How can we transform cultural diversity into valuable resources at home?
First of all i want to say that the term "diversity" has a positive connotation in my mind. Sadly it often comes in contexts where the idea of diversity also means that things have to be approached differently than what people are used to, which results in uncertainty and, at times, also conflict and exclusion. Diversity can be many things, but in this case my focus is on the diversity in a multicultural context. I think that, depending on culture, raising, traditions and perhaps also professional specialization, diversity means that you have a large number of personal resources (in a classroom situation), different ways of viewing things, differing ways of thinking and making logic etc. The Movie "New Boy" did not focus much on the beforementioned in any way really but i think it highlighted something else: The importance of handling the transition for a new "foreign" pupil in a class in a good way. In my opinion an introduction should be more thorough than the one the teacher in the short film made of the boy, but still not so thorough that the other pupils would wonder why this new boy would deserve any kind of special treatment.
Personally i think the best way, to bring a good message across to young learners about diversity, would be to make a common understanding in the classroom culture that everyone has their own thing that makes them unique, something they are good at, which could be any quality, not only academic. In a classroom, being good at math, spelling or geography is ofcourse more in focus than other things in this particular context, but i still think it would benefit the society if people would pay as much respect for someone who has good physical qualities, like the ones needed in more crafting-oriented professions, as they respect someone who is brilliant at math. Just on a side-note i came to think of an old classmate i had who was dyslexic but blessed with excellent drawing skills and also a pretty bright boy, yet he always thought of himself as less intelligent that his classmates because of his small handicap. Today i just think that, with the right focus on diversity, which i think is very core in this example, he would be worth just as much in his own eyes, as that other classmate who was a perfect speller, but wasn't much of master-cook in Home Economics.
I have decided not to make an actual poster for this challenge, as it was something i thought we were supposed to do in class, so i would just like to point out an example of how i think a good poster could be like, in a classroom:
I wouldnt just make it a single poster, but make it a short term projecdt in class, where the teacher and the class, together would brainstorm a big bunch of either professions, cultural aspects or the like, and distribute these among the pupils in the class, who would be split up in small groups. Each group would then work on their poster, presenting their particular example of diversity and in the end all the posters would be hung up in the classroom.
