Today's Students: Patterns of Diversity

Using the following online directories (if necessary), locate Web sites for one urban, one suburban, and one rural school in your area. After perusing these two sites, find one more school of each type, but this time make sure they are all located in another part of the country (preferably a region or state that you are not very familiar with).

Yahoo! K-12 School Directory (by U.S. state)

Education World's School Directory

How much does each school's Web site tell you about the diversity of its student body? Write a one-paragraph profile of each school. If you couldn't find any (or much) diversity information, why do you think this is the case?

Compare and contrast these schools in terms of their student body diversity. Which similarities and differences seem to be based on regional location (i.e., which state or county each school is located in) and which seem to be based on whether the school is situated in an urban, suburban, or rural setting? Explain your answers.

Native American Education Today

Using this directory, visit the Web sites for three different Native American K-12 schools. Compare and contrast these three schools in terms of their educational, political, and social focus. What similarities and differences can you identify? How do these schools compare to the more mainstream American schools with which you are familiar?

In what ways do these three schools and their Web sites reflect the Native American education issues discussed in your textbook?

Black Americans and Desegregation

Click here to access a special report from the Harvard Civil Rights Project entitled "Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation." Based on this report, what does the future look like for students of color in terms of educational opportunities? Answer this question by writing a four-paragraph addition to your textbook. This addition should be called "The Changing Nature of Segregation: Looking Ahead," and should address trends and issues for the future that are not already covered in your textbook. Use examples from the Civil Rights' Project special report to illustrate and support your discussion. Also describe why (or why not) culturally responsive teaching is even more relevant in today's schools given the patterns of segregation described in this report.

Multicultural Education

The Multicultural Pavilion at http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/ is a comprehensive collection of resources related to multiculturalism in education.

Choose a subject area that you are particularly interested in teaching (e.g., math, social studies, art, etc.). Using the Multicultural Pavilion as a starting point, collect and document at least three examples of how this subject can be taught with a multicultural approach. For some subject areas, multicultural teaching strategies may be more difficult to find. If this is the case for your chosen area, try to come up with some ideas on your own based on applications in other subject areas.

Bilingual Education

The online version of Education Week has a special page devoted to issues in bilingual education. To visit this page, click here. Using these resources as reference material, write a position paper on bilingual education. What is your view? As you take your stand, be sure to address opposing opinions and current research on this topic.