Culturally Relevant Teaching - from Teaching Tolerance

Culturally Relevant Teaching http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-36-fall-2009/relevant-beyond-basics: Culture is an important survival strategy that is passed down from one generation to another through the processes of enculturalization and socialization, a type of roadmap that guides and shapes behavior. If new information is not relevant to those frameworks of culture and cognition, people will never remember it. If the information is relevant, they will never forget it. <snip>

The cultural norms and behaviors of schools are based on a very specific set of mainstream assumptions. When there is a cultural mismatch or cultural incompatibility between students and their school, certain negative outcomes might occur, such as miscommunication; confrontations among the student, the teacher, and the home; hostility; alienation; diminished self-esteem; and possibly school failure.  <snip>

Teachers need to find pertinent examples in students’ experience; they need to compare and contrast new concepts with concepts students already know; they need to bridge the gap between the known (students’ personal cultural knowledge) and the unknown (materials and concepts to be mastered). <snip>

If you have a true, caring relationship with your students, you don’t have to be lucky. You will know what their interests are, what information they relate to. Even in an abstract discipline like mathematics, relationships with students matter. When you’re talking about distances, it certainly helps to be able to say, “I heard you talking about your cousin Miguel. How far do you think you go to visit him?”

Culturally relevant teachers recognize that they do not instruct culturally homogenized, generic students in generic school settings. Teachers armed with a repertoire of generic teaching skills often find themselves ineffective and ill‑prepared when faced with a classroom of culturally diverse students.

Teachers need to re-envision their roles in schools. Culturally relevant teachers are systemic reformers, members of caring communities, reflective practitioners and researchers, pedagogical content specialists and antiracist educators. <snip>

Thinking of culturally relevant teachers as action researchers extends another important component of the reflection process. Action research is inquiry conducted by teachers for teachers for the purpose of higher student achievement. Action research requires teachers to identify an area of concern, develop a plan for improvement, implement the plan, observe its effects, and reflect on the procedures and consequences.

Finally, student achievement is not the only purpose of a culturally relevant pedagogy. Culturally relevant teachers must also assist students to change the society, not simply to exist or survive in it. For some teachers, this can be very challenging. When teachers promote justice they directly confront inequities in society such as racism, sexism and classism. Far too many teachers appear to be not only colorblind, but also unable or unwilling to see, hear or speak about instances of individual or institutional racism in their personal and professional lives.

Assessing My Culture: Who am I?

Assessing My Culture:  Who Am I?  http://www.tolerance.org/activity/assessing-my-culture-who-am-i?newsletter=TT060711  This is the first of a three-part series for education professionals interested in engaging their colleagues around issues of culture and how it manifests in the classroom.

"Assessing My Culture: Who am I?" is the first presentation in the series Moving from Cultural Competence to Cultural Proficiency. We’ve designed it for teacher leaders, professional learning groups, staff development coordinators and other educators interested in engaging their colleagues around issues of culture and how it manifests in the classroom.

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