Culturally Responsive Teaching

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,

Teachers must learn about their student’s cultures if they want to educate them to the best of their ability. Many of the students in culturally diverse classrooms will want to learn in different ways. Some will want to learn in pairs, groups, as a class, or just alone. If the teacher is educated in their culture then lessons can be adjusted to appeal to every student as much as possible instead of forcing some to forget about their culture and learn like others. Students from

After reading Geneva Gay’s article Preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching I realized my pedagogy is culturally responsive in many ways. For one, I always

The United States of America is known for being a country filled with people of many different ethnic backgrounds. Likewise, the student population in schools is just as diverse as it continues to grow. Lynch (2015) notes that schools are expected to teach their students “how to synthesize cultural differences into their knowledge base” as this will help “facilitate students’ personal and professional success in a diverse world” (para. 8). Educators must be able to provide for the diverse needs of students and are expected to equip students with skills that can lead to healthy development as it can affect higher levels of student achievement and students have more opportunities of success in their future. Providing students with tools and skills requires an awareness and acceptance of their ethnic identity. Once students have developed self-acceptance about their ethnic identity, they can begin to feel empowered and motivated to do well. Through cultural empowerment, students of color can develop intrinsic motivation and achieve academic success.

As future educators, one pivotal way we can enhance our students’ learning and growing experiences in the classroom is by creating a culturally

In But That’s Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Ladson-Billings (1995) uses her 3-year case study of teachers, who successfully

If a teacher will take the time and energy to learn about a student’s culture and to show a caring attitude toward the student in regard to their culture, the student is more likely to interact with the teacher and exhibit greater achievement in the classroom.

Cultural competence in the EYLF is proposed through the three elements of belonging, being and becoming. This is due to that, belonging is about who, where, why and how the child belongs to the world in various ways (culture), being the child’s meaning to the world and becoming, a child’s understanding of their place and understanding it. All this is in the hope to promote a success to lifelong learning. Educators also seek to promote children’s cultural competence. As an educator being culturally competent means to respect multiple ways of knowing, being able to celebrate the benefits of diversity. You need to be able to have the ongoing commitment to the children, their families and adhering to the EYLF in relation to developing cultural

Culturally Responsible teaching, a term used by many future educators, but, what does it really mean? To some, it means understanding slang terms and new age lingo to stop bullying between students, others may think that it is keeping students fair and just to one another to ensure a harmonious classroom setting. Now, although these are all a side qualities of culturally responsible teaching they are not the core beliefs; instead, at its simplest it means for a teacher to put all of their previous thoughts and stereotypical ideas about a certain group of people or race aside, so that fair and just teaching can be achieved. “ According to this model of teaching, all the motivational conditions contribute to student engagement.” (Wlodkowski & Ginsberg), this is the ultimate goal of the teaching style, and as discussed further in the book and article, there are mainly four components to meeting this goal. Stereotypes, prejudices ideas, and attitudes towards a group of people will change how a teacher motivates students, and thusly, things like this must be changed or dropped altogether in a classroom, to ensure the proper learning of students. Because the vast majority of methods used to employ culturally responsible teaching come in the forms of including students or encouraging students to do something, it means all negative ideas about a student need to be dropped, this way one’s attitude is not altered toward different students. An example of how this can be used in a

My personal experiences have impacted my teaching. I went to a public school in a predominantly Caucasian town and I often stuck out amongst my peers, as a result, I learned to assimilate. I was under the impression that in order to succeed, “conformity to mainstream society is a necessity” (Olivares-Orellana, 2015, p. 194). As part of the majority in my work environment, I am able to understand aspects of shallow culture and deep culture (Globalcompetency, n.d.) which allow to form close and caring connections with my students, a strength which I feel is essential to student success (Olivares-Orellana, 2015, p. 183). Students must feel supported by their teachers and a sense of belonging in the classroom, “children who don’t belong, who

This guide is intended for educators to enhance their knowledge and practice to support culturally diverse students. Ethnicity and cultural diversity of students in the Australian schools have become norm which demand a meaningful and inclusive curriculum experience. The recent influx of the refugees and immigrants in the Australia has called for diverse and equal learning opportunities for each student. According to Lawrence, Brooker, and Goodnow (2012, p. 75) 44 percent of Australian citizens were born in overseas or are the children of parents from other countries. The cultural diversity may affect the emotional, social and educational development of the students. The culturally diverse students often get disengaged with learning because they feel alienated with the curriculum. The intended and enacted school curriculum is largely based in the mainstream culture of the rich, resulting in students from other background and culture feeling alienated (Ewing, 2013, p.86). The discrimination of students due to their race, culture or religion may have negative impact on their emotional and educational development.

In today’s society, I’ve learned that cultural diversity is important and it has been for many centuries ago. The dictionary states that cultural diversity is the cohabitation of different values, cultural, sex and race in one definite component. In America today cultural diversity has been an everyday expression in the education world. Some have a misunderstanding of what it may mean. We must have some type of order if we plan to be successful when it comes to having a diverse school. This happens within our own learning services where our children and our students are well educated. This thesis is” improving education through cultural diversity” and how American can see it as trying to co-existing in many different way across the world

As an aspiring educator, my motivation for entering the classroom and the ideas will shape my role in the school centered around culturally relevant teaching. I was always aware of how vital it is to student achievement to be responsive to them as people and their experiences both inside and outside of school. However, my view on what it meant to be culturally relevant was limited. I knew that it was important to foster a caring environment, to be aware of sociopolitical factors affecting the lives of students’ and their families, and to do everything in my power to relate classroom discussions and curriculum materials back to issues that affected their lives. Before enrolling in ED 7438, I figured that this was the general scope of what it meant to be a culturally relevant teacher. However, through our examination of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Differentiated Instruction (DI), and culturally relevant critical teacher care, I began to make connections between all three concepts as integral components of a culturally relevant classroom. While UDL and DI were not originally a part of the equation for me, ED 7438 has pushed me to recognize that you cannot have an environment centered around care without UDL and DI informing your teaching practices. I now understand that by incorporating UDL and DI into my concept of culturally relevant teaching, I will be meeting the needs of all students on both an academic and social-emotional level. In this reflection I will discuss the connections between UDL, DI, and culturally relevant critical teacher care. I will then discuss how I intend to incorporate the practice of UDL and DI into my instruction to inform my classroom culture of care and culturally relevant teaching.

This course offers students wishing to gain entrance into the teaching profession the information necessary to assist them in properly conceptualizing their future classrooms. At the beginning of this semester, my focus was on kindergarten students, but after taking this course, in addition to Engaging Multicultural Students and Families, I hope to teach upper-elementary age students. I believe that the tactics I have learned from these courses will be best implemented with 3rd, 4th, or 5th graders. In addition, I am an Urban Education minor so I anticipate teaching a diverse group of students from varying socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds.