Community and Family Involvement
Literature that focuses on culturally relevant pedagogy shows that family and community involvement is important to culturally relevant teachers. Culturally relevant pedagogy requires teachers to have the support of students’ families and the community. Support from family and community members encourages academic improvement because students see more people who care about their academic achievement.
Teacher collaboration with students’ families is a fundamental part of culturally relevant teaching. Parhar and Sensoy (2011) explain: “Interaction among teachers and family members allows students to feel increasingly a part of the school, and that the school becomes part of their family” (p. 203). Family
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Research suggests that culturally relevant pedagogy is an effective way to reach students at varying academic and social levels. The teacher is the central role of this pedagogical focus. A teacher chooses the teaching practices that they will implement based on their beliefs and knowledge. Teachers need to feel confident in their abilities to teach content, to integrate their understanding of culture, and to develop students’ social skills in order to encourage learning. Culturally relevant pedagogy requires teachers to create culturally inclusive classrooms, as these need to be established so that students feel safe and comfortable in the classroom. This means that the teacher must create a sense of belonging and respect so students will feel more inspired to learn. Classroom management and relationship building are key factors in creating a culturally inclusive classroom. It is also important fo the curriculum to be reshaped to meet the needs of diverse students. Adaptations to the curriculum will reinforce student learning by creating a positive and engaging experience for students in the classroom. Culturally relevant instructional practices, such as differentiated instruction and storytelling, will help foster culturally diverse students learning by creating a higher level of engagement and a better connection to their culture. Professional training and support will provide all teachers with the knowledge and encouragement that they need to develop culturally relevant pedagogy. Family and community interactions will provide teachers with support to create classrooms conducive to learning. Research proves that if culturally relevant pedagogy is implemented, it will benefit the changing student demographics both academically and
Gloria Ladson-Billings supports this idea in her essay titled “’Yes, But How Do We Do it?’ Practicing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy” and also expands upon its importance by adding the insight of how teachers think about the social contexts, the students, the curriculum, and about instruction, all impact the students because how teachers regards these contexts get woven into their pedagogy, which create the very classrooms for learning.
Richards, H., V., Brown, A., F., Forde, T., B. (2006). Addressing diversity in schools: culturally responsive pedagogy. Retreived March 30th 2014from http://www.nccrest.org/Briefs/Diversity_Brief.pdf
Culturally responsive teaching is very important in today’s day and age. Classrooms are filled with students from different backgrounds, races, and ethnicities. Teachers need to put into consideration those differences when building curriculum and creating a classroom atmosphere. Subcultures might also need to be considered when teaching, such as the culture of the disabled. The culture of students with disabilities is one that may appear within many classrooms due to the increase of students with disabilities. Teachers who are able to maintain a culturally responsive classroom and curriculum will provide ideal learning opportunities for all students and encourage them to succeed. (Darrow, 2013)
As an educator one must understand that the children you will be teaching will all come from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different homes with different values. No one student will be the same, and no one student will learn the same. The role of a modern educator is to harness this idea of diversity and channel it into a positive learning atmosphere for children of all backgrounds. “I define culturally responsive teaching as using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (Gay, 2013, p.50.). The hope for all teachers is to capture the minds of their children, as educators we must learn how our students learn, adapt to their skill set and channel our curriculum to their strength.
To be brief, culturally relevant teaching "is a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Ladson-Billings, 2009, pp. 20)." The emphasis of culturally relevant teaching is to understand that children have different needs and in order to deal with them in the best way possible is equitably. The inability to recognize these differences causes teachers to limit their ability to meet the student's educational needs and prevents them from being culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 2009, pp.37). Contrary to culturally relevant teaching, assimilationist teaching is a style that disregards a student's particular cultural characteristics. This teaching method follows a hierarchical model. According to the assimilationist perspective, the teacher's role is to ensure that students fit into society (Ladson-Billings, 2009, pp. 24). The book is full of amazing teaching strategies, teaching styles, and methods that would help benefit educators working with children of any grade
Students who are enrolled in elementary schools with a diverse population usually develop an understanding of insights and perspectives of children from different backgrounds and learn to function in a multiethnic, multicultural environment (Morrissey, 2014). Therefore, students need to learn how to interact in diverse environments. Teachers face challenges of making lessons and instructions “culturally responsive” for all students to avoid favoritism (Griner, 2012). Some students’ cultural backgrounds may have a negative impact on them in a modern classroom (Burt, 2013). It is imperative for elementary school teachers to be knowledgeable of different cultural beliefs and practices to help students adjust to traditional classrooms (Nigma, 2015). Defining the
Furthermore, I feel that being a culturally responsive teacher is a great asset to students, because most of the time students build relationships and communication skills with teachers. The teachers feel they are culturally responsive to students. The culturally responsive teacher will help students gain these skills through the "banking" concept of education, in which, students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.
Schools throughout America have seen an increase in the cultural diversity of their student population. Census results from the 1990’s indicate that more children from other countries have immigrated into the United States than ever before. Results seem to indicate that the current move and increase in cultural diversity will soon lead to more than 50 percent of the student population being culturally diverse according to Mid-continental Research for Educational Learning. This increase in diverse population should certainly prompt us to develop educational practices that address these students’ needs.
To start with, culturally responsive teaching practices recognize the validity of the cultural custom contained by several ethnic groups. In other words, it considers whether different approaches of learning are necessary and worthy in the formal learning. Furthermore, culturally responsive teaching practices are fundamental because they create links between school experience and home and between lived social cultural realities and academic abstraction (Gay, 2000).
Our schools today contains a diverse population of students from different ethnic backgrounds. As educators we need to make sure we are applying culturally responsive teaching. Katie Toppel describes “applying culturally responsive teaching practices in a classroom benefits students along with having a positive effect on students coming from a diverse background. “Gay (2 010) defines culturally responsive instruction as “using cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (p. 31). Toppel explains there are three different themes which pertains to culturally responsive teaching method. Those three themes are “culturally appropriate texts, (2) engaging students’ voices, and (3) incorporating students’ funds of knowledge (Bell & Clark, 1 998; Hefflin, 002; Howard, 2 001; Ladson-Billings, 1 992; Morrison, Robinson, & Gregory Rose, 2008 ; Powell, 1997 ; Toppel, 2013 ). According to (Toppel), As educators teaching students who come from a culturally and linguistically diverse background we as educators need to remember to care for the students along with building some form of relationship. Other
As a leader or administrator I would conduct a professional development for my staff by using the teaching strategies based from the article “Diversity Toolkit: Cultural Competence for Educators,” located in www.nea.org website. In which I would use Geneva Gaye publication culturally responsive teaching using the cultural knowledge, performance styles, and prior experiences of diverse students
When evaluating myself on the Cultural Proficiency continuum, I’d place myself at “Cultural Competence” part on the continuum. This evaluation takes into account my experiences and practices while working in various schools and interacting with students of varied cultures, needs and ability levels as both a teacher and a learner. An effective educator is continually maintaining this dual role of teacher and life-long student in order to not grow stagnant within the classroom; this dynamic allows for growth along the continuum toward maintaining cultural proficiency.
Many times, teachers will make the mistake of pre-judging families from different cultures and misunderstand their communication styles and value systems. In order to prevent such misunderstandings, teachers should not be afraid to step outside of their own culture bubble in an effort to comprehend differences between their own culture and these parents. When interacting with parents, teachers should also embrace the commonalities between the cultures. Everyone deals with work, school, relationships, communication, and life in general. I am a Black man, going to school, raising a family and working, just like one of my friends, who is a Native-American. Often times, the things we see as divisions can actually bring us
Culture is a powerful influence plays a big role in our interactions. Culture may also impact parenting style and a developing child. Having a strong sense of their own cultural history and the traditions associated with it helps children build a positive cultural identity for themselves. This also supports children’s sense of belonging and, by extension, their mental health and wellbeing. This class is crucial in understanding and working well parents, staff, and children. An effective educator understands how students’ cultures affect their perceptions, self-esteem, values, classroom behavior, and learning. As director, I need to use that understanding to help my students and staff feel welcomed, affirmed, respected, and valued. One way that I can do this is by using multicultural literature, especially children’s literature, to honor students’ culture and foster cross-cultural understanding. If cultural differences are not understood by teachers and management, it can lead to miscommunication and misunderstandings on both sides. It will be my job to do all I can to overcome both language and cultural differences to ensure a positive learning environment for
We need to be aware of the diversity in the classroom. Cultural diversity includes: bi-racial, adoptive, immigrant, gay, and step-families. It is a large majority of the students today even in my generation. Focusing on making a balanced curriculum that exposes the students to all of these different backgrounds is very important. I know that it is likely that a teacher will not be able to cater to every student, but it is important to involve each of them. There is a large percentage of students that have dropped out due to the lack of having a connection with the curriculum. It is frustrating that we are lacking progress in our schools to help these children connect when studies show that each cultural group will soon be equal in numbers. We need to form a better