I understand that as a teacher I will need to constantly remind myself that literacy is so much more than just reading and writing. While I know that I must include reading and writing into my classroom on a daily basis, I know feel that it is imperative to use as many other literacy methods as possible. I say use what the kids know and love! I think we should sing, dance, do puppet shows, tell stories, look at grocery items, make recipes, and do any other activity that can be thought of to help teach students communication and literacy! I also know that as a teacher, I will most likely not be the like the majority of students in my classroom. I realize that I do have some skills that will make me valuable as a teacher of culturally diverse students, such as being able to love and accept those who are not like myself. I also realize that I will have struggles trying to communicate with some of my students. I feel that even though I will be worlds different from many of my students, I still have ways to build connections with them. I enjoy learning about other people’s culture, and I want to know everything about my students that I possibly can. I want to find ways to get to know my students on a more personal level and create projects for my students to complete where they can all learn about one another. I believe it is also very important for each student to learn about their classmates’ lives, just as important as it is for me as the teacher to learn about their lives. In addition, I think that all teachers should take the opportunity to share their own personal culture with their students. This will allow everyone to get to know each other and understand one another better. After learning about all of the different cultures and backgrounds of the students, it would be much easier to incorporate a little bit of every child’s culture into the classroom or instruction in one way or another. 

                As a teacher, you have to realize that your literacy experiences are not going to be like that of every child in your classroom. This means providing the resources for students to have more opportunities to different kinds of literacy activities. This also means getting to know your students’ families and talking with them about the literacy experiences they have with their child(ren). It is also imperative that all teachers recognize that students do not come to school completely illiterate. Yes, they may come not knowing how to read or write. That does not mean they have never experienced any type of literacy, because they have indeed experiences it in one form or another. This may mean that as a teacher you have to learn to adapt to a certain student’s form of literacy before being able to reach out to them with the more traditional literacy methods. Each child will arrive with different knowledge and experiences, and a teacher’s job is to use what each student has for the good of the classroom. Teachers should share what all of their students know and do and love and find ways to help them make connections between one another and their experiences. 

                Every child will not come into the classroom with the mindset that they are there to receive an education to better themselves and get somewhere in life. Not all families instill such values in their children. Some families do not think reading and writing are that important in an individual’s life. All of this proves that we all think a little differently depending on how and where we were raised. As teachers, we have to be conscious of these things and find ways to make the best of our students’ situations. These are the children we especially want to give a reason to love school and show them why it is important to get an education. Yes, we want to teach our students literacy, but we also need to teach them why it is important and teach them skills to help them survive in the outside world. 

                Looking back, I see that to begin with I saw authentic reading and writing as “good literacy”. I realize now that “good literacy” is much more than that. I see good literacy as being any authentic opportunity where an individual can experience a literacy activity that is relatable to real life. This means not just using reading and writing in the classroom, as I mentioned earlier. Incorporating all of the other amazing forms of literacy into the classroom will produce a much better-rounded student and one who will be able to comprehend many different types of literacy. They will learn valuable skills that can be transferred to other areas of life, and as an individual, will realize that all of their family’s literacy experiences matter – not just the experiences of those who parents read to them every night.