Diversity Affirming Education is intentionally making all students of various diverse backgrounds feel welcome and included in the learning space.
It is not enough to see, and address biases. Just because you do not make a student feel negative about their differences, does not mean that the student feels positive about their differences, or that they are not experiencing these negative feelings in other places; therefore, need more positive experiences.
It is important to assure all students that who they are and where they come from are important and have value. I do not mean to say the industrial sense of value, and how these differences can increase productivity. The students' experiences can be brought into the classroom to build on that knowledge and those interests. Those perspectives allow all other students a glimpse of what it is like in other people's lives and allow the students to have an opportunity to humanize each other while normalizing their differences. It allows the students to personally connect and creates a more cohesive cooperative classroom of respectful students.
We also have to make changes in our schools, and education system as well as our classrooms that will make all students feel safe, welcome, and successful in our schools. The different topics below are some ideas of what this looks like in classrooms and schools.