Teaching Tolerance

Culture in the Classroom

• Professional Development:
• Understanding Culture

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Educators today hear a lot about gaps in education – achievement gaps, funding gaps, school-readiness gaps. Still, there's another gap that often goes unexamined: the cultural gap between students and teachers.

"A bunch of teachers here, they think they know what's wrong with us. But they don't know. If people want to help us, they have to see what we've been through, not from what their own experiences tell them."
– Billie, a Lakota teen speaking of the teachers at her high school
Most of us in the education profession are white, middle-class, monolingual-English speakers. Increasingly, the same profile does not hold true for our students. Often, when we stand before our classrooms, the faces looking back at us do not look like our own. Many of us try to bridge this difference with an embrace of color-blindness or the Golden Rule, treating others the way we would want to be treated.
But the truth is: culture matters.
Culture isn't just a list of holidays or shared recipes, religious traditions, or language; it is a lived experience unique to each individual. As educators, it's our job to stimulate the intellectual development of children, and, in this era, it's simply not enough to operate on the axis of color-blindness.
To truly engage students, we must reach out to them in ways that are culturally and linguistically responsive and appropriate, and we must examine the cultural assumptions and stereotypes we bring into the classroom that may hinder interconnectedness.
Overcoming Stereotypes
To engage students effectively in the learning process, teachers must know their students and their academic abilities individually, rather than relying on racial or ethnic stereotypes or prior experience with other students of similar backgrounds.
Many teachers, for example, admire the perceived academic prowess and motivation of Asian American students and fail to recognize how even a "positive" stereotype isn't positive if it presses students into molds not built for them individually.



Hear elementary school teacher, Diane Holtam, speak about how she works with other teachers to disabuse stereotypic notions of Asian American students' abilities.
Look For:

• What are some of the myths about Asian American students in the classroom that Diane speaks about?


• How does Diane suggest teachers reach out to Asian students?

Go Deeper:
You're Asian, How Could You Fail at Math?
In this essay from Rethinking Schools, Benji Chang and Wayne Au unmask the myth of the "model minority."
Reflect On:

• How are Asian students and their non-Asian counterparts affected by inappropriate teacher expectations and stereotypes?


• Which of the strategies that the authors offer to overcome this "model minority" myth can you use in your classroom? Can you think of other ways to build cohesion and understanding in your classroom?

Ready Resources:
Mythtakes
Test yourself for hidden biases.
Questions for Reflective Practice (PDF)
Checking Stereotypes

Culturally Relevant Curriculum Curriculum, in its most simple, essential, commonly understood form, is the "what" of education. It is crucial to academic performance and essential to culturally responsive pedagogy. Even the most "standard" curriculum decides whose history is worthy of study, whose books are worthy of reading, which curriculum and text selections that include myriad voices and multiple ways of knowing, experiencing, and understanding life can help students to find and value their own voices, histories, and cultures.
Hear high school creative writing teacher, Foster Dickson, talk about text selection and the importance of a diverse selection of authors.
Look For:

• What does Foster say about including authors of different backgrounds and the message it sends to his students?
• How does he think reading authors from different backgrounds will impact his students?

Go Deeper:
Learning Lakota
For a high school on South Dakota's Rosebud Reservation, culturally responsive curriculum is proving a hefty antidote to the violence, poverty and growing cultural disconnect hindering student success.
Reflect On:

• How do the teachers at Todd County High School use culturally relevant teaching methods to connect with their Lakota students? How do the students interviewed say this makes them feel about themselves and their studies?
• Does the disconnect between student cultural background and teacher cultural background that exists in the story, exist in your school? How can you bridge this disconnect?

Ready Resources:
Foster's Reading List (PDF)
Find great books with the searchable database from the Center for Cultural Fluency
Find additional resources using Multicultural Resource Matrix from Cal State Monterey Bay

Honoring Home Languages Teachers are often a young immigrant's first regular, ongoing contact with someone outside their home community and culture. It's a relationship that can provide the emotional scaffolding necessary to cross the linguistic and cultural divide between country of origin and country of residency.
With a hearty mix of creativity, cultural acumen, and professional expertise, teachers can help English language learners acquire language skills more rapidly — and foster inclusion in the school community.


Listen to elementary teacher, Diane Holtam, talk about bridging the gap between her newly arrived immigrant students' home language and English.
Look for:

• What techniques did Diane use to help her ELL students learn English more quickly?
• How might you replicate some of her strategies in your classroom? Even if you are a monolingual English speaker, what outreach or other work might you do?

Go Deeper:
Crossing Borders/Borders Crossing
The depth and clarity of a teacher's multicultural lens can make — or break — immigrant students' ability to learn.
Reflect On:

• What does the author mean by "multicultural lens" and what is its importance in working with students from backgrounds different from your own?
• What role does teacher attitude play in the development of linguistically inclusive classrooms? How is that attitude conveyed through teacher behavior in the article? In your school?

Ready Resources:
Diane's Flashcards (PDF)
Hear Korean vowel sounds like those on Diane's flashcards
Creating ELL-friendly classrooms
Teaching through conversation
 
Additional Resources
Papers
Breaking the Prejudice Habit by Patricia G. Devine
Preparing for Culturally Relevant Teaching by Geneva Gay
Multicultural Education: Strategies for Linguistically Diverse Schools and Classrooms by Deborah Menkart
Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Early Grades
Books
Nene and the Horrible Math Monster ($16.95), by Marie Villanueva and Ria Unson, is about Nene, a Filipino girl who confronts the minority myth that all Asians excel at mathematics. Nene faces her fears about doing math and overcomes them. Polychrome Publishing Corporation. ISBN-13 9781879965027
Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research and practice. ($24.95) by Geneva Gay. New York: Teachers College Press, 2000. ISBN-10: 0807739545 ISBN-13: 978-0807739549
Teaching to change the world, 3rd Edition. ($66.25) by Jeannie Oakes and Marvin Lipton. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006. ISBN-10: 0072982004 ISBN-13: 978-0072982008
Unraveling the Model Minority Stereotype: Listening to Asian-American Youth. ($19.95) by Stacey J. Lee. New York: Teachers College Press, 1996. ISBN-10: 0807735094 ISBN-13: 978-0807735091
We can't teach what we don't know: White teachers, multiracial schools, 2nd Edition. ($13.95) by Gary Howard. New York: Teachers College Press, 2006. ISBN-10: 0807746657 ISBN-13: 978-0807746653
The Crosscultural Language and Academic Development Handbook: A Complete K-12 Reference Guide. ($69.60) by Lynne T. Diaz-Rico and Kathryn Z. Weed. Boston: Pearson, 2006. ISBN-10: 0205443257, ISBN-13: 978-0205443253

Mythtakes - Working With Racially and Ethnically Diverse StudentsThis professional development activity examines common beliefs that help and hinder work with racially and ethnically diverse students.
Framework:
Teachers want students to learn, and many make an effort to be particularly responsive to racially and ethnically diverse students. Many of the beliefs we hold and lessons we are taught about racially and ethnically diverse students and how best to facilitate their learning have positive effects. Others, however, while seemingly sensible and well-intended, can have negative consequences.
Objective:
To examine commonly held beliefs about racially and ethnically diverse students, the kinds of things we may say in conversations about how to meet the learning needs of all students.
Time and Materials:
For individual use:
One hour
Copy of the Teacher Voices worksheet (PDF)
Copy of the Discussion Prompts (PDF)
For in-service or pre-service use:
Two hours
Copy of the "Teacher Voices" worksheet (PDF), for each participant
Copy of the Discussion Prompts (PDF), for small groups
Instructions:
For individual use:
Read each statement on the "Teacher Voices" worksheet (PDF) and complete the "First Thoughts" section after each statement. Try not to "over-think" the items, answering instead with your "gut response."
Next, read the entries for each statement on the Discussion Prompts (PDF). As you read each discussion prompt, reflect on your initial response in "First Thoughts," and write down additional thoughts, along with possible action steps that might help you better serve students.
For in-service or pre-service use:
Prior to the in-service or pre-service class, introduce the planned framework and objective and ask participants to complete the "First Thoughts" section of the "Teacher Voices" worksheet (PDF) and to hand in their completed sheets anonymously.
Compile "scores" and comments from participants' worksheets, providing a "class score" for each statement, along with representative samples from their comments.
Begin the in-service or pre-service class by re-introducing the framework and objective. Next, share the class's composite scores and comments from the "Teacher Voices" worksheet.
Next, break participants into diverse, small groups of four to six — up to 13 groups in all. Assign each small group one or more statements for further reflection. Provide each small group with a copy of their assigned statements, with composite scores and representative comments, as well as the Discussion Prompts (PDF) for their corresponding questions.
Allow small groups adequate time for discussion, encouraging them to write down thoughts and comments and to come up with at least one related "action step" that might help them and others better serve racially and ethnically diverse students.
Ask small groups to report back to the class. Facilitate a whole-group discussion, as needed.