Connecting Curriculum to Students' Lives - Essay Example

My teacher would read to us about Santa, we would make Christmas crafts, and we would do a Christmas play. She didn’t teach us about any of the other traditions – only Christmas. Well, this year I had a friend in my class - Yusof. He didn’t celebrate Christmas. He had different traditions and beliefs and instead celebrated other holidays including a big one called Eid Al-Fitr. I remember him crying one class when the teacher made us go around the class and brag about what awesome presents we were getting under the tree that year.

When it came to Yusof, despite her knowledge of his religious background, she asked him the same question. He didn’t have an answer and his eyes filled up. He felt isolated and his diversity in tradition and beliefs was never recognized. What I would do and what my teacher did the next year was to talk in general about all of the wonderful traditions that were celebrated in our classroom. We learned more that year about the culture and traditions of the world than I have in any other class since.

Everyone felt included and our class was able to partake in meaningful learning that applied outside of the classroom. We realized that the world was much more diverse when it came to holidays than we thought and we had a lot of fun doing it. As a teacher, I am going to try my best to embrace diversity in every way. This is just one experience but there is diversity in the way we learn, our socio-economic backgrounds, our ethnic backgrounds – The list can go on forever. I am going to give it my all to teach to the individual while creating a cohesive classroom where nobody feels left out and everyone feels like a little part of them as become a process of group learning in a positive way.

Diversity is what makes life interesting and I plan to continue to emphasize this in each lesson plan I create! I plan to connect, not disconnect, ALL of my student’s to the curriculum.