Abstract

Diversity poses challenges for students, teachers, staff developers, administrators, and organizations—however, there are no formulas for teaching and working with the diverse populations who grace our classrooms and work places. Each culture and context is unique. This is the premise of this paper. In order for all students to achieve success in the classroom and outside of the classroom, educators need to see, understand, and tap into the complexity of their own classroom and school cultures. To do so, a deeper understanding of diversity is necessary. This paper proposes that the classroom as ecosystem model is a first step in deepening understanding of diversity. The author shares her rendition of the conceptual framework of the classroom as ecosystem model, a model which provides educators in all phases of their careers with both a theoretical foundation--and a practical lens with which to view diverse classrooms and communities. The author concludes with a brief explication of literary theory/reader response—a theory and a pedagogy which are a natural fit for the diverse classroom.