Culture entails ways that diverse groupings go about their lives within a given ethnic and national context, urban neighborhood, career, and any other social context. Within a school setting, culture defines what students believe and uphold. Culture has a direct impact on how students perceive their education, lifestyle, and beliefs. It influences how students perform, engage, and see the school setting. In many ways, culture determines teaching styles and learning within a school. This study will analyze the demographic data at Brewster Middle School within the aim of understanding how the data affect student success. Three participants, the Community Assistant Superintendent Mr. James Kurt, Principal, Mrs. S. Gee, and Student Council Association President Kim Anderson of 8th Grade, are interviewed. The interview is aimed at getting the participants’ views in light of the impact of cultural diversity on student’s academic success.
Participants Selection and Summary of Interview Responses
Mrs. Gee was previously a principal at J.W. McLaughlin Elementary School. She started her duties at Brester Middle School in the 2017-2018 academic years. According to Mrs. Gee, the institution requires a clear discipline plan and share among all the relevant stakeholders. Mrs. Gee identified the loopholes in the program and set out with a team to enhance and develop a more comprehensive and practical program. She identified and came up with different levels of discipline for the school in addition to a strategy of improving the teacher-student relationship; this she noted would help reinforce a positive relationship.
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The Student Council Association President, Kim Anderson is in 8th Grade ad serves as the basketball captain. Kim’s primary concern is safety in the school, with increased instances of bullying and fighting evident. Kim opinions that the school resource officer needs to take an active role in analyzing bullying behavior among students. She would also like to have a training framework in which students are made aware of the negative aspects of bullying. She observes that such training would help reduce bullying cases. At the same time, she vouched on strategies for improving the student-teacher relationship.
The President of PTA, Jamie Hopkins, has been the PTA President for a long time, and he understands Brewster Middle School pretty well. Hopkins observes that teachers have not invested in the school productively as they should. According to Hopkins, increased investment and involvement in the school would help in improving the faith and trust between the teachers and parents, a feat that would significantly improve on the student-teacher relationship too. The improvement in both cases would help in enhancing student success.
Analysis of the Interview Responses
Discipline
Discipline is the number one social motivator to promoting social integration among students. Without discipline, students may find it very difficult to accept their differences. Discipline among students in school is not only essential but also mandatory. Education without discipline may never serve the purpose in society. Within a school setting, rules and regulations are set to promote and enhance good behavior among the students. Mrs. Gee’s main concern is critical towards achieving Brewster’s primary education objectives and mission statement. Without a clear cut plan on discipline, the school will have no doubt failed in establishing self-improvement practices among the student. A disciplined student is the pride of a school and sets forth to represent the school’s core values (Schoology, 2019). Failure to instill such a feat in the student is failing to achieve the priority of education, which is setting mandatory social etiquettes in society.
Safety
Lack of safety can significantly impair social integration. At the same time, it can substantially hamper any efforts to help students cope with their diverse cultural backgrounds. Without safety, an entire school is putting its students at risk of unknown threats. Kim’s observation of bullying and fighting is a severe social disorder that may plunge school as a whole into crisis and compromise student’s performance (Razik & Swanson, 2010). Safety for both the students and teachers is a mandatory social order that the management needs to enhance and reinforce. Safety not only helps students stay focused on their key roles, but it also creates an excellent environment that is necessary for learning. Without proper frameworks of safety and measures to eradicate bullying and fighting, the entire school management will have failed to instill a requirement in the students.
Teacher Involvement
Teacher involvement is the number one requirement for helping the student copes with cultural diversity. Teachers have the role of assisting students in coping with their differences and positioning them to work towards achieving their goals. School objectives and vision can only be achieved if and when teachers take a central role in reinforcing the values of the school. The current trend in which teachers are not wholly involved in the school affairs may derail the efforts of the students towards achieving their goals and objectives. Thus the teachers need to take an active role in promoting the school’s practices by a deep involvement in all its affairs.
Document and Demographic Analysis
With a population comprising of diverse ethnic grouping that include whites (at 47%), blacks (at 19.5%), Latino/Hispanic (at 8.5%), multiracial (at 6.5%) and Asians at less than 1%, the school needs strategic plans and programs to help them succeed in their academic work. At the same time, the school needs to enact proper education programs that will promote social integration and reduce the negative impacts of cultural diversity. The school has, in the recent past, posted low performance among the students, a scenario brought forth by lack of proper education policies and programs. With the above-identified standards and tests, the school management needs to enact practical plans that will help the students improve on their performance despite their extensive cultural diversity.
The school should enact a program and initiative to stamp the above-noted factors towards preparing the students for holistic academic growth and development. To achieve the stipulated school objectives and goals, the administration should formulate a program that brings together the teachers, parents, and students towards harmonization of their relationship and engagement. The program should be tailored along with the school activities and commitments to streamline its core activities towards social integration.
References
Razik, T. A. & Swanson, A. D. (2010). Fundamental concepts of educational leadership:
Leadership and management (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Schoology. (2019). Schoology: All you need for teaching and learning in one platform. Retrieved
from Schoology: https://www.schoology.com/k-12
