Importance of cultural diversity

The importance of cultural diversity and how as a pre-service teacher I will be able to use my knowledge to utilise this in a classroom?

As a multi-cultural society I feel as though as a pre-service teacher allowing children to bring their sense of identity into the classroom is essential to their learning experiences as all children should feel welcomed, appreciated and accepted for their diversity and similarity.  From my recent learning experience about collecting, I have come to understand that ‘collecting becomes an enjoyable and worthwhile learning experience when children are encourage to explore, sort and classify the objects they or the staff have collected’ (MacNaughton & Williams 2009, p.21).

The use of collection can be utilised in order to target culture diversity by allowing the children to bring photographs, ornaments or anything in order to represent their identity and background. By creating an experience for children like this you are allowing children to feel apart of their learning environment and the teacher can use this as a way of decorating the classroom to provide an engaging room. From recent learning I have been exposed to the challenges teacher face when using collecting with cultural diversity as an issue of being racist, sexist or not being respectful, however I feel as a teacher I will be able to demonstrate my cultural background to the children in order to model how to be accepting of others and what their identities are.

I truly believe that as a pre-service teacher children should feel a sense of belonging and I feel that their culture background is a great tool to use in order to create a room that is accepting, inviting and respectful to those around us. As an upcoming teacher I feel it is my duty to demonstrate the right values of cultural diversity.

References:
MacNaughton, G & Williams, G 2009, Techniques for Teaching Young Children; Choices for Theory and Practice, 3^rd edn, Pearson Education Australia, NSW.