NYSAIS Diversity Conference
Amy Bowllan’s Breakout Session
There's Something for Everyone:
An Online Toolkit for Diversity
Learners
April 7, 2006
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Nobody Else Like Me:
Celebrating the Diversity of Children
Advertisers Are Doing It.
Magazines Are Doing It.
The Media Is Doing It
Photo courtesy of AP
Radio Is Doing It.
Schools Are Doing It.
The issue of diversity
in independent schools
is often framed in
terms of ethnicity.
And that's important.
But it can also lead to
a bean-counting
approach that ignores
the larger discussion
— issues of class and
income that permeate
our schools. This issue
of Independent School
looks at those issues.
(Winter 2006 — The Class
Debate NAIS Independent
School Magazine)
Or Are We?
The Media
Westin “discusses issues that should
never be ‘taken lightly’ and race is at
the forefront of the rundown.”
(From Av Westin’s Best Practices of Television
Journalists)
Quotes on Diversity
When young children begin to recognize likenesses and
differences, they often focus on differences and not the
underlying sameness in people or objects. They sometimes
think that being different means there is something wrong
with them. Adults can help children see that there are
human qualities that make all of us alike in many ways, even
though we come in different shapes, sizes, colors and from
different backgrounds.
-- Fred Rogers
Your Thoughts.
How can adults help children “see that
there are human qualities that make all
of us alike in many ways, even though we
come in different shapes, sizes, colors
and from different backgrounds?”
It’s time for inventing new forms of learning. It’s
time for addressing the entire learning
environment in new ways. This is the only way in
which we can get true diversity in the work place
and in life.
--Seymour Papert
Your Thoughts.
Will “new learning” methods
help with diversity? Has
the digital revolution played
in schools helped?
If you’ve had several children, or, like me,
recently gone through the experience of being a
grandparent--it’s wonderful how each one of them
is different, does things in different ways, thinks
differently. And then we’re going to channel them
into a school that homogenizes them? And then
we’re going to worry afterwards about how to
free them from that homogenization and make
them diverse again? It’s backwards. It’s the
wrong approach.
--Seymour Papert
Online Activities
For All Learners Of
Diversity
Diversity Activities and
IceBreakers
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/diverse2.html
A Word About Differences
http://www.mcgruff.org/Grownups/differences.htm
Culture Webquest
http://coe.west.asu.edu/students/stennille/st3/webquest.html
Implicit Association Test
From Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.jsp
Implicit Association Test (cont.)
Recommended Books
On Diversity
Books With Classroom
Activities On Diversity
By David Shiman
By Dr. Deborah Byrnes
Dream
by Susan Bosak
http://www.tcpnow.com/books/dream.html
How To Be A Perfect Stranger
http://www.conexuspress.com/catalog/how_perfect_st
ranger_2vol.htm
Edited by Arthur J. Magida & Stuart M. Matlins
White Teachers / Diverse
Classrooms
by Julie Landsman and Chance Lewis
Intercultural E-mail
Classroom Connections
IECC is a free
service to help
teachers link with
partners in other
cultures and
countries for email
classroom
pen-pal and other
project exchanges.
See Worksheet
for Guiding Questions
Quotes From Crayons
• “Even The Smallest Crayon Leaves A
Mark.”
• “No Matter The Shape, No Matter
The Size, People Are The Same It’s
All In Our Eyes.”
The Land of Crayons
Artwork by
John and Michael Bowllan
All Rights Reserved © 2000