Start Seeing Diversity Blog: Creating Art

My Diversity Poem

Diversity is all abilities co-existing together

Anti-Bias Education is teaching how differences is what makes us special and unique

Being able to recognize your own biases takes strength, courage, and the ability to learn from them and make the necessary changes

I love who I am a little more, despite my differences; it is what makes me unique

I love to teach children about how we can bond over similarities as well as differences.

I am diversity, my classroom is diversity, my students are diversity, and my educational standpoint is diversity.

This class has opened me up even more to not be afraid to tackle those hard questions and biases

Stand up and Stand out!

  

This was a poem I created based on my own personal emotions and feelings. I also found a poem about diversity that is also meaningful to me wrote by a child. It is a perfect reflection of how children feel. This poem to me is raw emotion about culture and diversity, and I love it!

But in French I shine
I look around the room, take in the sea of faces, different cultures, different races all from different places.
We speak the same, but in French I shine, because of all the time
I spend in France with the sun on my back, my back to England, my back to English.
My first day at school I couldn’t speak a word, I felt so alone, I couldn’t make a friend, but then the sun broke through the clouds!
I learnt to speak, I learnt to sing!
Now my friends all ask me for help,
and I know if I did the same, they’d say yes.
I can’t believe how lucky I am,
to live in a world with so much things to learn.
I’ve known my friends for what seems like forever,
but still so much to learn about their culture so different to mine, so get out there and learn!
Learn the colours of the flags! Learn a different language! Learn a way in which to be at one with all the community!
Learn to sing and dance and act! Learn to call a bird!
Learn to paint and laugh and be as happy as you can be!
Go out and learn! Go out and shine!
Emma Helliwell (13) Bradford Academy, 1st prize 

"We Don't Say Those Words in Class!"

When I was a child, my mother had a friend who's husband stuttered. I was about 7 years old, and had never heard anyone stutter, so when i heard him for the first time, i laughed and pointed, and said, 'why does he sound like that? he sounds funny!' My mother did tell me before i got there that the man will sound different, and not to make fun, but of course, being a child, i did that anyway. When my mom silenced me and reprimanded me, i felt ashamed; like i did something wrong, which i did, but i also felt like i couldn't ask any questions. My mother was embarrassed, and I seen it all on her face, which made me feel embarrassed as well. As an educator, I think the best way to respond to a child pointing out something different is to say that pointing out someone's differences is not nice, and that can hurt someone's feelings. I would also tell the child how we live in a world where everyone is different, and being different is a good thing, not a negative thing. I would give an example of how I am different, and allow for the child to think of a way they are different and bring it together by saying, see, being different is what makes us unique and interesting, and that we shouldn't make fun of people we think are different because we are all different.