The spice of life

Diversity in the classroom

By Michaela Pointon

Approaching diversity in the classroom is becoming increasingly more fundamental for successful teacher-to-student relationships, as well as developing safe spaces for students in learning environments.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) outlines inside The New Zealand Curriculum, Cultural Diversity is one of eight principles which provides foundational support for a school’s decision making. The Cultural Diversity principle asks for schools and teachers to deliver a curriculum which reflects our culturally diverse nation and affirms students’ different cultural identities.

It also encourages the incorporation of cultural contexts into teaching and learning programmes through responsiveness to diversity towards ethnic groups. This helps students understand the importance of respecting diverse viewpoints, values, languages and customs.

MOE says teachers and schools who embrace diversity help to increase student engagement and attendance. Published on the MOE website, University of Auckland lecturer in bi-literacy, Rae Si’ilata, encourages teachers to consider how cultural diversity is celebrated and reflected in their own teaching practices, and wider school environment.

She suggests teachers don’t need to be expert in all of the linguistic and cultural knowledge of the students that they work with. Just by having an inquiring mind, a teacher can support students with diversity, even when you may not know much about their culture specifically. MOE suggests one way you can do this is to deliberately ask questions to their students.

Questions such as “I don’t know very much about that; can you tell me about that?”

Or instead, “Can you be the teacher in this situation and teach all of us?” are appropriate questions to include these students, without assuming or dismissing their differences. The MOE suggests this approach to understanding cultural diversity and learning about different cultures as a teacher, is a positive example of ako (learning) and tuakana-teina (shared mentorship between ages). Giving some students the position of the tuakana, where they are offered a moment to teach about their individual diversity and the teacher is the learner, is a positive way to reinforce this. “When we create learning opportunities for children where their identities are being represented at school, they want to ‘buy into’ school. “I think even in schools that are largely monocultural we recognise we live in a linguistically and culturally diverse world.” The MOE suggests that even if some Aotearoa communities might be fairly monocultural, the online digital world space is not. Promoting the value of linguistic and cultural diversity is important to still teach. Ā Mātou Kōero - Our Stories, is a series of illustrated storybooks, which have been developed by MOE and Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI) to specifically support, reflect, and celebrate the Kiwi Muslim community in Aotearoa. They are a way for non-Muslim Kiwis to learn about others, so they are no longer others. The books are available for educators on the TKI website, and focus on the wellbeing and resilience of these communities. They also promote unity, diversity and inclusion. There are Kaiako support materials to go alongside this storybook series, to help teachers incorporate these discussions into practice naturally. Relationships and sexuality education for teachers is another area of diversity which is important to consider. As society continues to develop and younger generations push for inclusion and equality, it’s important teachers understand respectful protocol for students within the LGBT+ community. In April 2022, Associate Education Minister, Jan Tinetti released a number of resources available to teachers to support the wellbeing and teaching of diversity, relationships and sexuality in schools. “Students who are happy and confident learn better. I want all our schools to be safe places for all our students whatever their gender, race, nationality, beliefs or sexual orientation,” she says. The resources have been developed with young people, universities and teachers. They include information ranging from the importance of online digital safety to consent, with a focus on building quality healthy relationships. Acknowledging and supporting diversity in the classroom as a teacher is one way to ensure healthy relationships and spaces are available to students who need support in these areas. No matter what diversity students bring to the classroom, it is important to create a non-judgemental safe space for everyone. There are many support networks and resources available to schools and teachers to ensure effective pedagogy is present in the classroom. To find out more and view the resources mentioned above, visit: tki.org.nz.