Where I am From Reflection
The "Where I am From,” video project has taught me a lot about culturally responsive teaching. Through doing this activity I have learned how valuable my family heritage is. I love where I'm from and I am incredibly proud. Students need to hold this same appreciation for their own past. It is important for students to not only understand where they come from but also value that heritage. They also need to recognize that their classmates all come from different contexts. While reviewing the videos of my classmates I saw that although we have many differences, we also have a lot of similarities! I think if as educators we can teach students to relate to others by what we have in common and learn from what we don't, we will be successful. This project allowed me to see that each person has a story that should be told. Our students have stories that need to be told! As a future educator, I want to implement these stories into my curriculum; every student's past needs to be celebrated in the classroom.
Language, Literacy, and Power
Language, literacy, and power can all be interconnected. When considering how children learn literacy, there is more to the process than learning to read. Children are exposed to all kinds of literacy from the time they enter this world. Advertisements, media outlets, spoken language, books, letters, are all forms of emergent literacy. All of these forms of literacy also contribute to how a child learns the spoken language. I tend to agree with Piaget's theory that children are "little scientists". As they grow in the world around them they are curious and apply what they see and hear. Due to the fact that a child's context plays such a significant role in their development, the position that the adults around them hold contributes to their development. If the culture in which the child grows is one of power and wealth, there is a good chance that the child will be exposed to more.
Children who experience other people in their lives reading and writing for many other reasons in the years before they begin school are better equipped conceptually to make sense of--to learn from--the beginning reading and writing instruction in their schools. (Purcell-Gates, 2002)
Exposure to more literacy outlets, a vast, more complex vocabulary, and possibly more overall experiences to the outside world will greatly benefit the child. The opposite is true for the child that grows up in an impotent environment. This child will likely suffer when it comes to their experiences and may fall behind when first entering school.
As a group, children from homes of poverty experience fewer instances of people reading and writing for a broad number of purposes than do children from mainstream homes. (Purcell-Gates, 2002)
Language development, as mentioned before, is constructed based on what the child is primarily around. Accents and dialect are established during this maturation process and are apart of the student's background or culture. These are all things to consider when teaching in the Appalachian region. There will be students who come from homes where the dialect may be very hard to decode due to the fact that it veers from what we know as "Standard English". Teachers should not be correcting students for the accents or dialects, but instead we should embrace these cultural differences and celebrate them. However, these children need to understand that there is a time and a place where they may need to adapt how they speak to conform to their current environment. Children also need to be aware that just because they speak one way, that doesn’t mean, they will write in the same manner. Writing form differs from speech in that, writing absolutely needs to be in Standard English.
Cultural differences in the classroom are normal, should be expected, and it is the teacher's responsibility to overcome these cultural deficits. Many may think that the teacher--a "mature adult"--would come into a classroom free of bias and automatically hold no prejudices towards their students. This is absurd. Everyone is constantly making judgments based on what they see. This is human nature. Everyone is in a constant state of trying to figure out his or her world. That being said, teachers need to work extra hard to overcome these cultural bias. There are many ways to approach this issue. Educators need to understand where their students come from and that should be incorporated into instruction. Louis Moll sheds light onto this very clearly.
The secret to literacy instruction is for schools to investigate and tap into the "hidden" home and community resources of their students (Moll, n.p.).
Any person can tell you that it is much easier to grasp a concept if they've had experience with it. These experiences create what Piaget calls schemata. Due to the fact that schema are considered the building blocks of knowledge, teachers need to tap into that knowledge and help students form connections. Creating a scaffolding effect. Bring in family members to talk about family heritage, have students interview family members, share a significant artifact; these are all ways for students to share their heritage. These activities will cultivate understanding and appreciation among classmates.
Cultural Deficit vs. Cultural Difference Theory
The education system is not perfect. That is clear. However, I believe it is getting better. One way that it is improving, is the realization of the importance of understand the difference between cultural deficit theory and cultural difference theory. In the past and even still today the two are confused. Unfortunately, in most cases there is a huge cultural deficit issue. Schools are welcoming children from other cultural contexts yet do not have the knowledge of how to "deal" with these children. In many cases these children are pushed to the side and just expected to find their way and make it through the school system alive. Teachers in these schools look upon these students and in many cases change the degree of achievement for them. In my opinion one of two things can happen. Teachers develop the "Poor thing" attitude and lower their standards for the student. They think because they are from a certain culture they are unable to perform at the normal level. In turn, these students will suffer because the teacher's expectations are set so low. On the other hand, teachers may look at these students with a nonchalant attitude. It's true that if two individuals are different in many ways, the relationship takes work. This is true for student teacher relationships as well. Not only does the relationship take work but the instruction will need to be tailored to that student as well. If the teacher does not know how to deal in these ways, the student will suffer. This is where our school systems and educators need to be educated.
Improving Instruction for Speakers of Non-Standard English
Students need to understand that although the dialect they are speaking is not considered Standard English, it is not incorrect. The way they speak is part of their identity as an individual. Differences in dialect does make instruction more complicated, primarily because the written text is very different from what the student is accustomed to hearing in their every day life. The solution to this problem is to allow students to take the Standard English they see in text and translate it into their dialect.
Phillips has come to believe a large part of the success of Wheeler and Swords' approach is letting students use their informal speech in the classroom and acknowledging it as a valid language which does not have to be corrected and is not wrong (Bolima, n.d.).
This is similar to Biblical translations. A lot of people who pick up a King James Version of the Bible will struggle through it. Why? Is the bible not written in English? It is, however, it is written in a different form of English. If one would pick up a bible that has been translated to a more modern form of English, it is more easily understood. This is how it is for those students who are trying to read Standard English in their textbooks in the classroom. They are struggling because it is unfamiliar to them. By allowing students time to reflect, comprehend, and digest what they are reading, they will become much more effective readers.
By the end of the year, AWP teachers found that teaching students to use contrastive analysis led to a greater adoption and use of Standard English. Phillips' students showed a 72% increase in the use of Standard English over Appalachian English in her student's pre and post writing samples (Bolima, n.d.).
The article, "Honoring Dialect and Increasing Student performance in Standard English", had a lot of quality information when it comes to accepting students' cultural experiences and backgrounds. I learned that honoring a dialect that is different is important to not only that student but to their fellow classmates as well. For a long time there has been an unspoken (sometimes spoken) prejudice towards children who come from regions such as Appalachia. It would be easy for teachers to hear this dialect and give in to stereotypes, which lead to a cultural deficit mindset. The reality may just be a cultural difference. Acknowledging and incorporating the different backgrounds of each student will create a classroom climate of acceptance and understanding. Many times the prejudices that people hold are simply out of ignorance. The key to resolving this in the classroom is to celebrate each unique student and their family's heritage.
By using their own words to describe these patterns, students move from what they intuitively know about language to an understanding of language variation and how it works in different settings and with different audiences(Herring-Harris, Epstein, 2011).
This quote is referring to what the student already knows, or their funds of knowledge. Curriculum is most effective when it is created around what the students already knows. The funds of knowledge each student comes to the class with is important because as educators we should be connecting new concepts to knowledge already acquired. If no connection is made between old and new information, the connection will not be one that is lasting, or worse, the student will have no understanding. For example, in the article "National Council of Teachers Beliefs", it explains that when working with students and their ability to transfer their spoken language into written text, we must consider that is a very hard transition. The transition is more complicated if the child's cultural dialect is considered Nonstandard English. Their dialect must be incorporated into what they are learning in terms of written Standard English.
The teaching of excellence in writing means adding language to what already exists, not subtracting. The goal is to make more relationships available, not fewer ("National council of," n.d. ).
Funds of knowledge can also be implemented when considering a student's cultural capital. Cultural capital refers to what a culture deems valuable. Wherever the value is emphasized, there is a larger fund of knowledge. This needs to be considered when working with students because they all come from a different "cultures" where the cultural capital will be different.
Implementing Culturally Responsive Practices
The most effective learning environment for students is one that encourages a variety of multi-cultural perspectives, motivation for all learners, and multiple forms of literacy use. In order to be a culturally responsive teacher, you must understand the cultures within your classroom. This takes time. It is important to get to know each and every student. Encourage students to make comments about their family. Whether it's on topic or off topic, children love to tell stories about everything. So often children are silenced in the classroom and are never given the opportunity to share something that may be very valuable. In my future classroom I want to encourage and make time for my students to share their knowledge. A classroom where everyone learns from one another is the ideal classroom. The teacher is wrong and is doing their students an injustice if they believe they are the one with all the answers. Through encouraging students to share what they know, they feel valuable and everyone is learning so much more. It doesn't make sense to me why we would ignore what the students have to offer and simply rely on textbooks and basal readers. These resources have their place, but if that is all we use to educate students, not only are the students missing out but we are as well.
