Imagine...

You're walking home one day and your cell phone goes out. You rely on the GPS tools to guide you home and show you new routes. You're sad, hungry, and feel terribly lost. To make matters worse, the rest of the world seems to pass you by and not stop to offer aid. All hope seems lost, so you just give up.

This scenario reflects the lives many of our students face. Whether they feel left by the wayside as their classmates grab on to material quicker or they do not understand why the standardized test says their wrong about bananas not being brown, our students can feel hopelessly lost.

Many teachers feel overwhelmed with insurmountable paperwork or increasing responsibilities. It is easy to overlook a lost face in a classroom of 25-30 students. All along, little Johnny needs scaffolding and student support to recharge his cell phone. He didn't know how much he relied on his teacher as a GPS until he was so lost, he felt like giving up.

Adults do not learn the same ways as their peers. However, in a classroom, many teachers guide lessons based on the style more comfortable for them.

This week's lessons provide a large number of strategies to empower our students. A lower performing reader gains a boost of confidence when we teach material in her/his language.

The visual literacy tools offered by Todd Finley give different approaches to the same goal (Finley, 2014).

Finley promotes Howard Gardner's research on multiple intelligences. The aforementioned lower performing reader could benefit from graphic organizers and even graphic novels. As long as the standards are being met with research based strategies, teachers should be flexible in building rigor facilitated by different visual learning tools.

We hear a picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, visual learning tools could broaden comprehension in both urban and diverse populations.

Because people's experiences are different, they process perceptions differently. Students tend to model what they see. For so long, marginalized students felt forced to assimilate into roles of the hegemony or face ostracism.

Now, our classrooms encourage diversity. Unfortunately, teachers, like those seen in the CRE videos, lack adequate preparation to contend with a broad based diversity paradigm. Both pre-service and seasoned teacher benefit from inclusion training that goes beyond black and white. The goal is for all students to feel they can succeed.