Prompt # 2 The culturally competent teacher should be able to account for, demonstrate awareness of, and respond to the sociocultural distinctiveness of her or his students, families, and communities when planning for and delivering instruction.
By observation, it appears that 100% of the students in all three math classes I’ve tutored in are either African -American or Hispanic. (According to Johnson, since the district is the neighborhood, we can conclude that the area is segregated along racial lines.) Obviously, the percentage of whites would appear to be zero. This agrees with Kozol’s article regarding the re-segregation of our inner city schools. Remember from blog #1 the school I was assigned to was “in the big city”. In his article, he provided a lot of statistical evidence from many American cities that very high percentages of the student bodies were minorities. This agrees with my observations.
Although all of the students appear to speak English, one of the students asked me in English if I was Spanish. I look Hispanic so I get this a lot. When I said no he asked me in English if I spoke Spanish. I answered yes in Spanish with a few other sentences. This is the only time I’ve heard Spanish,(or any other language) used in this classroom and ironically I was the one to use it, although in response to a question. According to infoworks section on student characteristics, there are less that 10 students in the fifth grade who are English language learners (ELL). Even though I am in a sixth grade class, my observations seem to agree with the statistical data.
One of the socioeconomic factors I noticed is that a number of the students appear to be poor. The reason I think this is that the teacher once said that if the students didn’t have rulers at home, that they only had to find the areas of the triangles, but not the perimeters. This is because calculating the perimeters requires measuring the sides. I realize there are many reasons for not having rulers at home, (even I’ve lost or misplaced? my own ruler), but I sensed that the reason was economic, and I’m sure that at least in some cases this is true. This agrees again with Kozol who stated that schools, students and families in our inner cities had limited economic resources. According to infoworks using information page, 82% of the students at the school are eligible for subsidized lunch programs. This appears to support my observation.
The cultural capital that students bring to the classroom are obviously their own cultural backgrounds. According to Lisa Delpit, the students are their own cultural “expertness”. If we listen, according to Delpit, we can learn much because the students have much to teach. A doctor once said that “no one knows the patient’s condition as well as the patient does”. In the same way no one knows their culture like a native does.
The assets that the students can bring society are also their cultural perspective. No one has a monopoly on knowledge. If we are open and teachable, we can learn from anyone and everyone. Variety is the spice of life, and diversity is variety. As Sy Sims used to say in Massachusetts, “An educated consumer is our best customer”. Democracy is best served by an educated electorate, workforce, consumer, and citizen. We can learn from other cultures because they have a different perspective and may offer some novel approaches to life’s challenges.
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The fact that segregation still exists in eduction should become completely evident by the service learning experience. In the class that I am tutoring in, as well as the one that Mike P. is tutoring in, are not doubt segregated schools. Mike P. states that his class consists of all Hispanic and African American children and zero children of other ethnicities. The same situation is also true in the classroom that I am tutoring in and can be verified by the information on Infoworks.com.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience to the one that Mike P. talks about in which a student thought that he was Hispanic. During one of my service learning sessions, as African American girl asked me, "Where you born with that color hair?" For those who don't know me, I have red hair, and the only reason she asked me that I can figure is she was curios about the new teacher in the classroom. The reason I thought the two situations where similar is besause the students in each case were curious. The touch part about teaching is learing to harness this massive amount of curiousity that most students possess and direct the curiousity towards education instead of distraction.
Mike P. also talks about the economic situation of students. He learned that not many of the students had rulers in their homes, and that fact could be an indicatio of the economic status of the parents. I had a similar experience but it concerned the school's economic status instead of the parents. I help tutor in mathematics. When on learns math, the first lesson that is taught is usually the use of a pencil when practicing math, due the high probability of errors. The pencils in the school that the students use do not have erasers on their pencils because they are the same ones that they have been using for the whole time that I have been there. One can only assume that this represents the economic status of the school or parents. Learing math with a properly funcioning pencil increase the difficulty of learning the material, just as not having a ruler causes the same effect.
Hello Mike! I think it's really interesting when you talk about the cultural assets of the students being their perspectives and I think it's the same thing I touched on in my blog. I spoke about their open minds, but I think that it has a lot to do with their differing perspectives. Kozol talks about segregation in schooling and how it's become even more evident as time goes on. He brings it to light that schools have been on a path of re-segregation since Brown v. Board. I agree with Kozol that it is a big problem in our schools today. I think that it is socially problematic in primarily white school systems since they are apt to become very single minded. I am speaking from experience since the catholic school I went to was made up of white, middle class individuals. I had a very close-minded view of the world due to the fact that it was all I had ever been exposed to up until eighth grade. When I went to transition into public school I actually felt really awkward dealing with kids of different cultural backgrounds. Though I know it wasn't as awkward for them since they have grown up in a more diverse setting than myself.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the opposite, where schools are primarily "minority" groups, is problematic as far as opportunity is concerned since it has been made more than apparent that education is political and money matters. Segregated school systems make way for cultural ignorance, injustice, hostility, and essentially a fragmented society. Though I do believe through my observations that the kids we have been tutoring have fairly open minds and cultural perspectives. This needs to be something made evident in all of our schools through the introduction of different world perspectives and cultural experiences. Kozol speaks on an important issue and I believe it's time we listen in order to give all students an equal chance at success both educationally and socially. Also, I think it's imperative to integrate students in order to create a harmonious future.