Celebration

The classroom climate plays a crucial role in student success.  That being said, I believe that honouring cultural diversity sets the tone for inclusion in my classroom. As a teacher, I need to be interested in my students’ lives (learning about their families and their culture).  I need to provide opportunities for my students to celebrate their diversity, sharing language, culture, and experience. 

I found a book that celebrates diversity called Anna Hibiscus written by Atinuke which I am very much looking forward to including in my grade two program next year.  It tells the story of a girl named Anna who lives in a large African city with her African father, Canadian mother, twin baby brothers, her grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins. (Click here for a summary of the book.)  I think this book would tie in very nicely with the grade 2 social studies curriculum that looks at communities around the world.  For my social studies unit this year I followed the Hands on Social Studies program, where my class compared our community in Brantford to those in Nunavut and in Zimbabwe. I think reading this text aloud would be a great addition to the program, as it would provide the students with an opportunity to visualize and connect with life in Africa.  For shared reading, I think I would choose passages of the text that we could study as a class, using various reading strategies and making connections to the similarities and differences in Anna Hibiscus’ life compared to our own.