Cultural Diversity

The school that I'm tutoring in is very diverse. For the first couple of weeks of my tutoring experience I was able to observe some of the different classrooms. I was very surprised that there were more Hispanic and African American students rather than white students. I think I was surprised because when I was little I hadn't gone to an inner city school, so I was never exposed to this. I think its wonderful that the school is so diverse. From my observations most of the students were able to speak English, but some students were also bilingual. In the school they have things on the wall that are written in both English and Spanish. I think its great that they have it in both languages. Not only does it help the students who don't understand English well, but it also exposes children who only speak English to another language. According to info works only seven percent of students are white. Fifty-eight percent are Hispanic and thirty percent are African American. Only four percent are Asian and one percent of students are Native American. I wasn't that surprised by these statistics. I was a little surprised that the percent of Hispanics was larger than the percent of African Americans. Also in 2006 twenty-four percent of students were bilingual. I think its amazing that children are able to speak two languages fluently at such a young age. I know its much easier for children to learn a language rather than adults, but i still find it very impressing because learning a second language can be extremely difficult. The cultural capital that the students bring to the classroom is very different from the cultural capital that a suburban school students would bring to the classroom. At a suburban school the majority of children would most likely be white which means that the majority of the students would share the same cultural backgrounds. Seeing as the children would share the same cultural backgrounds, they probaby wouldn't be as open to new ideas as children from a more diverse school would be. In the school that I'm tutoring in the children come from many different cultural backgrounds. The students are able to learn how to cope with other types of cultures unlike students in a suburban school. The assets that this school offers will strengthen our society because students are less likely to become racist because they were taught that everyone is different and that its ok to be different. Not only will these students grow up to be more accepting, but I think the more schools that become diverse the better chance our society has on improving on having more than just white privileges. Hopefully in time there will no longer be a specific race that has more privileges than another. I think that having schools be so diverse is the first step in the right direction in order to change how our society treats people that are different.