Essay on Diversity

Essay on Diversity: Introduction

At this current point in time, the term “diversity” has gained more popularity than it did in the last decade. When we look from outside, it is clear that we are all different in many ways. Whether it is our skin color, ethnicity, culture, or religion, being different should not be something to afraid of but should instead be an uplifting fact.

Body Paragraphs

There are many reasons why respect and perspective should be taught at kids early on in life. According to research, children start noticing differences at the age of two. The main differences they notice are gender, skin color, and racial differences. When children start their kindergarten education, they should be taught thoroughly about these differences, and they should learn to love them instead of discriminating against them. It has also been found in researches that children who were tempted to distinguish children with different characteristics had racist impulsions when they grew up. Therefore, solving this problem at an earlier age can benefit the child in many different ways. Promoting culturally diverse activities can help build up the confidence and skills while also increasing children’s awareness, appreciation, and inclusion of diverse beliefs and cultures (Levin, 2018). Moreover, raising a more aware child can also increase academic success later on in life. At the age of five, children start to adapt their gender-appropriate behavior while also starting to fear those that are different than them.

There are some activities that can be implemented at the kindergarten level to teach children factors that are different than them. First and foremost, the difference in skin color must be taught to children as it is the most obvious factor that affects a person’s looks. They should be taught not only to respect people with different skin colors but also to appreciate them. Every skin color is unique in its own way, and acknowledging this fact can help a child with empathy. Secondly, ethnic groups have different hair types. Therefore, kindergarten kids can play a game where each child has to identify the hair type of his/her friend. In this way, they will learn different hair types and can even learn to accommodate hairstyles with cultures.

A diverse classroom, when compared with a normal classroom, offers much more valuable personality traits to students and statistically bring up more successful students. This is mainly because of the importance of empathy. Children who learned to think and feel for others at a young age will mostly keep up that attitude, and they become less likely to judge their peers later in life. The last point I would like to examine is that Children’s Prejudice is very apparent in the earlier years of education. Because children adapt to their own friend group, they start feeling negatively towards other groups. One good example of this problem is that white children starting at age three, showed a pro-white/anti-black bias (Katz & Kofkin, 1997) that kept on by the age of six.

Conclusion

In this assignment, I have concentrated on why diverse and multicultural picture books can benefit kindergarten children, because one can readily highlight the lack of such visuals in early education. In conclusion, we need to accept and love diversity to heal our society, especially at these current times, and learning to love each other starts best at earlier ages, such as the kindergarten level. Therefore, teaching kids diversity, multiculturalism, reflection, and empathy is essential for both the student and society on the whole.

References

Katz, P. A., & Kofkin, J. A. (1997). Race, gender, and young children. In S. S. Luthar, J. A. Burack, D. Cicchetti, & J. R. Weisz (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Perspectives on adjustment, risk, and disorder (p. 51–74). Cambridge University Press.

Levin, V. (2018, November 19). Teaching Diversity in Preschool Pre-K and Kindergarten. Retrieved from https://pre-kpages.com/multicultural/

We are different, we are the same: Teaching young children about diversity (Better Kid Care). (n.d.).