Beginning with the earliest forms of formal education, schools should strive to foster an environment that allows for students to relate with each other. It should be a main goal of a school to teach students how to relate with one another in reference to different backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures. Schools should take this initiative because with rapidly expanding immigration, diversity, and expansion of globalization, students must be prepared to live and work with others. Since the majority of homes only encapsulate one or two cultures, relating with different humans is not a skill that is easily acquired in the household. Children are only exposed to what their parents decide to teach them so they might not ever gain this ability without the help of schools.

To do this task, schools should have curriculums that involve global cultures. Schoolwork should provide students with a point of identification in their own culture (i.e. ensuring that American schoolchildren know about US history, culture, politics, ect.), but also with respect for others. It should at least be an option that students be allowed to take courses with focus on other cultures through world history, languages, foreign literature, and other classes that might enhance the understanding of the way other humans live.

Being taught to play nicely and not hit is not enough. This is a tactic that can only work for a short period of time. Eventually, kids start to see rules as being flexible and ones that they can create. They can start rationalizing hitting or not being nice by saying that someone is different than them. So instead, schools (and other authority figures in children’s lives) should stress the equality of all people. They should teach children how to accept and appreciate other cultures. It is not enough to not hit people because students are told not to do so. Children need to understand how to effectively work with other humans and the potential repercussions types of discrimination whether it is physical or verbal.

My pre-college schooling gave me an appreciation and acceptance of differences, but probably not for the right reasons. Since I grew up in a small town, I wanted to be able to learn about others, as I was never exposed to those of different cultures. But because there were little resources for this in the classroom, I found myself doing outside research to find out more about other religions and cultures. I had taken initiative to research things independently so I wanted to be exposed to them more. This influenced my decision to move to New York. Since starting college in a diverse community, my appreciation of differences among humans has only grown. It has been very insightful to see different cultures interact. With a diverse population, it is easy to see how each group makes unique contributions and works together to create one environment. This should be the goal of all schools, not just post-secondary institutions.