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As stated by Hall, Quinn, and Gollnick in The Joy Of Teaching, 86% of the U.S. population associates themselves with a religion, and as an educator one must be observant and respectful of religious differences in their classrooms. Along with religious differences that can occur in society, the same discrimination or bias can occur in the classroom as well. Teachers need to be able to manage the dynamics of their classroom and notice any of these signs of discrimination based upon their students' religious beliefs. In more inner-city schools, there is a larger chance of a large religious diversity in the student body, and all teachers need to be aware of those differences. Educators are expected to be objective, respectful, and understanding of all forms of worship, especially around holidays where decorations belonging to one faith can be seen as discriminatory to other faiths. The teachers in those schools do not need to be aware to set those students apart, but to be able to excuse them from class for prayers, religious holidays, or to allow them to dress a certain way (head scarves for Muslim girls, and yarmulkes for Jewish boys) even if that is against the school's dress code for their religious beliefs.

In chapter two of "The Joy of Teaching" the authors address the growing number of students in the school system that speak a language other than English in their homes. The increased number of English Language Learners is due to immigration from other parts of the world for a variety of reasons, the most common being political oppression, famine, or to find better jobs. Teachers need to know that their job is to help the student learn English while teaching them the classroom subject--so it is likely that they will fall behind in the class because they are concentrating on learning English just to get the assignments done. For the teacher to know a language other than English could be helpful in teaching the foreign-born student. The education level of the immigrant children varies from very well educated to a child who has never attended school, however the American public school system draws no distinction and allows all children the right to be in school. The authors argue that students who are able to speak more than one language will have an advantage in the global economy. There may be some undocumented students that come to the classroom, but they are entitled to learn from the teacher as much as the other students, because "...education has a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of society."

In chapter two of //The Joy Of Teaching// by Gene Hall, he covers the basic classifications for the kinds of students a school can have. One characteristic that defines a student is his or her socioeconomic status (SES). SES is a measure of the family's financial wealth that in turn determines the availability of other essential resources. Some schools represent a majority of one SES, or have a mixture of high and low SES. For instance, students of low income families tend to live in an urban environment and are likely to be non – white, suffer from poor health and poverty, have lower expectations, and have a shorter educational career. The Middle Class works steadily, has increasing racial diversity, has more financial resources, and higher expectations for their childrens' education. The upper class families are affluent professionals with degrees, often non – ethnic, are active socially, and focus a lot of resources on their childrens' education. The net effect is the low income children perform poorly when compared to their wealthier peers due to the quality of the school environment which can be determined by the availability of resources.

In "The Joy of Teaching", chapter 2: "Today's Students" Gene E. Hall argues that the differences between males and females is based upon biological factors but that these factors do not come into play 100 percent of the the time. Hall describes the different methods of reasoning and logic that divide how boy and girl adolescents think; boys are more likely to think deductively, whereas females think inductively. Despite these biological ways of thinking that divide the sexes, Hall claims that a huge part of how gender influences today's young students has more to do socialization rather than biology. In our modern culture females are taught to act feminine but are also encouraged to develop a balance by means of retaining their traditional femininity while also participating in more "masculine" activities; on the other hand,boys have not learned how to be "emotionally literate" (69) meaning that they are encouraged to only be masculine, and if a boy tends to be considered more feminine they are criticized and become isolated. Hall concludes that as teachers we must treat all of today's students equally and also encourage the same academic preformance from both our male and females students; it is a teacher's job to have "uncondtional positive regard" (69) for all students regardless of their gender.

In the text book The Joy of Teaching, written by Gene Hall, Linda Quinn and Donna Gollnick, it is explained that the racially and ethnically diversity of our schools depends on the area the schools are in. The U.S Census Bureau surveys the population in a six pan-ethnic and racial group. The groups are African American or Black, American India, Native Alaskan, Asian American, Latino, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islanders and White. It was discovered that California, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Columbia has a 60 percent population of students of color attending the schools making those areas the most diverse in the United States. However, it was also discovered that the Midwest areas of the U.S. has the least amount of diversity in schools. Furthermore, the teachers themselves have low diversity levels; about 85 percent of teachers are white and most are female.