was served at Camp Luther Nebraska. Through this class, I learned that every student is different and I shouldn’t expect one method to work for all students. Therefore, teachers need to be adaptable to best suit their students.
During the Fall of 2016 term, I volunteered at the People’s City Mission in Lincoln, NE in the EDEFY program to satisfy my field experience requirement for the class Differentiated Instruction. During this time, I served alongside a group of my fellow education students and we went to the mission once a week to give a short lesson and organize games for a group of 10-15 children ranging in age from 5 – 11 years old. All of these kids lived at the mission and many came from diverse backgrounds. This situation was a learning experience for us not only with teaching diverse children, but we had no cooperating teacher or higher authority. We were forced to learn as we went along and try our best to build relationships with the kids. It was a great experience and showed me the great task of teaching children form diverse backgrounds and the great reward of building relationships with people from diverse backgrounds.
I grew up in Long Beach, California. In 2016, the website WalletHub ranked the “most diverse cities in the nation” and Long Beach ended up in the 13th position. I went to Lakewood High School for my secondary education and graduated with a class size of 970. I played basketball all four years of high school and only ever had two other white teammates. In other words, I’ve experienced my share of diversity in the classroom. I believe that a diverse classroom can be one of the most beneficial things for a student, especially in high school. Diversity offers the opportunity for unique perspectives and a chance to remove the blinders that have been naturally placed in the household that each student grew up in. I am confident that my background as a student from a public school in a diverse area has fashioned me into the type of educator that is prepared for this same scenario.
