Keeping All Student's Identity Visible in School
How can we as teachers ensure our students will maintain their cultural individuality while in school?
An unfortunate reality of students with diverse cultural backgrounds is that their identity can get drowned out by the dominate culture while they are going to school. As future educators we need to ensure that all of are student's individuality is maintained while they are in our classrooms, instead of being ignored. We need to begin to insert education into their individual cultures so that they are able to experience the three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy.
The three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy stated in Ladson-Billings's article are:
1.) students must experience academic success
2.) students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence
3.) students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order
When these tenets are present in the classroom it, "requires that teachers attend to students' academic needs, not merely make them 'feel good'" (Ladson-Billings, 160). It also means that students are able to express themselves in a way that is bringing their personal identities to the classroom, as well as developing a more broad sociopolitical consciousness that questions cultural norms.
Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy video by Teaching Tolerance. Education experts Jackie Jordan Irvine, Geneva Gay and Kris Gutierrez explain how to make culturally relevant pedagogy a reality in your classroom.https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=130&v=nGTVjJuRaZ8
How do we as teachers make sure that we are practicing culturally sustaining pedagogy?
Django Paris states, "I have begun to question if the terms 'relevant' and 'responsive' are really descriptive of much of the teaching and research founded upon them and, more importantly, if they go far enough in their orientation to the languages and literacies and other cultural practices..." (Paris, 93).
He believes an alternative term that better supports the value of our multiethnic and multilingual present and future for young people is culturally sustaining pedagogy. To ensure that students' home, community, and school are being brought together, we need to find activities and extend our practices in ways that we create a space where their heritage and culture in their community are not lost. Like Paris questioning the terms "relevant" and "responsive" it is not wrong of us to constantly question if our research and practice in the classroom is for certain ensuring maintenance of the languages and cultures of our students. Just because we are the teacher does not mean that we can't be learning from our students by letting them bring their worldly knowledge and backgrounds to the classroom to teach classmates, as well as us.
Here is the IPS webpage for their Family and Community Engagement (FACE)
https://www.myips.org/get-involved/family-and-community-engagement/
Here is the IPS webpage for their Family and Community Engagement (FACE)
https://www.myips.org/get-involved/family-and-community-engagement/
Let's Be Bold!
"Let's try to make our classrooms and the world fit together better by changing more of the world. Okay, so it will take longer. Still, it's a more worthwhile project, and a more logical extension of our purposes in teaching" (Boomer, 157).
Being more involved in your school's community to empower citizens can help parents and other people in the community understand why we teach for social justice. Moving outside of the classroom and acting on our passion will show, and hopefully inspire, our students and the community that we want to be participants in a democracy.
Being more involved in your school's community to empower citizens can help parents and other people in the community understand why we teach for social justice. Moving outside of the classroom and acting on our passion will show, and hopefully inspire, our students and the community that we want to be participants in a democracy.
There are steps available to take to start being a teacher that is involved and on the hunt for a change:
1.) Build a community: instead of just getting a group together, bond while listening to each other's stories to create trust
2.) Identify purpose: have a focus that has a balance of being broad enough to appeal to people with different passions while still creating a particular action plan
3.) Develop leaders: help everyone identify their role within the group
4.) Take action: begin to affect the world outside of your usual circle
5.) Evaluate process: reflect on where you wanted to go, and where you are now
More Questions
Compare your elementary school experience with culturally relevant pedagogy to the three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy. Were they close to the same experiences? If not which were missing?
So far, what tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy have you seen at Christian Park?
In the video what are the two types of culture that Geneva Gay explains? Which does she believe is more important?
How do you plan to use culturally sustaining pedagogy in your classroom?
When you are a teacher what ways will you build a community to take action on being more involved in your students' lives?
So far, what tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy have you seen at Christian Park?
In the video what are the two types of culture that Geneva Gay explains? Which does she believe is more important?
How do you plan to use culturally sustaining pedagogy in your classroom?
When you are a teacher what ways will you build a community to take action on being more involved in your students' lives?
One of the points you mentioned, which was intriguing consists of determining that culturally sustaining pedagogy means creating a space in the classroom where activities extend the student’s heritage and culture so that these cultural elements are not lost. Although my grandparents came from the Philippines, very few characteristics of Filipino culture was transferred to my American born mother. Moreover, the language of Tagalog was not taught at all to my mother. Therefore, the absence of Tagalog and various other characteristics of Filipino cultures exhibited in my mother could have resulted from my grandparent’s impression that their culture was not deemed valuable in the dominant mainstream culture of America at large and the corresponding American school system. However, if the schools would have implemented the ideology of culturally sustaining pedagogy with activities to extend student’s culture and heritage, my mother might have seen her name Maharlika, which means nobility, as a name of value, instead of perceiving her name as “different” and “weird” through a deficient lens. Additionally, I agree with you that the identities of diverse cultures can become drowned out when education revolves to only reflect the ideals of the dominant culture. As a biracial person with a Filipino mother, who’s culture was diminished to adjust to appropriate the dominant culture, my cultural identity was undiscovered until I got to college because the development of cultural competence was completely ignored throughout the entirety of education.
ReplyDeleteBrandon, I'm so glad you brought your mothers experiences into the conversation because you and I have touched a little before on it! One of the most important things I think you touched on was the fact that your families culture was not touched on or had very little recognition in the school setting. I also thought it was interesting when you brought up the fact that your grandparents had the potential thought that their culture was not valuable. I think this is sad and disappointing to hear and read because every culture is so important and has so much to bring for others to learn about and from. I wonder how your families culture would be viewed now if they moved to the United States today. Would your mother still be thinking of her name as weird or different? Also would there be others to support her in being here and potentially other students from the same cultural background? Would your family still be teaching Tagalog to one another? I think the absence of yours and your families culture being present lead your grandparents to feel this way but I wish they hadn't! I would love to personally learn more about Philippine culture since I don't know any! Thank you Brandon again for sharing your families background!
DeleteBrandon and Naomi your post’s really makes me think back to when I was in elementary school. As someone who went to school in a school district that was mostly white children, I honestly never thought about other cultures.
DeleteThere were many reasons for that but one of the main reasons was the fact we never discussed it, my school as well as many others lacked Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy. I sit here
and for the first time ever I put my self in the minority’s shoes. I can’t begin to imagine how school must have been for those children and your mom Brandon. If schools would start incorporating different cultures in everyday education all children would be able to 1. Have academic success, 2. Have cultural understanding and 3. Children would have critical consciousness and challenge the status of the current social order.
Brandon, your post spoke to me, seeing as I have a similar experience as your grandparents. I came here when I was nine years old and I instantly felt the absence of my culture. I have never had a teacher from grades 4-12 ask me about my culture, nor have they tried to incorporate any Filipino aspects into the classroom and curriculum. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy was not implemented in any of my classrooms, and I have paid dearly for it. I can no longer speak my native language and my memories of traditions, everyday life, and faces of family members are beginning to fade away. I had to teach myself how to speak and write English because my teachers mistakenly believed I already knew the English language. I never challenged society and its numerous flaws because I was too preoccupied teaching myself how to assimilate to this culture, and during the way, I lose part of my Filipino identity. If I had known then what I knew now, I would have told myself the value and importance of sustaining my culture and its impact on how I view myself. Due to the fact that there are fewer Asian Americans and/or Pacific Islanders than other demographics, our culture often gets forgotten and it's a real shame because we have plenty to share with the world.
DeleteI like your question of comparing elementary school experience with culturally relevant pedagogy as we as future teachers can use past experiences to learn and teach from. Like you stated, and Ladson-Billings's stated, the three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy include academic success, cultural competence and critical consciousness. In my elementary school experience, I feel very strongly that the teachers and administrators lacked culturally relevant pedagogy in that they only really touched on academic success for students. I think that has to do with the population of the school and the time period, but I know that culture was never a priority to my teachers in elementary school. Coming from a mostly white rural community, I feel that students who had a different cultural experience were just swept under the rug because majority of students were the “same.” In middle school and high school, when the population increased, there was a more diverse population in the schools, and that is when I began to see more culturally relevant teaching through the tenet of cultural competence. Teachers not only taught more about culture, but it seemed they truly wanted to learn about the cultures in which were a part of their classroom. Critical consciousness was still lacking, but I was able to see steps being taken to be more culturally relevant. These experiences are teaching lessons for me though. One point that I want to make from my experience is that it is dangerous to let the majority chose what and how you teach. Like I stated before, my elementary school was made up of mostly white rural students, but not all students had this culture. To avoid falling into this trap of letting majority lead your ways, I think it is important you get to know your students from the start and build your teaching from there so you can be culturally relevant to the students you are teaching. It is also important to use culturally sustaining pedagogy in the classroom. When you learn about students’ culture, it can be easy to think the stereotypical norm of a culture and to teach based off that. This is where I see the difference between culturally relevant teaching and culturally sustaining pedagogy. For culturally sustaining pedagogy we must not rely on the stereotypes surrounding a culture but must dive deep to understand to broad diversity among students and their cultures.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting point you mentioned was stating that in your elementary school, the only cultural relevant pedagogy tenet that was acknowledge was the tenet of academic success. Although you mentioned this occurred in your school system because your elementary school was predominantly white rural students, the same absence of cultural competence was avoided in my school system, despite having the total amount of minority students exceeding the number of students from the dominant group. My school system might have not even promoted the cultural relevant pedagogy tenet of academic success because as Ladson-Billings (1995) concludes for cultural relevant educators, “When students came to them with skill deficiencies, the teachers worked to help the students build bridges or scaffolding so that they could be proficient in more challenging work” (p. 163). Therefore, with avoiding the funds of knowledge developed through the cultural and home environments of the students, in favor for teaching the “colorblind” curriculum, the lack of building bridges between school and home may have contributed to half of my diverse senior class dropping out.
DeleteAdditionally, analogous to your school system, critical consciousness was avoided in the classroom. For my school system, this lack of critical consciousness is interesting because, throughout my childhood, I witness deindustrialization contribute to countless jobs lost. Regardless of how much correlation resulted from the deindustrialization, the years following this process in Anderson have perpetually seen a considerable decreased population, a decrease in school test scores, an increase in poverty, and an increase in crime. Considering the social issues revolving around Anderson, implementing critical consciousness in the classroom could have contributed to making a real difference in the community. However, through primary focusing on test scores without considering the student’s cultural knowledge and assisting them with developing critical consciousness, most of my peers wanted to leave Anderson and continuously speak down about the community instead of advocating for improvement.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But That's Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 34(3), 159–165.
It was interesting hearing about your personal experiences in elementary, Olivia, and how the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy developed further throughout your years of schooling. From what you've shared, I feel like growing up, the tenets lacked in my school as well, but I didn't really notice much change going from elementary to middle or high-school on cultural competency or critical consciousness being encouraged, so it's good for me to hear that you saw steps in the right direction at your schools! Also, its interesting to hear how your previous experiences in school and Brandon's overlap, despite the changes in schooling environments. I'm curious to see how other interns in our courses experiences overlap when it comes to their previous experiences with the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy in school?
DeleteOlivia, reading your reflection on your own schooling was very interesting. Growing up I was in schools that were very diverse. Looking back at the IDOE Compasses for all of my schools during the years I attended our diversity level was pretty high. However, I still had a very similar experience in that there was very little culture in our classrooms. We celebrated only the traditional holiday (Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's, etc.) and learned very little true history. As I got older I was able to see how this A) created a negative relationship between school and the students who felt under-represented and B) how it created a divide among the student population.
DeleteNow, being someone who is going into the education field, I wonder why my past teachers didn't touch on these subjects. Were they ignorant to the importance of these lessons? Were they uneducated on the topics so they just didn't bring them up? Were they scared to discuss touchy/controversial subjects with students? While all of these are both valid and understandable, they are excuses. As we are now learning, we have to push our comfort zones in order to best serve all of our students in the best way possible.
Taylor, I liked the questioning that you mentioned in this comment. It made me really think about the district I was in and why my teachers didn't touch on lots of similar topics. I think that it had to of been the fact that they were scared they would say something offensive or wrong. I also think a lot of teachers just didn't know how to bring different cultures and backgrounds into the classroom. That's why I love the program that we are in. We are being taught how to be educators that go above and beyond to make our students feel important and that their background/culture is important and that we can all learn from it. I am thankful that I am learning the things that I am learning because it is so important now in education.
DeleteI have a lot in common with these comments. The only tenet that sticks out in my memory of elementary school is experiencing academic success. I don't know why my teachers never taught about other cultures or religions until I was in middle school, and even then I don't think lessons went into as much detail as they should have. I too remember Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and all those other classroom holiday parties being celebrated. When I was that young I never even considered that some people might not celebrate those holidays like I do, and if my teachers would have brought up culture and religion earlier I would have had a better understanding of diversity even in elementary school. Abby, I also am thankful I am learning the things that I am so that when I am a teacher no matter where I end up I will know how to bring culture into the classroom.
DeleteGreat job on this blog! I believe you did a really good job of summarizing the reading in an engaging way and making the information easily accessible. The two questions of yours that really stuck out to me were "Compare your elementary school experience with culturally relevant pedagogy to the three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy. Were they close to the same experiences? If not which were missing?" and "So far, what tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy have you seen at Christian Park?". I really do feel as though my elementary school experience did not meet all three of the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy stated in Ladson-Billings’ article. Yes, I did experience academic success, however, I do not feel as though I was provided an opportunity to share about my culture or learn about the cultures of others. Like we discussed in class, most of the holidays that were celebrated in school were holidays like Christmas. For those of us that do not celebrate Christmas, we had to engage in these activities and holiday parties, but were not given the opportunity to share/celebrate our own culture’s holidays. To address your second question, I feel as though I have witnessed most of, if not all of, the three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy at Christian Park Elementary School. For example, the “Pride Cards” that are given out are a good incentive for students to achieve academic success as well as exhibit good behaviors. The environment at this school makes me believe that students are given the opportunity to express themselves in a positive manner. I hope to learn more about how to achieve this in my own classroom someday.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the question "compare your elementary school experience with culturally relevant pedagogy.." stood out, because it is a good way to reflect back to something you didn't think about when you were there. As well as the other question standing out. The questions were very thought out and made you think back.
DeleteI am sad to hear that you feel you were never able to express your culture during your elementary experiences or learn about others culture, I can relate that to my experiences as well. But I also feel like I have witnessed all three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy at Christian Park, as well as hope to learn how to achieve this in my own classroom. I feel like the more we observe, make connections, and take note of our experiences at Christian Park we will feel ready to practice culturally sustaining pedagogy in our future classrooms.
DeleteYou did a wonderful job of presenting the information from the reading! And I also loved the video you included. Jackie Jordan Irvine made what I think is a very important point, "Students are not mere representative of a cultural or ethnic group. First and foremost, they are individual students who have individual needs..." Irvine points something out here that I somehow overlooked while studying culturally sustaining pedagogy: each student is an individual. It is easy to group students, even while trying to check your own cultural bias and include aspects of their cultures in the classroom, but it's important to see each students as an individual.
ReplyDeleteLast semester, I had the pleasure of working in the second grade "ESL" classroom at Christian Park (that is, this particular classroom had all of the ESL students in second grade, all of whom spoke Spanish as their first language). The teacher did an amazing job of bringing their language into the classroom with things like bilingual rugs, translations for colors on the wall, encouraging students to learn the language from each other, etc. She managed to include both the first and second tenets of culturally sustaining pedagogy in every class session I observed. But perhaps some of her students hated the rugs, or wished for a different part of their cultures to be the focus rather than the language. My point is that even though her efforts were very helpful to many of her students, it's important to realize that they might not all react the same way. Simply because they have a similar culture doesn't mean they will all respond positively to your attempts to incorporate their culture in the classroom. I hope that when I am a teacher, I never forget that my students are, first and foremost, individual students who have individual needs.
Just in case anyone was wondering, this is my (Brandt Hatcher's) comment. I updated my profile so hopefully it won't continue to list me as "Unknown".
DeleteBrandt, I think what you said about recognizing that each student has an individual need is very thought provoking. In the article about culturally sustaining pedagogy, Paris said. "A pluralistic society needs both the many and the one to remain vibrant" (p.95). I wholeheartedly agree with you about wanting to make sure that your students are being taught as individuals and making sure that they feel valued and have a positive learning environment. The quote, by Jackie Jordan Irvine, that you selected from the video popped out at me as well. I think sometimes when trying to make rooms culturally relevant, we forget that not all students who are the same race or have the same culture will have the same experiences in life. I believe that it is as important to see the group as a whole as it is to see each individual. My initial thought about the struggles this presents as a teacher turns into a curiosity about how to make sure you know what kind of background each of your students is coming from in order to help according to your best ability.
DeleteIn a future conversation with you, I would be interested in knowing if she was able to find way to tie in cultural aspects of their lives, or if it was just the linguistic aspects. I am also curious to know what kind of intangible cultural aspects of the children's lives she was able to include in her classroom.
Brandt, I love how insightful your reflection is! What stood out the most is when you highlighted that every student is an individual. It's often so easy to fall into the idea that each culture is a monolith and that each member of a particular culture expresses it in the same way. We have to keep in mind that while there will be commonalities between members of the same culture, by no means should we make generalizations that will pigeon-hole our students into expectations that will compromise the culture that has been built for them at home. Having a good understanding of different cultures is a good place to start when building a culturally sustaining environment, but we still have to make sure that we make adjustments on a case-by-case basis to make sure that every student is represented in our classrooms.
DeleteBrandt, I completely agree with you in that individuality is the most important aspect of celebrating a person. Coming from a psychology perspective (and my experiences as a psychology major), culture is a substantial part of who we are, but it is not all we are. As someone who has come from two vastly different cultures, I can say that my personality and character have evolved from who I inherently am, both aspects of my cultures, and the lessons I have learned throughout my life. The biggest and most influential example being my journey as a future educator, specifically the way we place important topics under a microscope to view and inspire critical thinking. Each one of us has a uniquely different experience, and we have all been shaped by them. We should all practice Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy with the intent and promise of embracing individuality first and foremost because we are not our culture, but our culture is a large part of who we are. Brandt, I really respect how you made sure to involve individuality! We, as future educators and members of society, should incorporate all of these teaching styles into our classroom and our lives.
DeleteBrandt I also thought that quote from the video was important! It really made me stop and think. I think remembering that every person is their own individual person is something that can get accidentally overlooked in the field of teaching. It is so easy to get caught up in wanting students to succeed in school based upon their grades, but to goes far beyond that. We have to make sure our students' voices are heard in our classroom and then by doing that we also learn so much about their culture just by listening to them and allowing their classmates to hear them as well.
DeleteAlso Lynne when you said, "We should all practice Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy with the intent and promise of embracing individuality first and foremost because we are not our culture, but our culture is a large part of who we are." I really thought that was insightful because it really stressed to me that the idea of culture is something different for every individual. Every person has had different experiences and they have encountered along their journey that they can bring to the table. I think we can learn a lot from others by remembering that!
Great job on the blog post! I feel like you really pulled together the main points of the readings! I like how you pulled the points from the Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy text in the part where it connects to the other text, But That's Just Good Teaching, as it uses critical thinking to reevaluate the terms that are used and how they could be changed from "relevant" to "sustaining" so that we are more focused as teacher on cultural pedagogy in the future of our classrooms. During my elementary schooling experiences, I feel like the only tenet of culturally relevant pedagogy that was really included was students academic success. Looking back now, I can think of very few, if any, instances where critical consciousness or cultural competency was encouraged. Unlike my elementary school, I have seen all three tenets incorporated at Christian Park during Block 1. One way I have seen culture incorporated in Christian Park is by including students first languages into the classroom through verbal use and through books. This can help sustain the linguistic aspects of their culture as it is now incorporated into the classroom.
ReplyDeleteWhen discussing Chapter 9 of For A Better World, I love how you pulled out the steps for teachers who want change. One thing that I got from the text that I also think goes really well with this was examples of how students can create that change outside of the classroom as well. In the book, there were examples of students writings and poems that could be used to help identify areas of addressing and change when it comes to organizing things like speaking to members of higher political power who could listen to their desires for betterment of their schools and worlds. This is something that I would like to incorporate into my classroom in the future, as not only do I want to get involved and advocate for bettering the world, but I want to provide my students many opportunities and resources to do so as well!
Great point to bring up! I also thought the part of of chapter 9 when they showed student's writing and poems was powerful. I think that is something we can all take note of and use in our future when we are working for a change. When people read things that are coming from the students directly, instead of hearing them through adults all the time, I think it can leave more of an impact on people and help them better understand the things we are hoping to change.
DeleteGreat first blog! When reflecting on your questions I was thinking back to my elementary school days. I went to a very white Catholic private school. I experienced academic success but the other two points I didn’t really see until I got into college. My teachers didn’t incorporate any other cultures into our classroom as there weren’t any different cultures in the school. We also didn’t challenge the status quo because we were taught that this is the way things are, don’t question it.
ReplyDeleteI’m really finding the culture at Christian Park very interesting and exciting. The students all seem eager to learn and excited to be at school. The Pride Cards bring an energy to the school that you can feel when they are mentioned. Even when Mr. Worth said we would be getting them to give out it brought a high energy of excitement into our classroom because I think we’re all excited to be a part of it.
I hope that when I’m a teacher in my own room I can bring a culture of community into my room that makes all the students feel safe. I want them to have a safe space to come to if they need it and to feel comfortable with their classmates. I will hopefully be able to do this by getting to know my students and their families on more personal levels than just parent-teacher. I think that sometimes even a parent will need a space to feel safe and hopefully myself and my classroom can be that for everyone.
I too Andrea only experienced academic success at my elementary school. Coming to college showed me that there was more than just that. I felt growing up, we had to try our best to bring in our cultures but eventually they did get lost within the school. I love how you brought up the Pride Cards! By passing out Pride Cards we are able to have a connection with the student! The students will be able to remember us. I am pretty excited for when we are able to pass them out!
DeleteYou did an incredible job of highlighting all of the important aspects of the readings this week. I loved how you showed step-by-step ideas on how to be involved and on the hunt for change. That gave me a lot of ideas so thank you for that! Listing the 3 tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy was also a great idea to make sure that everyone knows how important those are.
ReplyDeleteWhen thinking back on my elementary school years, I realized that there was not much talked when it came to cultures. I don't remember learning about other cultures or doing activities about other cultures. I did have the privilege of cadet teaching in the same district that I went to, a few years back and saw that a lot had changed since I had been there. The Kindergarten students were learning about different religions, cultures, holidays, and got to do fun activities that tied with it. Some examples were crafts, making food, trying on clothes, etc. I was really happy to see that they had changed the curriculum and added these important things.
I think these types of activities kind of tie to your thoughts on culturally relevant pedagogy in the classroom. You mentioned how important it is for teachers to incorporate the students' home, community, and school. This is not something that just happens but something that teachers and schools have to move towards. I thought it was great how you added the IPS Family and Community Engagement to your blog post.
You did a great job with pointing out the most important parts of this weeks readings. I really like how you highlighted the quote "When these tenets are present in the classroom it, "requires that teachers attend to students' academic needs, not merely make them 'feel good'."" I feel that this is very important because knowing your students is going to allow you to do what is best for them, and you as well. I think that is something every teacher should bring into their classroom and put into the way they teach. When looking back in my elementary school I realize that I never got to have insight or knowledge on other cultures. The only thing I remember is having a whole day called pioneer day and we lived and did activities that they did. For example one of the activities was candle making. I am glad that kids today get exposed more to other cultures and can talk about cultures openly. As a teacher, I will try my hardest to always make my students feel that my classroom is a safe environment for them to express who they are, and give them a chance to talk about their culture, and anything else they want to talk about. Make it a place where learning new things about their peers becomes something they look forward to.
ReplyDeleteThis is Mackenzees comment. I didnt know it would post as unknown.
DeleteI think you did a great job summarizing the article and presenting all the information including the quotes. A lot of the quotes you chose stuck out to me as well and were highlighted in the article when I read it. One of my favorite quotes that you posted was, "requires that teachers attend to students' academic needs, not merely make them 'feel good'" (Ladson-Billings, 160). This was my favorite quote because it honestly rang so true. Last semester I had the opportunity to work in a class where 19 of her 23 students were spanish speaking and would switch between both English and Spanish. She did everything she could possibly do to make that classroom inclusive for her students and allowed them to get up and move around to learn. She let them speak in Spanish if they were talking to one another and even used a little herself. She also had translations throughout her entire classroom to help students learn as well. I think that if we are going to help our students learn, we really need to listen to them, watch their body language, and even follow their lead in some instances.
ReplyDeleteDuring my elementary experience I only remember academic success being the main focus as we were a brand new school that had just opened. I do remember being the child to question some things but it never went beyond one or two questions before it was shut down. I think they focused on just academic success because they wanted to remain open. I have though gotten the opportunity to see all of these displayed at Christian Park. I think it is so cool to see all of these because that means that the administration and faculty are doing something right and good for their students! While the school I work at in the future may not show all three tenets, I will definitely make sure they are reflected in my classroom. If they are even reflected in one room, that is the start to conversations pertaining it and even other classrooms adopting them!
This is Naomi. I'm not sure why it's unknown.
DeleteThe quote that you said was your favorite was also one of my favorites as well. I was the opposite, I was never the student who asked questions at any point. I would hope someone else would ask the question I needed and If they didn't, I would go ask the teacher later one-on-one.
DeleteNaomi I think its awesome that last semester you go the chance to work in a predominately Spanish speaking class. I bet there were a lot of things that you observed that would fit well with these readings and I would love to hear more about them! I also think that how you relate your experiences at Christian Park to your past elementary school experience is important. It goes with the reading from the book where it talks about the 5th step, evaluation. When you are working for a change it is important to reflect on the past to make sure change is moving in the right direction!
DeleteGreat work on this post! The information is organized in a clear and condensed way that makes it easy to be inspired about becoming a teacher who wants to bring about change in our classrooms and schools.
ReplyDeleteLooking back on my experiences learning about other cultures in elementary school, I realize I wasn't taught a lot about other cultures, which surprises me because I come from a very diverse township. The few times I do recall lessons where other cultures other than the dominant one were included or represented feel "wrong," or perhaps questionable in terms of appropriateness and accuracy. For instance, in third grade, we did the traditional "Pilgrims and Indians" reenactment for a school play around Thanksgiving. Also, in third grade, a girl transferred into my class from China. To help us better understand the Chinese culture and experience getting accustomed to life in America, all of third grade read a book about a girl who moves to New York from China (if I remember correctly, it is based on the authors own experience). Despite having read this book, I don't recall any subsequent activities (other than reading quizzes) that were substantial in furthering our exposure to Chinese culture. Looking back on this experience, I wonder had we not gotten a transfer student from another country, if a book that details this type of experience would have been chosen for use to read at all. While I can appreciate this having been a good attempt and using what I have learned about culturally relevant pedagogy, it certainly wasn't enough of an incorporation to create an environment that was overall culturally responsive while sustaining its presence over the course of the school year.
The tenet of culturally relevant pedagogy I have witnessed the most at Christian Park is students experiencing academic success. I have observed teachers in classrooms who differentiate activities and instruction for groups of students and the use of Pride Cards to encourage students to continue to demonstrate positive behavior and academic success. As we continue to work with groups of students and their teachers in classroom settings, I am hoping to see more examples of how the other two tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy are being demonstrated in classrooms and how this impacts the overall environment of the classroom.
Naomi, you did a great job summarizing the article! You were well organized and hit the main points.
ReplyDeleteLooking back on elementary school, I do not remember talking about other peoples cultures. Like in other comments, I feel that we focused more on academic success. Since I am from a small town everybody knew everyone. People knew who you were related to or where you were from. Since everybody was well connected, I feel that my teachers did not see a need to focus on cultures within the classroom. But, thinking about it now it is so crucial for us to talk about culture because, like the article says, we need to maintain or develop cultural competence. Bringing in the students individuality will help them want to succeed in school.
Being at Christian Park has really opened my eyes. I have seen all three of these tenets within our school. The staff are driven to maintain cultural competence, help our students succeed academically and show the students that you can challenge the status quo.
This blog post was well organized! I feel like you did a good job of summarizing the readings and organizing them in a way that would make the most sense. This blog was intriguing and very informative. Like you mentioned it is important that we make students feel like their identity is staying visible in the school/classroom. Growing up and going to through elementary school I don't remember learning too much about other cultures or even my culture. It wasn't until junior high when I took Spanish that we learned about another culture. I remember last year when Dr. Flowers would always ask a question like, what is your culture? I never had a for sure answer because even in my home, our culture wasn't really talked about. Not only do I think it is important that student's cultures are visible in the classroom, but I think they should also be visible at home. Of course that one is a little bit harder because we can be in the home, but we can send stuff home such as; homework, projects or something else that would allow the families to sit together to discuss their culture a little more. I feel like I could use this in my future classroom because it would give my students a chance to talk with their families and then come back to the classroom to share their cultures. This would allow me to have a better understanding of them and their family as well as their classmates. Those things that would be sent home wouldn't have to be super time consuming just chance to allow the families to discuss their culture more together.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the video. I thought it was short enough, but very informative. Geneva Gay speaks about two different culture, one being the physical culture (tangible) and the other being invisible culture (intangible). She states that the intangibles are more important which can consist of values, beliefs, feelings and opinions. I believe that both types of cultures are important, but a lot of time when we think about culture we seem to think more about the physical culture and seem to forget that there is more to culture than the crafts, dress, arts, and music. We all have opinions, feeling, values, and beliefs. Those do need to be more relevant in the classroom because it allows for the students to have a meaningful conversation with their peers. We all come from different places and it is important to make it visible. As a future teacher I want to make sure that it is more visible to everyone.
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ReplyDelete"How do you plan to use culturally sustaining pedagogy in your classroom?" I think this is the question that every person should be asking themselves if they are going to be an urban educator. I love that you asked this question and had such a focus on this in your article, even going to a specific of bringing in their heritage and making sure that their culture isn't lost. For me personally my school never did this unless it was something special like Cinco De Mayo or Black History Month in February. Other than those, we never really touched on these issues, and I think it was because my school was mainly white, but I think it's also because as Americans we have so much of our history and news focused on us and not the rest of the world. There are many events going on around the world that I often see people very unfamiliar with because they have never heard of it. Even with the internet and being able to communicate with places around the world, there are still many places with restricted or even sometimes no internet access, making their voices hard to hear from mainstream sources. Django's article lists at the end the powerful nature of "Latino/a and Indigenous American literature and history... [is] in my opinion, the enactment of robust culturally sustaining pedagogies." We really need to push using these sources and bringing them into our classrooms because of their impact in students' education. I think this is really the best way to bring in culturally sustaining pedagogy.
ReplyDeleteYour questions at the end are strong, especially concerning what tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy we've seen at Christian Park. I'd be hard-pressed to say if I witnessed any tenant beside academic achievement, but I look forward to our new classrooms and better ideas of what to search for. Jumping off that, I'm excited to see what kind of culturally sustaining pedagogy we might see occur at Christian Park once our field experiences begin and being able to identify it. I appreciate the video and the link to the IPS community engagement page. You touched on a couple things in your blog that stuck out to me as well. In Paris's article "Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy," it's mentioned that we can use our students' funds of knowledge and skills in the classroom. I find it more appealing to discover what our students offer, bring to the table, and build off that, than to start at ground zero. How much more interesting would a classroom be if we had all this varied experiences working together to learn? Another phrase you used was "extending" our practices to make room for culture in the classroom. Paris's insight to changing from "relevant" to "sustaining" was a really interesting read, and I think you condensed it concisely here. One line from his article was, "It is quite possible to be relevant to something or responsive to it without ensuring its continuing process," on page 95. In hindsight it seems apparent enough, but it struck me hard that you can celebrate something without encouraging or fostering its survival.
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