Chapter 3: Culturally Responsive Teaching in Diverse Classrooms
My personal teaching passion (aside from language arts) is culturally responsive education. So many people (yes, that includes what we would consider "qualified" teachers) are ignorant of the unique challenges faced by people that do not identify with the majority's culture. It is likely that many teaching are a member of the privileged community - those privileges include being white, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, financially stable, and most importantly to this context, educated, English-speaking, and American. Being some or all of these things can make it difficult to understand the issues that arise for those that are not so privileged. Teachers (all people, really) need to be educated to understand how those privileges affect their lives and teaching, and to learn ways to think about them critically in order to overcome privilege barriers and help those that are behind them. I believe that every teacher needs to make it a significant personal priority to make sure they are using culturally relevant teaching in their classroom - this means connecting to all students and their backgrounds in the materials used, using a variety of teaching styles, and fostering a culture of inclusivity and one that celebrates diversity.
Teachers must go beyond just incorporating small units and a book or something featuring a character of a different culture now and then to completely change their curriculum so every unit can be relatable to all students. In order for this to land well in a classroom, teachers need to develop a classroom that values and celebrates diversity and all the wonderful learning opportunities it can provide. This means having students share their life, culture, and personality with the class, as well as having plenty of discussions about why each student is special and important. This has an added benefit for teachers: they are allowed a glimpse into the personal lives of their students. Teachers also need to make an effort to find out extra information about unfamiliar cultures, including more about the students' parents.
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Assessment and expectations of students from different cultures must also be renegotiated. American education values things like individual industry, memorization, attentive listening, etc. Other cultures may not share any of those values and do not promote their children/students to behave in such a way. For example, many cultures value collaborative learning and discourage students working alone. Having students work individually all the time and assessing them on their individual work could be confusing to a student with a different culture, and may not properly assess their actual knowledge. For a teacher, this means taking the extra time to think of more inclusive ways to assess, thinking critically about multiculturalism, and being flexible and willing to change lesson plans when they are not working right.
When working with students that are learning English, or that English is not the primary language spoken at home, a teacher must negotiate the importance between language and content. For a history teacher, it may not be so important that everything written and said by an ELL student is perfect English, but that accurate knowledge of the content is expressed. If a teacher spends too much time correcting a ELL student's English, the student may become discouraged and not want to speak in class because they feel dumb. Praise content knowledge and achievement instead of criticizing less-than-perfect language. For me, as an language arts teacher, this line is much finer because my content area focuses on making sure they have a grasp on concepts as well as the language itself. I will need to ask myself before every activity what is more important, the language or the concepts. Also, I could correct students in a non-threatening way (i.e., not in front of the class) to make sure they are catching their mistakes, without deducting significant points so they get a lower score if I know they are understanding the concept.
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