Culturally reponsive teachers use the cultural knowledge, personal experiences, and learning styles of diverse students to make learning appropriate for them on an individual basis. Building on the stregths of the students, culturally reponsive teachers recognize the legitmacy of the cultural heritages of different ethnic groups and also teach students to appreciate and value their own cultural backgrounds. They also seek to build connections between home and school experiences while incorporating multicultural information and resouces in the formal content of the curriculum.
For my Inclusive Classroom Practices class, I developed a "Where I am From Video" to celebrate my cultural roots in West Virginia. The video weaves pictures of my family, friends, and home with text to present cultural influences that have been significant in my life. Everyone in the class shared our stories by publishing our videos to You Tube with the goal of exploring our own cultures and of decreasing negative stereotypes about West Virginia.
Where I am From |
Making this video revolutionized my understanding of my own culture, and Appalachian culture as a whole. The experience also built connections between home and school experience, which is an inclusive classroom practice. I have learned that when a student walks into a classroom, the teacher gets the whole person, including his/her experiences, values, family influence, perspectives, and culture. Since one of the best ways to develope an inclusive classroom, is to draw on what the students already know and are interested in, a teacher must be able to accept and work with parts of a student’s culture that he might not understand. Making the Where I am from video was an example of this because I know I was personally very invested in doing as well as I could on it because it represents everything that is already important to me. I wanted to do justice to my family and the things I love.
The project showed me how important being culturally responsive as an educator is also because one characteristic of an inclusive classroom is a sense of community. After watching the videos of many of the other students in the class, I feel more connected as a group and as individuals. I still don’t “know” everyone, but I know enough to understand that we all have a lot in common, and I found many other students’ backgrounds very interesting. This changed my thinking in another way because I hadn’t thought of West Virginia, especially this area, as ethnically or culturally diverse, but rather homogenous. However, that’s not true at all. After watching the Where I am From videos, I found out that even though we all have many things in common , we come from a variety of cultural heritages that continue to influence our lives. I am much more likely to start a conversation in class or ask someone I don’t know for help. And now I know that I want to create that kind of atmosphere in my own classroom too. Being a culturally responsive educator is tied to inclusive classroom practices because it would be impossible to be truly inclusive without accepting and utilizing aspects of students’ culture in the classroom.
I plan to incorporate my deeper understanding of culture and its relationship with education and classroom practice by creating a learner-centered environment through lessons that widely incorporate student interests and culture.
I will view students as individuals and get to know their interests so I can use those interests as a starting point for learning. I will use self-directed learning whenever possible to motivate students, and will be aware differences in student learning styles. Since a central inclusive classroom practice is building connections between home and school experiences, I will seek to develop a positive relationship with student gaurdians and be aware and active in what is happening in the community. I will look for ways to keep informed about developments in cultural awareness and reflect on my success in incorporating it in the classroom. I will do my best to encourage students to view their culture as "Cultural Capital"- something valuable to have- rather than as "cultural deficit"- something that negatively labels them.
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