CHALLENGES OF TEACHER

Challenges of Teacher

Challenges of Teacher

Thesis Statement

A culturally untrained teacher faces many Challenges especially the underachievement of students of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

Introduction

About 25% of public college students are Native Hawaiians, although fewer than 8% of teachers are of Hawaiian ancestry. The recruitment of Native Hawaiian teachers is certainly justified on the basis of this underrepresentation.

Discussion

This appears to be the case because these teachers' backgrounds enable them to empathize with students and to overcome the barriers typically posed by cultural and linguistic differences. For example, African American teachers have helped many students to succeed despite the obstacles presented by poverty and racial discrimination. Because African American teachers serve as role models and provide support that would not otherwise be available to students living in poverty, they typically play a more important part in students' lives than teachers in mainstream settings (King 2003).

If teachers reside in the community and know the realities of students' lives, they can draw connections between academic content and students' prior knowledge, making this content more meaningful.

This changes the dynamics of the classroom. No longer do all students only speak English - in fact some will speak English as their third, forth or fifth language. There is also a realm of different cultural practices in the class and some conflict with others. Dealing with this is not easy but it is worthwhile. Many teaching try to ignore that fact that there are culturally diverse students in their classroom but, as a result, they miss out widening both their minds and experiences and the minds and experiences of their students.

When faced with a multicultural class, one of the first questions that needs to be asked is "how shall I arrange this class?" Some say to separate students with English as a second language ...