Love & Diversity
We all bring something special to the table. When we allow ourselves to learn about each other and our differences, it makes us more informed thinkers. Then we become more successful students, employees, friends, neighbors and people. Why not love your neighbor by embracing diversity?
When we hear about diversity, it's usually in conversations about equality - Equal rights and equal opportunities for everyone regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation or any other difference that sets someone apart from others. To not treat everyone the same is simply unfair. It's not right. I think everyone could agree to that.
When I've been involved in conversations about diversity, I prefer to focus on why we should not just agree to it, but why we should all EMBRACE it. You grow as a person when you hear new ways, new ideas, new views on living life. When you live inside your own little bubble, you hold yourself back. Stop fighting diversity - it's a great thing - embrace it. There's so much we can learn from one another.
Diversity in the work place
Companies with a diverse workforce make better decisions faster, which gives them a serious advantage over their competitors. As a result, companies with diversity in the workplace achieve better business results and reap more profit.
Why? Think about it for a minute. If you're a company creating a product or service that should be marketable to everyone, but your company consists mostly of white males in the decision making areas of the company, how will you know what Asian women will think of your product?
Having a diverse company - especially in decision making roles, helps you better understand the needs of your audience which leads to success - otherwise, you're flying blindly.
Diversity in Schools
Amy Stuart Wells, Lauren Fox, and Diana Cordova-Cobo of Teachers College Columbia vividly demonstrate the benefits of school diversity run in all directions.
There is increasing evidence that “diversity makes us smarter,” a finding that selective colleges long ago embraced and increasing numbers of young parents are coming to appreciate at the K–12 level. The authors write: “researchers have documented that students’ exposure to other students who are different from themselves and the novel ideas and challenges that such exposure brings leads to improved cognitive skills, including critical thinking and problem solving.”
Apart from the cognitive benefits, there are additional reasons increasing numbers of middle-class families now want to send their children to diverse schools. Middle-class and white Millennials realize that their children are growing up in a very different country, demographically, than previous generations. For the first time since the founding of the republic, a majority of public school K–12 pupils in the United States are students of color.
Students can learn better how to navigate adulthood in an increasingly diverse society—a skill that employers value—if they attend diverse schools. Ninety-six percent of major employers, Wells, Fox, and Cordova-Cobo note, say it is “important” that employees be “comfortable working with colleagues, customers, and/or clients from diverse cultural backgrounds.”
