Cognitive differences
This seems to present the most obvious need for differentiation when you look at education as a whole. If cognitive differences were not accounted for there would be no need for assessment or curriculum planning. Kindergarteners would be sitting beside high school sophomores studying the nuances of sub-atomic particles. That’s extreme, but even within the Early Literacy Intervention (ELI) groups formed from DIBELS assessments in the same kindergarten class, there are cognitive differences. Among these differences are those directly applicable to the ELI grouping such as letter recognition and concepts of print, as well as others more indirectly related; i.e., mathematical and social skills.
Cognitive differences presented a major challenge when developing the flash games for my website (see Appendix A), and led to the addition of “help” buttons, and later in games like Greater-Less Than-or Equal to, differing levels of play that would scaffold the game tasks for the children. We also introduced the games as a whole class activity and set aside time for group exploration of the games as noted in my research (see Appendix E).
Culture
Culture is not a theme one might expect to gather such a buzz at the 90 some odd percent white, upper-middle class school district I teach in. But for well over a decade, a full week each year is permanently established as “Cultural Arts Week.” Please note that this is not the only week dedicated to exploring culture just the most monumental commitment for our school. Months of planning, organizing, and creating curriculum particular to the country our school “visits” develop into a week of immersion in another culture for the entire school. We’ve been to India, South Korea, South Africa, China, and many others. I was pleasantly surprised after completing a CultureQuest to India with my peers (see Appendix F) that I could share my portion on Karnatak and Hindustani music with my colleagues. Part of our experience in the other culture is comparing our school to theirs. As Li (2006) points out of Hong Kong schools, many cultures take a very different approach to the child-centered ways of American schooling. It is important when assimilating students from other cultures to understand what schooling has been for them as you help them make the transition.
Ethnicity
As I mentioned our school is predominantly white. The next largest population is minority adoptees, many from foreign countries, and many of whom are fortunate enough to have adoptive parents that take an outspoken pride in the ethnicity of their children. In fact, many of countries explored during Cultural Arts Weeks have been chosen by the Cultural Arts committee and the PTO, who provide most of the funding for Cultural Arts Week, based on the minority population in the school. Brown, Tanner-Smith, Lesane-Brown, and Ezell (2007) suggest that children do not limit themselves to ethnic information from their families when determining how they fit in the world. As a teacher, I make sure that our classroom is safe and open for respectful discussion of similarities and differences in cultures. In my experience, kindergarteners are very curious about how and why their peers do things differently. They wonder why a man in a red suit comes down Jane’s chimney and Jacob’s family has eight nights of candle lighting. The possibilities when exploring ethnicity can be a Constructivist’s dream.
Language
It seems to me that learning how to say, “Hello” in different languages is a rite of passage in kindergarten. But when I see this question I think of Simoens’ (2009) account of an eight year old Latina girl who had to teach herself Spanish to speak with her relatives. Communication is a key component in education, in life period. I have had the pleasure to teach a little boy who spoke French and broken English, and a pair of non-verbal little girls, as well as a number of children with speech issues so severe that it sounded like they were speaking a language other than English. Adapting the curriculum to fit their needs was the easy part. Teaching them and their peers how to communicate was the hurdle. The classroom needed to be established as a safe place for all the children to attempt communication. All the children needed to learn how to listen and “speak” in ways that were not natural to them. And everyone needed to temper themselves with patience and understanding.
Gender
The more I look at education, the more I buy into that it’s swinging about on a pendulum. As Wiens (2005) findings suggest, that pendulum is swinging in favor of female students. The author states that, “if we can learn anything from the movement to empower girls in the 1980s and 1990s, it is that media and the general culture have a profound impact on the aspirations and achievement of our youth” (Wiens, 2005, p. 23). I fear that pendulum swings back to an equivalent male student movement instead of a gender neutral movement. In my classroom, we acknowledge that males and females have the same brains and can succeed equally in whatever endeavor they choose. They are people who, to take liberties with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideals, should be judged by the content of their character not their masculinity or femininity (King, 1963). Yes, our room has posters of famous females, including a champion motorcycle drag racer, but we recognize that she is a champion drag racer with the virtues of hard work and determination, and she happens to be a female. I guess that’s follow through from what is referred to as my “rare” position as a “male kindergarten teacher”. There are no different expectations that because I am a male I should teach the children any different a curriculum than my female peers. I do not differentiate instruction based on gender stereotypes, but on the needs of the kindergarteners in my class, who you would be hard pressed to distinguish from one another without seeing them.
Socioeconomic Status
Coming from field experiences, student-teaching, and long-term substituting at schools from lower socioeconomic neighborhoods to the upper-middle class one I have taught at for the better part of six years has been mind blowing. I remember my experiences from the lower socioeconomic schools like trying to convince kindergarteners that orange is a color and a fruit while they share bags of fruit snacks. Now, children will bring in dried papaya for snack and discuss how their favorite color is teal. In my experience, it seems that many children from different socioeconomic backgrounds come into kindergarten with different life experiences. Learning about the lives of my kindergarteners is an integral part in determining how I will plan my approach to instruction.
Challenging Conditions
In kindergarten, just about any child can have a challenging condition, unfortunately many times, that is all you have to go on. “At kindergarten age especially, clinicians are confronted with sub-clinical mental health problems” (Stadelmann, Perren, Von Wyl, and Von Klitzing, 2007, p. 1003). As a teacher you must become an expert in examining and solving problems. It seems that at any given time, I am keeping notes on the who, what, when, where, why, and how’s of a child’s challenging condition. Once a pattern is established, an adaptation can be developed, put into place, and then its usefulness assessed. If it works great, if not the process continues. Documentation is the key, not only because it helps me assess the adaptation’s effectiveness, but because down the line challenging conditions have a way of being identified as a part of a bigger picture.
Collaboration
There’s an African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child”. Being that schools are full of children, I’d say that collaboration is a requisite characteristic of educators. I have worked extensively with my peers creating the India Culture Quest project (see Appendix F) in EDU 553, and the construction of my flash games (see Appendix A). I would further like to state that the teaching assistants and families with whom I have had the pleasure to work with have been instrumental in the successful education of the kindergarteners in my class. I find that if you put effort forth, others become motivated to do the same. And all children benefit from the help of the “village”.
Brown, T. N, Tanner-Smith, E. E., Lesane-Brown, C. L., & Ezell. M. E. (2007). Child, parent,
and situational correlates of familial ethnic/race socialization. Journal of marriage &
Family, 69(1), 14-25.
Li, Y. L. (2006). Classroom organization: understanding the context in which children are
expected to learn. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(1), 37-44.
King, M. L. (1963, August 28). I Have a Dream. Speech presented at the Lincoln Memorial,
Washington D. C.
Rury, J. L. (2oo5). Education and social change: Themes in the History of American Schooling.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Simoens, M. (2009) Breaking language barriers in central iowa. Des Moines Business Record,
27(2), 14.
Stadelmmann, S., Perren, S., Von Wyl, A., & Von Klitzing, K. (2007). Associations between
family relationships and symptoms/strengths at kindergarten age: what is the role of
children’s parental representation? Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 48(10),
996-1004.
Wiens, K. (2005). The new gender gap: what went wrong? Journal of Education, 186(3), 11-27.