Heather Larsen

Diversity 6020 Action Plan

This book has been eye opening, in a very good, but somewhat sad way. There are so

many things in our world that I wish I could change, but alas they will be slow changing as it is

very hard to change people’s thoughts and attitudes as we have discovered while reading this

book. It’s easy to see why the white race is still dominant, even though slavery was abolished

over 100 hundred years ago. The civil rights movement helped; however there are still people

alive today who are still discriminating against those that are of color. They then pass their

thoughts on to their kin and thus preserving the thought that the white race is the dominant.

To stop this pattern we as educators must provide a way for students to learn as much

information as possible about our history, and about our different cultures/races, to provide them

with the ability to make their own judgements so they do not just follow their parents’

judgements. If as teachers and educators we can accomplish this task, slowly we will be able to

make a change in our country, and hopefully to the world to see the human race as the dominant

race, not the color of our skin determining dominance.

My plan of action, first involves changing the classroom environment. Giving students a

place to freely speak their mind and providing a safe place to do so. Then I plan to incorporate

real world news into our topics of discussion, and try my best to relate it back to the content of
the class. Lastly I want to provide a no tolerance zone for discrimination, and let the students

know of my thoughts and feelings towards discriminating and playing the race card.

The environment of my classroom will be started when the school year starts. Students

will hear and read the disclosure and then discuss the cultures and differences we see in each

other. We will have an open discussion about how we must share our strengths together to create

a space where the content can have dominance and not our fears of speaking out or to be

different. I hope to take time to have students introduce themselves and tell about where they are

from and what their background is. This is purely just information about them. After we discuss

this then I will want to hear about their background information in math. Hopefully there will be

students with different takes on mathematics, and we will discuss how this helps make our

classroom strong and how not to make what we don’t know a weakness.

Already I have students of different races, cultures, and financial backgrounds. Once we

discuss who we are and where we come from working together and mixing groups up will

provide us with an abundant amount of information about how race, culture and background will

play a role in our classroom. This will also provide a sense of community and a safe space for

students to learn. Students will naturally find people that they like to work with and feel that they

work well with, which is okay. We will let this natural selection play to our strengths, but at

times I will mix them up and get them to work with someone who they wouldn’t naturally pick;

doing this will provide a way for students to learn about each other in a safe and respectful

manor.
 Once this culture is established in the classroom and the learning has taken place, we can

take time to mention what is happening in the news and what’s going around on social media.

Even though it is not content related, taking a bit of time once a week or so to mention things

that students have read or heard is important to have in the classroom. It is also important

because students should know that their teacher cares about what is happening in the city,

country and state that we all live in. This will also provide a place for students to talk about these

issues if they don’t have one. We all know that there are some students that don’t have adult

figures at home that talk about these items, which is part of the problem in our fight against

equality.

Talking about social media is even more important to the students. Getting students to

read and find posts, or comments that are discriminatory is a great learning experience for them.

Once we start to talk about these social media posts almost all students will be able to relate to

this because they love to be on social media. I will ask the students what was discriminatory, or

uncomfortable about the post. Then I will ask why they think the author wrote the post, and

where their thoughts originated from. Then I will ask what their response is from it. Then I will

ask if they think their response is appropriate. Then I will ask them if they think the content of

this class can relate to it, I guarantee that someone will be able to think of a way to relate it back

to math and it’s sure to be wildly abstract and interesting.

 Finally, when inappropriate comments are made in the classroom they will be addressed

with no tolerance, whether they are towards themselves, or other students, or even the teacher. If

the comments made are okay to discuss as a class they will. If they are not, they will be

discussed privately out in the hallway, or with an administrator. It will be reinforced to the class

that those types of comments will not be tolerated in the classroom and that students shouldn’t

tolerate them wherever they hear them, and if appropriate challenge those comments with a

correct response.

Incorporating all of these items will not be easy. It will be an adjustment; I have to

change my structure of how I run my class. The focus of my class is just on content. There is no

focus on anything mentioned above. Reading this book made me realize a lot of things, and made

me think hard about whether or not I really should be incorporating all of this in my classroom.

It’s really hard to think about! I do my best to never discriminate, but like I’ve learned in the

book you can be discriminatory sometimes without knowing because it’s so second nature.

It will be slow, and it’s not going to happen overnight, but if I can make the change so

can others. Not only students should feel the difference, but teachers around me should notice as

well. Hopefully other teachers pick up my ideas and the whole school becomes more aware of

the issues we have. These would be the best results of my action plan. I don’t think that one day

mankind on its own will be completely equal, but teachers, students and community members

can all be aware and do their best to create equality.