Diversity CoP and its Important Precedents: Literacy, Poverty, Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

Diversity and Literacy Colleagues,

LINCS originated in an organization called the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL). When NIFL's funding was eliminated, LINCS continued under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Education. The original LINCS discussion forums, eventually called Communities of Practice, included a forum called Poverty, Race, and Literacy. This was expanded to include a focus on gender and sexual orientation, and now also includes other kinds of diversity, for example, where people live.

The original purposes are still very important, and need some discussion here. I wonder if we should discuss how poverty, economic class, color or race, ethnicity or ethnic origin, gender and sexual orientation affect how adults learn basic skills and how teachers treat students' expressed thoughts and feelings about these kinds of diversity issues in their classes.

I wonder if teachers reading this have experienced students sharing disparaging remarks based on color, sexual orientation ethic origin or first language. If so, please describe what happened and how you reacted. Was this a surprise, or something you expected and were prepared for? If you were prepared, how did you respond? How effective do you think your response was? How do you think teachers should respond when they hear students making prejudicial remarks?

I wonder if professional developers reading this have prepared teachers for these kinds of situations and if so, how you help teachers prepare.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

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