This exposure allows students from all different backgrounds to come together and lets teachers foster an inclusive environment for all.

Often times, our multicultural literature comes in Spanish, but we are able to request different languages as well. We have many of our state-issued curriculum books that are translted from English to Spanish, and many teachers will purchase their own books that are translated as well.

The National Assiciation of Multicultural Education has four featured teachers from the U.S. These teachers have all come from a background where they were misunderstood and judged for their different background. They are now using their stories to bridge the gap and foster a more positive, multicultural enviornment both in their classrooms and outside of them.

When we, as teachers embrace these differences, we show that we are all different in many ways. Some students may eat different things than another is used to, speak a different language or they dress differently. These differences are what make us all unique, just as God created us to be.

The style of teaching that many of us can use is exposure and open-mindness. There is simply no reason for a student to feel like they do not belong in a classroom because they come from a different background.

The ELL strategy has been a great tool for K-5 classroom and having teachers that are specialized in this field is another way that students can feel included and their culture can be embraced while in school. Unfortunately, we do not have ELL at the preschool level in my state, so we rely on visuals and interpreters to incorporate mutiple languages and cultures.

Another great way for classrooms to respect and celebrate cultural differences is, again, by having converstations with students. We, as a whole school will never allow one student to feel like they do not belong with their peers. We do not stand for someone making fun of another because they are different. We also do not allow other students to single out others for things like different foods or different clothes.

For us, the community norms are multicultural. Because I live and teach in a very diverse city, there have been very few students that have come in without some idea that there are others that are different. We are also a multicultural staff and that helps students from many backgrounds feel included as soon as they walk in the room. Since I teach preschool, things like posters with sayings on them would likely be ineffective for many students, so we do not have those.

When it comes to a classroom setup, there should be every effort made to integrate every student. For many of them, it comes naturally because preschoolers tend to see a friend and nothing else. They do not care about what language they may speak or what food they eat. They care about who is going to play with them at recess or center time. We encourage students every day to interact with each other and learn from each other.

Another great way to get families involved is family nights. We do two of these a year and during these nights, families come out and walk through specific classrooms with their child. Each classrom has a different, engaging activity that both the student and the parent can do together. At the final stop, they are given resources that they can use to foster the skills they are learning in the classroom at home. This has been amazing for familiy engagement and families look forward to the events every year.

When engaging the community, we can use local businesses. Many small businesses are always willing to donate materials and supplies where they can, and some larger businesses will even sponsor our local schools, which helps both the school and the business.

Another thing we can do to engage the community is take our open-mindness and inclusivity outside of the classroom. We usually do not know who our students will be until the first teacher work week. If we are not taking these practices outside of our classroom and using them in the community, we could easily encounter a parent that has a bad perception of us because we were not inclusive when we came across them the first time. Students do not feel safe coming into school and parents do not feel safe leaving them there when this happens. The way we treat our community matters as much as they way we treat our students and their families.