Culturally Relevant Education

Einstein said: “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Now imagine the various students that enter the classroom. They come from all walks of life with different backgrounds and stories to tell. If educators don’t recognize that these differences do in fact exist then some of the fish that pass through those school doors will leave the building believing that they are incapable because of the trees presented for them to climb. Enter culturally responsive teaching. This method or pedagogical device is the answer to bridging this gap that students may encounter when they are not given the opportunity to show their particular geniuses or to act as their own agent in their education.

Culturally Responsive Teaching is an emerging field that focuses on student cultural backgrounds and experiences in the development of pedagogy. According to Kea (2013) cultural difference is the single largest difference in U.S. schools and also the most neglected. The goal of Culturally Responsive Teaching is to provide an equal opportunity for all students to learn in school, regardless of their gender, social class, ethnic, racial or cultural characteristics (Banks 2005). Ladson-Billings (1994) suggest that the historic failings of educators in educating non-white students is that educators attempt to insert culture into education rather than insert education into the culture. In other words, educators are not providing an equal multi-culturally relevant education by bringing tokens of culture such as food, national flags, or maps from around the world into the classroom alone. Although these actions promote a sense of multiculturalism, an education that is relative to a diversity of cultures is not necessarily being provided. Culturally Responsive Teaching attempts to bring the various experiences of the student’s cultural home life into the classroom. Schmidt (2005) identifies seven characteristics that must be incorporated into curriculum in order to provide culturally responsive instruction. These characteristics are high expectations,

Public schools are beginning to see a shift in demographics in the United States. There is now a culturally diverse student population and educators need to respond to this shift in order to ensure an equal education for all students. Culture aids in determining how students learn, and culturally responsive teaching is a way teachers can educate culturally diverse students and provide an equal education for all. Culturally responsive teaching is defined by Geneva Gay as using the various characteristics, perspectives, and experiences of many cultures to effectively teach culturally diverse students (2000). Culturally responsive teaching prepares teachers to work with and teach a culturally diverse classroom of students and allows teachers to create a classroom environment that is similar to their students’ home environments so students do not have to assimilate to the dominant culture or change from their home culture to their school culture depending on their setting (Brown). Multicultural education is not only important for ensuring equal education for all students, but also creates youth who will be able to function and be effective citizens in a pluralistic society (Gay 2003). In order to implement culturally responsive teaching, teachers must acknowledge potential biases and reconstruct their attitudes, create a diverse knowledge base, be caring and empowering, and create a classroom environment that is conducive to a culturally diverse

Culturally Responsive Teaching is a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of including students' cultural references in all aspects of learning (Ladson-Billings, 1994). This approach to teaching encompasses how knowledge is both communicated and perceived by the students. The teacher must have a good relationship with the parents, have high expectations, learn about their students culture, have culturally mediated student-centered instruction, willing to reshape the curriculum, and be a facilitator in order to accomplish this method of teaching. These are key points a teacher must be willing to do if they intend to be an effective teacher especially in a highly culturally diverse area like central

As an ESL instructor, I teach a diverse classroom full of migrants with a variety of backgrounds. It’s as multicultural as a classroom can be! I try to incorporate my students’ cultures into our lessons. After all, everything we know and understand comes from the lens of our culture. Take for example our own education. Think about how much influence our point of view had on our education. Now, how much is our point of view affected by culture? I try to be as culturally responsive as possible. However, I know that there is always room for improvement.

Creating the opportunity for school culture will captivate that inspires children to dream and support learners to be successful. When students enter the classroom to expand their learning, they deal with positive learning that has an outcome that cultivate in classrooms to the highest level when children are appreciated and respected as teachers will have a rich cultural capital for families that gives an educational environment.

Culturally responsive classrooms are important in our schools because we are a culturally diverse society. There is a relationship between culturally responsive classrooms, inclusive education, and specialized instruction. When teachers provide a culturally responsive classroom, this in turn creates an inclusive environment for students of all cultures. Additionally, being culturally sensitive, responsive, and inclusive within the classroom will help teachers provide specialized instruction for culturally diverse students. Culture plays a large role in a student’s behavior and academic performance (Lerner & Johns, 2015). Ignoring one’s culture, and essentially their identity, could cause problems with students who are from a different culture

Sullivan (2010) says this type of approach is “underpinned by an ethos of respect, care, responsibility, and substantive transformation of discriminatory systems.” Teachers must exhibit a level of concern for their students to help them excel. Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon (2014) demonstrated other ways culturally responsive teachers can cater to a diverse community. Incorporating linguistic diversity, learning about the students’ families and communities to integrate into teaching, utilizing the students’ strengths to help them learn, creating a collaborative classroom environment to reflect a variety of beliefs, enforcing behavioral and academic guidelines, and highlighting the issues of race and culture in an effort to promote awareness and overcome these challenges (p.

Ladson-Billings (1994) describes the culturally responsive classroom as “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes.” I’m in total agreement with their definition because I’ve personally witnessed the power of embedding relatable aspects of students’ daily lives into the curriculum. Four years ago, I moved from Memphis, TN to the Bronx, New York for the sole purpose of diversifying my teaching career and expanding my repertoire as an educator. I had very knowledge about the community of students I served. As a matter of fact, I had never seen a Dominican, Haitian, or Puerto Rican in my whole life. I had a complete culture

My ethnic, racial, and cultural identity as an African American is the primary anchor and explanation for what I emphasize in analyzing current educational realities and future possibilities for marginalized students of color. All students should have the opportunity to live, dream, and achieve all they can in life. For educators, whose backgrounds and experiences are different from students, it is critical to acknowledge sensitivity. I know from personal and professional experiences the transformative benefits of culturally responsive teaching and the devastating effects of continuous failure due to educational irrelevance and ineffectiveness. My advocacy for cultural diversity to improve the achievement of ethnically diverse students is

Being a culturally responsive teacher is more than implementing multicultural activities and programs within the classroom. It involves confronting issues of power and privilege that arise in the face of diversity, and recognizing the influence this has on a child’s ability to learn. This is particularly difficult in the field of education. Teachers are required to respect the values that are associated with every child’s culture, and the many differences amongst them including, physical and mental ability, gender, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, language, religion, sexual orientation, geography, and age. As a result, today’s teachers have to be able to separate their professional and private lives and ignore any bias in the latter.

In each of Ms. Cruz's classes, examples of culturally responsive instruction can be identified. Her teaching strategies are used to make sure that all students, regardless of background, level of achievement, or learning style are engaging and applying themselves. This can be seen through Mrs. Cruz's connections between the content being taught and real-life experiences. For example, while teaching the integers, Mrs. Cruz drew an ocean on the board and identified the negative numbers under the sea, positive numbers in the sky, and the origin/0 on the surface of the ocean. This activated the student's prior knowledge and allowed them to remember these concepts thoroughly. Further, the students were personally asked to relate integers

Educators need to think about their own values, beliefs and attitudes related to diversity difference and acknowledge and address any bias that they may hold. Recognising and addressing is part of becoming a culturally competent educator. It involves making a conscious decision to promote children’s cultural competence so that we can build a good Australian society. From my point of view I can’t see how someone can be a successful educator or even work within the care service if they have not examined their self-first. An educator must have love for those who come from a different background. It wouldn’t be right for someone to be working within a care service whom is racist and has no time for such people from a different background. It

I choose 2 themes from the article “culturally relevant pedagogy” one was “Cultural competence” and the example provided by Ann Lewis. The example was to use their home language in class and then translated in English. I also like the idea of code-switching; it gave me a new perspective of how I can improve my future classroom. It would allow the children to learn English faster and also understand the class. When I came to the U.S. it took me longer to learn the language because I was placed in a subtractive bilingualism classroom. And I don’t want that for my students I want them to learn each lesson and also learn the language to facilitate their learning.

An example as to how culturally relevant pedagogy is an approach used to provide equitable educational experiences for all students is stated in the class text White Teachers/Diverse Classrooms. Culturally relevant teachers imagine somewhere in the classroom is the next Toni Morrison, or Benjamin Carson, which helps the teacher to feel with the student rather than feel for them. By doing this, teachers are able to