Diversity, Learning Style, and Culture

The “Diversity, Learning Style and Culture” article really expanded upon the idea of teaching not just, to all students, but for all students. This article develops the notion that there are many factors involved in a student’s learning. The battle between uniformity and diversity surround many types of students and their cultures. This leads us to the question of “what is good for the whole” and “what is good for the individual”. Taking learning styles and the vastly growing number of students with diverse cultural backgrounds into consideration, we have to figure out what should stay the same in schools and what should be different. We revert back to the opposition between equality and equity. Students’ cognition, conceptualization, affect, and behavior are all factors in their learning styles. Thus, in order to better understand our students and the way they learn we must understand them, their culture, and their cultural and personal connection to learning. Teachers must now put their personal culture and learning style aside to teach and reach the larger number of diverse cultures and learning styles in the classroom. Taking into consideration the culture, learning styles, and achievement can help teachers to identify a student’s individual as well as social path to take on learning.

I now feel my position as a teacher needs to be transformed and molded into, not just a job but a lifestyle, a person that not only has to, but wants to know their students inside and out. It is not enough anymore to know the various learning styles and understand them. As teachers we must leave our own style behind and become unbiased to other cultures and learning styles. I feel that I need to make a better effort to transform my classroom into an open space for those who don’t have one, a place for those who don’t yet realize what they are capable of but I can show them. I think I have a lot of learning and growing to do along with my students. At the root of this opposition between how to serve all cultures, learning styles, students and even myself as a teacher, is the idea that all have the ability to achieve and succeed. However, they just need my reassurance and guidance that I will be and I want to be the one to help make it happen.