The definition of the word culture is: the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc. But, we must not miss out on the essence of the word; world views, beliefs, language, and values. The education system has to continue to develop and insure that it is reaching out and engaging learners culturally where they are, as opposed to having the “one system” that everyone should acclimate to. To do this, the educators must continue to receive education much like the learning received in the above video. A lot of our educators, especially in the K-12 realm, are versed in only one culture…their own. It is necessary for them to continue their learning and understanding of others as they have an intricate role in students foundational learning.
Cultural Competence
Gloria Ladson Billings describes cultural competence as the ability to help students grow in knowledge and understanding of their own culture while acquiring skills in at least one other culture. Therefore in order to be culturally competent, an educator must be versed in the various cultures of their students. They cannot teach from their cultural perspective only. They also are tasked with finding creative ways to implement it in their own classrooms. Billings says, “You don’t eradicate or get rid of a student’s home culture.” With that in mind, an educator that was studied in a case by Billings, embraced her students cultural style of speaking by telling them they were translating their language as opposed to correcting it. This is likened to how you would send a text to your friend versus sending a text to your boss or instructor. An example of this would be me saying, “I’m finna head out.” Those who are familiar and relate to my culture understand that translated to standard English that means, “I am about to go home.” This teacher made her students feel as if they were bi-lingual as opposed to making them feel that they were talking “wrong.”
Physical and Social Engagement
There are ways to be culturally responsive by engaging students physically. I have something that I use with my primary learners that I call The Crayon Project. It will soon have a picture book to accompany it. This came about as I implement art in a lot of my teaching. On a very regular basis a student will ask for a “skin-color” crayon. It is in that moment, that I physically engage the entire class to teach a cultural lesson. I will have the asking child come to the front of the class along with at least three other children of different shades of skin color. We all then link up by putting our hands around the others wrists until we have a beautiful chain of colors. I will then ask, “What skin color crayon do you want?” The student then, almost immediately, verbalizes a color they’d like to use. There is no set crayon that is skin color. There’s no reason for a peach or tan crayon to say “flesh.” “Nude” stockings aren’t nude for all tones. It’s important to educate the whole student in these foundational years. They grow up to be adults that still “see” things that they don’t see. We DO see skin color, and we shouldn’t listen to those who say they don’t, it’s simply not true. What we want to stop seeing is that the crayons color the same way, you can use it the same, they all have the same job. The only thing that makes it different, is the shade it is.
Tangible vs. Intangible
When educators engage their students culturally, they should look at the invisible cultural traits just as much, if not more, than those that are visible. The tangible ones are easier to work with. Crafts, music, art, and technology come with tons of research and already planned lessons that include cultural diversity. So, we can have our students paint a picture of a culture’s ceremonial gown or sing a song translated into another culture’s native tongue. But, how far do we reach a learner’s intangible culture? Values, beliefs. Opinions, perspectives, assumptions, feelings, these are the things that have to be embraced on another level. This is where our educator has to get really creative and have a willingness to be open to their own learning and understanding of other cultures. They are charged with creatively coming up with a method to teach what is known in a manner to be understood.
REFERENCES
(2020). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=89&v=uV36efjBKRU&feature=emb_logo
(2020). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8
(2020). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HR8NEPK7l0
Dictionary.com. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/culture?s=t
In the book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta Hammond (2014 ) explains how to bring the process of culturally responsive teaching to the classroom. The main challenge is how to get the students from what they are to where they need to be.
What is important to remember, according to Hammond, the students are social beings, and the brain is a social organ. Not feeling comfortable in their environment will be an obstacle to learning. When the students feel discriminate, not part of the environment, or being judge, their brain will disengage.
Hammond explains that there three steps to bring this process to the classroom.
1)…
1.2 Blog Post Response: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Motivation
Nicole A. Harris
Full Sail University, FL
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
1) Meaningful Relation to a Life’s Goal
In their book, Trends and issues in instructional design and technology, Keller and Deimann (2018) present the idea that motivation is not linear, but rather a multi-dimensional concept that must be tackled through a varied approach. One way that the concept of motivation can be strengthened is if the learning task is connected to an internal desire that the student has. Cultural Responsive Pedagogy or Cultural Responsive Teaching (CRT) is an avenue to achieve the motivation that is attached to one’s goal. In her blog post, “Cultural Responsive Pedagogy”, Stacey Roberts (2020) underscored how…
Week 2 Blog Post #2 Review: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
Reviewed by Tyla Bowers
Motivational/ Volitional Concept #1: Motivation to learn is promoted when learners believe they can succeed in mastering the learning task (Reiser and Dempsey. 2018, p.81).
This case study references the Culturally Relevant Pedagogy theory taught by Dr. Gloria Ladson Billings. In it, she explains the importance of acknowledging the individualities of students and the culture that they were raised with, as opposed to ignoring it or trying to correct it based on some notion that it may be inferior to another’s own culture. It brings to the forefront the idea that teachers cannot lessen the importance of one student’s culture or diversity over another student’s. This is…
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
Knowledge is Meaningfully Related to Goals
Some of the most important features of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy are based on centering learning experiences around the learner, considering factors such as their “ways of knowing and doing,” their communities, families, and needs (Kozleski, 2010, p. 6). Kozleski (2010) espouses the idea that in following Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, curriculum should be anchored in what is relevant to student. This may be done in a number of ways, including by using authentic texts, provoking inquiry about what matters to the learners, or connecting learners’ knowledge to content knowledge. Because of these features, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy lends itself to providing learning experiences that are meaningful to learners and related to their goals.…
1. Engaging students extrinsically through cultural equity
Classrooms in most public schools are microcosm of what the outer environments of society can be. Students should feel not only understood, but connected and motivated while appreciating others culture and customs. The best approach is found in this blog post, both from the reading and the resources it provides. Being able to reinforce positively this even plain field for every walk of life through the use of images, sounds, activities and, most importantly, acknowledgement of otherness in our spaces allows students to be more sensible and appreciative. “It is not enough to be tolerant of the diversity of our school communities. It is not enough to be accepting of the wide range…