Diversity in Action: How to Teach Inclusion and Tolerance in Classrooms

The best classrooms are ones where every voice is heard. But how do you cultivate that kind of environment, and how do you teach sensitive and potentially upsetting material about past eras where that wasn’t the case? Here are just a few tips for creating an inclusive classroom.

Have Empathy

When your goal is teaching tolerance, one of the most important things is being sensitive about the subject matter. Not only is it a good practice in general to extend empathy to others, but you never know when one of your students will be a member of the group, culture, or community that you’re discussing.

Model Good Behavior

As an instructor, your students will be looking at you to determine how to react to new and unexpected lessons. Make sure that you’re modeling good behavior for them. This might mean asking questions, researching answers, showing respect to source materials, and watching the language that you use.

Utilize Outside Resources

You don’t have to teach diversity from scratch. There are a number of outreach programs that have already put together everything from handbooks to lesson plans and unit objectives about tolerance, so it’s just a matter of finding them and figuring out the best ways to use them in your particular classroom. You can also modify the materials as needed.

These are just a few tips for educators who are teaching tolerance, diversity, and inclusion in their classrooms. For more information, consider reaching out to the ZACHOR Holocaust Remembrance Foundation at ZACHORFoundation.com.