Culturally Responsive Teaching
Standard
5: Establish a culturally inclusive learning climate that
facilitates academic engagement and success for all
I found this class to be one of my most challenging classes. Not
because of material to read, or assignments to complete, but due to the fact
that it really forced me out of my comfort zone in many different ways. One of
the things about myself that I am very aware of, is I always get very anxious
and nervous to share my thoughts with others. It is not due to the fact that I
am unprepared or do not know the material, it is because I am afraid to be
criticized. We had many “hot button” topics to talk about with each other over the course,
which definitely made hitting the “submit” button for posts a nerve racking
experience. However, with that said, there were three topics that I really
enjoyed and took to heart from this courses assigned reading and discussions with
classmates. Those three topics were: Access, Instruction, and Communication.
Each one of these three topics really allowed for me to be reflective in my own
teaching practice (even reflective with my own childhood upbringing, which can be read about in my Autobiography that we completed for our midterm for this class). After reading the material and
conversing with cohort members, as well as, think about how these topics effect
and apply to my students, I believe I am walking away from this course a lot
more knowledgeable in the area of Multicultural Education.
Access:
For the topic of ‘Access’ my first thought came about within the
lecture’s first slide. Having to reflect and think back to a times where I had
felt included or excluded in a particular learning process. I really feel that
I had a lot of supportive teachers throughout my schooling career. Reflecting
back to elementary school, I believe that a few of my teachers truly cared
about my success and pushed me to be the successful student they knew I could
be. Thinking back, I cannot really pinpoint a time where I have truly felt
excluded in a learning process. But, I know that in my current teaching
environment, my students come to school facing many personal battles that
sometimes play a role in terms of “access.” I work at a Title 1 school where over
90 percent of our school’s population is free and reduced lunch and over 60% of
our students are English Language learners. Really looking at Horizon and where
it is located, our kids have many factors that impede access. Horizon is
located in a gang infested area. Families facing high poverty situations and
language barriers. One of the lines of really rook from the lecture was, that
our goal as educators is to “prepare children, rich or poor, to seize the day.”
I think
knowing the harsh living situations that my students come from and face, really
has made me zone in and focus on, how can I provide an environment that is best
for them? An environment that meets both their personal and academic needs? One
of my classmates from this class stated in one of her responses that “students
who feel valued, understood, appreciated, and encouraged, are those students
who tend to be successful. In Howard’s article “As Diversity Grows, So Must We”
Howards refers to researchers Aronson and Steele. “In repeated studies, these
researchers found that three factors have a major effect on student’s
motivation and performance:
1. Their feelings of
belonging
2. Their trust in
the people around them
3. Their belief that
teachers value their intellectual competence
I pride myself in creating an environment with my kids that we
are family. That our classroom is another “home” for them to come to and feel
safe. I love how over the year they become each other’s support systems in many
ways both academically and emotionally. Linking to another quote from the
lecture “caring relationships are, and will always be, the centerpiece of
effective teaching and learning.
Another concept I have taken from this lecture is the power
of caring and that “tough love.” I know that my students struggle in many areas
academically. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have high expectations and set
goals for them to reach. I am always reminding myself AND them, that it is so
important to come to school each day, work hard, and make mistakes. Making those
mistakes is proof that you are trying and putting in the effort in class. I
loved the phrasing of teachers being “bridge builders.” In my classroom, I have
worked hard to set in place strategies for ALL of my kids to make contributions,
such as implementing more think time and the heads together strategy. With
these strategies, they can use the members of their groups as supports to
vocalize thoughts. They are never pinpointed or called out to struggle. They
know that they can “phone a friend” for support. I love to provide ways to for
them to explore curiosities and creativity. We recently were able to take a
field trip (free by the way, thanks to the 4th Graders in the Park Program) to Verlot
for a snowshoeing field trip. A lot of my kids have never explored further then
the street they live on. It was such a joy to see them experience the “outside”
world.
I believe this
particular topic along with the reading and lecture, allowed me to be very
reflective about my students and what I try to do in my room to “bridge” gaps. Another
classmate in the discussion board brought up the topic, along with the image of
for Equality verses Equity or Equal verses Fair. I think that it is important
to remember what our students come to class with or what they do not. We must
remember that each child comes in with different backgrounds, cultures,
genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It is so important for me as their
teacher to build relationships with me kids to see the needs of my kids both
personally and academically to provide ways for them to be successful. Each of
them has a different need, some have more needs than others, but the important
thing is for me to be aware and provide those supports to EVERY student.
Instruction:
I teach at a Title 1 school that is highly populated by Hispanic
students and high poverty families. Due to their backgrounds, many of my
students come from families that are very poor and struggle in the community
due to language and their inability to communicate. As a staff, we are well
aware that our kids miss out on a lot of educational opportunities due to their
socioeconomic status. We definitely try to meet their needs with providing
after clubs such as YMCA Scholars and Imagine Learning Science club that
provide a space for kids to stay after school to get help with their homework
and be provided a snack or meal. We also have guest speakers such as
representatives from the Port of Everett and PUD to explain concepts that go on
within their very own community, and field trips that allow our students to be
exposed to ideas and experiences outside of the street they live on, that are
either free (thanks to programs who donate or fully fund) or very low cost
wise.
In our district there is a clear cut of “sides.” On the west
side, are the schools where the students are predominately white and who come
from families that are higher in social economic status. These students show up
to school with the latest clothing trends and up to date electronics. Parents
asking if they need to buy the latest new tablet, for their students to
practice on for the upcoming state testing. On the east side, where my school
is located, we look and see the difference of the level of opportunity. Our
students come to school wearing the same clothes, sometimes have showered and
have their hair done, and rarely have access to technology or after school
programs that are not provided by us specifically.
For this topic of discussion in the course, the
reading that really resonated with me was the chapter in the Banks collection
titled “George I. Sanchez and Mexican American Educational Practices” by Nathan
Murillo. The reason I really took to
this chapter was because a majority of my students are Mexican Americans that
live in poverty. In college, I wrote a paper on dual language classrooms which
Sanchez talked about how dualism with Spanish-speaking could benefit American
Society. I find Sanchez's work during his time so admirable. That Sanchez was
"willing to accept the consequences of expressing his own beliefs.
Rejection by some of his OWN people must have wounded him deeply" (Banks,
130). I really took the study of the IQ
tests and what was said about Spanish speaking children to heart. It really
upsets me to hear and read that the majority of the students I teach are known
to be "inferior" to English Speaking American children. Murillo
explained the Sanchez felt “that only after equal opportunity had been given to
bilingual children could failure to score high on an IQ test be considered a
failure to the children” (Banks, 133).
To try to provide the equal opportunity Sanchez refers to, in my room one of the strategies and teaching practice I use is Project GLAD. My anchor charts, learning targets, are all color coded and have a focus on vocabulary and language. I have picture supports, sentence/conversation starters to meet the needs of my students (not JUST my ELL students) to have those academic conversations. I agree with Sanchez and what was mentioned in our lecture that language and the environment, such as poverty, really plays a role in student’s academics (Banks, 131). Knowing my kids come from low income families and harsh living styles, I know my accommodations in the classroom look a little different than some. I am "home" to most of my kids. I am "mom." I have to provide that love and emotional stability. THEN comes to academics. In talking with a classmate through the discussion board about this topic, she brought up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. She brought up that as teachers, we must fulfil our student’s basic and psychological needs before we can get the self-fulfillment needs of academic success. I know and have learned over last 3 years with working at my school, that my efforts to meet my student’s needs (some need more than others) is so important to their success in academics. I also talked a lot about this in my Case Study, a paper I completed in our Engaging Communities course.
To try to provide the equal opportunity Sanchez refers to, in my room one of the strategies and teaching practice I use is Project GLAD. My anchor charts, learning targets, are all color coded and have a focus on vocabulary and language. I have picture supports, sentence/conversation starters to meet the needs of my students (not JUST my ELL students) to have those academic conversations. I agree with Sanchez and what was mentioned in our lecture that language and the environment, such as poverty, really plays a role in student’s academics (Banks, 131). Knowing my kids come from low income families and harsh living styles, I know my accommodations in the classroom look a little different than some. I am "home" to most of my kids. I am "mom." I have to provide that love and emotional stability. THEN comes to academics. In talking with a classmate through the discussion board about this topic, she brought up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. She brought up that as teachers, we must fulfil our student’s basic and psychological needs before we can get the self-fulfillment needs of academic success. I know and have learned over last 3 years with working at my school, that my efforts to meet my student’s needs (some need more than others) is so important to their success in academics. I also talked a lot about this in my Case Study, a paper I completed in our Engaging Communities course.
Another idea from the course that I took away from was really
implementing multicultural education, and what that truly IS and IS NOT. I
think the item that really stood out, is that most schools and educators think
that if they have a bulletin board for a month, host an assembly, and maybe
have a fair or “culture night” that we are meeting the needs of our families of
different backgrounds. But that is not the case at all. There is so much more
that needs to be done within the classroom and through the schools community to
make them more multi-culturally inclusive. I know for sure that I need to be
more aware and really look into HOW to do this. As mentioned in the Instruction
lecture, MCE’s goal is for students to increase in the area of
“self-understanding” and to see alternative cultures through different lenses
which I find incredibly powerful. As I shared in a few postings for class,
language is the base in my room since my class is an ELL cluster, co-teach
room. For awareness, at the beginning of the year and throughout, we take the
time to label items in our classroom and "listen" to the variety of
languages that are represented in our classroom.
Communication:
With teaching in a highly populated
ELL school, this section of class allowed for me to reflect on what I am
already implementing for my learners and what I need to focus more on and
acknowledge. The first slide within the lecture that I really connected to was
the ‘3 principles for Engaging ELL students’ slide. My school is currently
trying to implement the idea of co-teaching for ELL and Special Education
services. We ran the pilot last year, with this year being the second year. I
am teaching in the ELL cluster, having over half of my class receive ELL
services. The first principal talks about allowing the kiddos to use both their
language and new content in direct communication. Last year, I had a student
that was brand new to America from Mexico. He and his family had just moved to
the states from Mexico 2 weeks before the school year started. Luckily, with
having a majority of my class be ELL students, I had quite a few kids that
could help translate what he was saying to myself as the teacher and his
classmates. I learned to understand that is what okay with him speaking Spanish
in the classroom setting and slowly introducing English words. There came a
point where we made that subtle switch of giving him directions in Spanish
first and then in English to help bridge. This year however, I have a student
that is brand new to the states, but is from the Marshallese Islands. Having
the language support that I had last year is very different with the situation
that I have to handle this year.
Over the past 2
years, I have had to learn to approach lessons based off vocabulary and
accessing my student’s background knowledge before really diving into content.
To this day, I still make my anchor charts color coded and broken down to
provide vocabulary support along with picture supports. Another thing, is with
our new ELA curriculum adoption, a lot of principle 2 has been put in all of
our classrooms. I know my team was fabulous at creating sentence stems for turn
and talks, think, pair, shares, and whole group discussions. With our new
vocabulary curriculum, it allows us to pre-teach the vocabulary for upcoming
reading lessons. I have had to take and put more picture supports/visual aids
for my kids, but I really like that they are acknowledging academic vocabulary
and they even have “ELL” vocabulary-which are words that have double meanings
or phrases that are uncommon.
Throughout the
Communication discussion, a classmate brought to my attention a wonderful idea
that I really took to heart. The idea she shared was the “Invisible Children”
project. Thinking about my current class and students that I have had in the
past, there were definitely kids that I noticed that have or had “slipped
through the cracks.” These tend to be the students that are not boisterous or
outgoing as some of their peers. Britte, recommended a great picture book that speaks on invisible children titled The Invisible
Boy by Trudy Ludwig. She also gave an idea to do
with whole school staff to figure out who the invisible children at your
school, post every child’s picture at a staff meeting and have teachers place a
mark next to the students they have a significant relationship with. The kids
without any marks are the invisible students. I feel that this is something
that really weighs heavy on my heart. I always want to be the best teacher I
can to all my students. But with only being one person that makes making
connections with very students very difficult most days. However, reading the
book and thinking about my kids, I know there are a few students you tend to
slide under the radar. This idea really has made me think about not only my
teaching, by how I can better myself with making connections with my ALL
students. To try not to allow my more outgoing and louder students steal the
spotlight from them.
In
conclusion, this course was a great spring board to start to reflect on my
personal teaching practices through the lens of multicultural education. I
believe that MCE is an idea that is still not fully understood or implemented
by many educators. I know that with discussions with classmates and from many
of the readings, my eyes opened up quite a bit about what my students think and
go through in classroom environments. This class has made me more aware and
more sensitive to people of different cultures and backgrounds. I know for me
personally, that there is a lot more work and learning in this area that needs
to be done, to ensure the best for my students. Because in the end, that’s all
I truly care about. Is that my students are getting the best education and
moving towards becoming the best humans they can be.
References:
Banks, J. A. (1996). Multicultural
education, transformative knowledge, and action: Historical and contemporary
perspectives. New York: Teachers College Press.
Howard, G. R. (2017). As Diversity Grows, So
Must We. Educational
Leadership,64(6), 16-22. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar07/vol64/num06/As-Diversity-Grows,-So-Must-We.aspx
Ludwig, T., & Barton, P. (2013). The
invisible boy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
McLeod, S. (2017). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Six Key Principles for ELL Instruction. (2013,
January 11). Retrieved from
http://ell.stanford.edu/content/six-key-principles-ell-instruction
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