How we decorate our classroom can often communicate who we are as teachers. If we want the message to be intentional, we can consider who spend most time there, apart from ourselves – our students. In this post, we consider how to decorate a culturally-diverse classroom and I share some pictures from my own classroom which sees over 60 different nationalities a week. Don’t be surprised if you see similarities between this and your own (multi- or mono-cultural) classroom. As we’ve noted before, what’s good for particular groups of students is usually good for all!
Setting All Students Up For Success Immediately
Before students even enter the classroom, I meet them at the door and direct their attention to the poster below. It ensures they are ready-to-go from the moment they find their seats. For the first few weeks, a lot of students have that ‘Aha!’ moment as they realise they need a quick trip to their locker, so better they do it at the start than in the middle of class. Some students have even asked me to print the poster to put it in their lockers, so that – combined with the small number of forgotten items – tells me it’s a useful idea!
Inclusion in a Culturally Diverse Classroom
Of course, we know that ‘culture’ and ‘diversity’ go much deeper than just nationality or ethnic group. Therefore, I include the poster below that indicates all learners are appreciated for who they are, whatever that comprises. They might have their own reasons for keeping certain facets of their identity private, but I want to let them know it shouldn’t be for fear of acceptance in our learning space.
Some might protest the display of such posters in more conservative contexts. I work in a predominantly Muslim country with Shariah law and – for me – displays like this are worth students feeling accepted. I’m willing to have the conversations that need to be had for this sign to stay – only you can decide what lies within your sphere of influence, but I do encourage you to be a brave ally if it all possible.
What Do They See First?
I want the first thing that students see inside the classroom to be a celebration of our culturally-diverse community. Therefore, one of the first activities we do is complete one-pagers. I provide a set of templates for students to choose from so they have some control over the layout. I then provide the following instructions:
The ‘class collection’ mentioned above is a slideshow where they scan and insert their one-pagers into. The reason we had a slideshow collection was that some students were online at the start of the 2020-21 school year because of the pandemic. All the same, I may continue to store them digitally as they make a nice artifact they can take with them as they move up the grades.)
As you see from the example above, this student strongly associates her identity with her scoliosis, among other things. This was a student who chose to wear her back brace visibly outside her clothing, and used the one-pager to explain her condition. Other students stuck to more predictable facets of their identity, so the one-pagers really invite students to reveal what they want people to know about them.
Once the one-pagers were complete, I printed them all and strung them across the window. They made an eye-catching display for any visitor and students returning to campus after border restrictions were lifted got a kick out of seeing the fruits of their labour already on display.
Books in a Culturally Diverse Classroom
I have tried, and failed, many times to organise my book collections with stickers and labels. The closest I’ve come to organisation is to group them under themes. Where there are multiple copies, I store them in baskets for book clubs and book buddy partners.
So, these days, I invite willing students to sort out the books as they see fit and after consultation with the other students. So far, so good. It changes a little every year but, because students have ownership of it, they can find what they’re looking far much quicker than if I did it.
Of course, the book collection itself should be as diverse as the students so a wide range of genres is included, with a few foreign language books included when we can find them. I constantly ask my students to share book recommendations, including those in other languages. We are all on Goodreads and update it regularly, so students can have very active ‘want to read’ and ‘reading’ lists.
Daily Routines
So we can get our agreed routines down to an efficient art, we print them off and have them as table displays. That way, classes can start and finish with minimum time lost.
These also provide support for new students. This means they aren’t bewildered when their classmates settle down to read or write on entering the classroom, or when they start clearing items away toward the end of class.
Supply Station
There will be days when a student forgets their pen, or their notebook runs out of space, or some other challenge that could take precious time from our learning together. To minimise such disruptions, I provide additional supplies. Students know they can take what they need and replace it when they can. It’s also great for new students who may not have received a supply list yet. Finally, it is a handy place to collect those leftover items at the end of the school day so it doubles up as a Lost and Found collection too!
Editing Station
I loved this Fast & Focused resource from Building Book Love and it makes a great display for the classroom. Sadly, due to covid, we never got into a routine of using it, but I’m hoping that will change in the future. (In the meantime, we’ve been making great use of the free version of NoRedInk and will continue with this until we are back on campus.) Because students have unique sets of editing goals, this resource allows learners to access short tutorials to help them develop their accuracy. I have students arriving throughout the year so, if they miss a mini-lesson, this display means they can easily use self-directed time to get what they need until I can confer with them.
Keeping A Positive Atmosphere
I have these posters inside and outside my classroom. It’s a nice way for students to give each other – or themselves – a nice boost when it’s needed. To build on this students can use a blank template to create their own. Of course they can be multilingual too! These are available as a free download from We Are Teachers.
Here, I’ve shared a few aspects of how we decorate our culturally-diverse classroom. Hopefully, it’s sparked some ideas. We’d love to hear yours too!
Come share in our Facebook group or drop a comment below.
Identify-affirming choices for classroom decor?
We’ve got this!
