I was excited to participate in the group differences forum because I knew that it would be helpful as a member of the urban/multicultural cohort. We talk about race, racism, poverty, and multiculturalism in my elementary education methods class, but we rarely get the chance to talk about religion, gender, and other differences. As a teacher, I believe that understanding and being able to interact with diverse groups is absolutely crucial, and I definitely learned some new information from the forum. I never realized that research shows that teachers pay more attention to male students than female students. I also never really thought about religion in schools as a group difference before the forum.
I know the the information from the forum is going to help me in my classroom because it helped me to think of group differences in new ways. I feel like I'm already fairly knowledgeable about multiculturalism, but I am always open and willing to learn more information. One thing that I think might have helped me learn more would be reading an article from each group. I know that this seems like a lot of extra work, but I would have been willing to do it over the course of the semester. I actually went in on my free time and read some of the articles because I was interested in learning more about certain groups.
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