Diversity Broadens the Educational Experience
and Better Prepares Students for the Future
By Joseph Thomas
Freelance writer from the San Francisco Bay Area
A diverse secondary school environment offers a
number of benefits to the educational and overall life
experience of high school students. It better prepares
them for college, career, and life. One of the benefits
of a diverse School Environment, according to Amy
Stuart Wells, Lauren Fox, and Diana Cordova-Cobo of
Teachers College Columbia, is that “diversity enhances
cognitive development through exposure to novel ideas
and experiences.” In short, being exposed to a diverse
environment increases one’s world view and ability to
empathize with and understand others. That skill is
vital for building and maintaining relationships, both
professional and personal, in the world. A sentiment
that is echoed by Dr. Marthaa Torres, Director of K-12
Instruction, Oakland Unified School District and
member of the Board of Directors at Salesian College
Preparatory.
Uniquely and richly diverse, Salesian College
Preparatory is located in Richmond, California. It has
an ethnically, socio-economically, and culturally diverse
student body with roughly equal representation of
African American, Hispanic/Latin American, Asian/
Pacific Islander, Multi-Racial and Caucasian students.
This creates and offers a truly diverse educational
environment, which is supported by its mindful and
socially conscious faculty, staff, and administration. Both
Dr. William Heidenfelt, Instructional Coach and French
teacher at Salesian and Dr. Torres explain, there are
many “slices” to diversity, the “visible” elements --such
as ethnicity or people who look like the people you
know at home -- and the “invisible” elements-- such
as language and relating to each others’ similar life
experience, which can significantly improve engagement
with students. Dr. Torres further states that in a diverse
environment “Students learn not just from the teacher
but also one another” and that “part of the goal of
education is to expose students to a broad range of ideas
and engage with a wide range of peers.”
Diversity needs to carry through to curriculum as
well. An example of diverse curriculum shared by Dr.
Heidenfeldt was a lesson on fashion in his French class.
“When people think of fashion, they think of New
York or Paris,” Dr. Heidenfeldt remarked, “I wanted
to broaden their understanding of that.” To accomplish
this, Dr. Heidenfeldt created a lesson surrounding a
fashion show which spotlighted various fashions of
the Francophone (french speaking) nations of Africa.
Through his desire to create a diverse curriculum, Dr.
Heidenfeldt introduced his students to a whole side of
the world often not explored in High School Textbooks.
The various sides of diversity (both visible and
invisible) when shared in the classroom hold a great
many benefits to students. The student has greater
engagement in seeing something familiar to them as well
as expanding their horizons by learning something new
and exciting together with their diverse group of peers.
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