Changing demographics, particularly in Pre-k-12 classrooms, have dramatically affected the need for teachers to be responsive and sensitive to the variety of cultures in the United States. Efforts to acknowledge, embrace, and affirm all students should be evident in every aspect of the school environment.
It is well documented that there is a cultural gap between children in the schools and teachers. A report from the National Center for Education Statistics (2000) states that almost 40 percent of the total U.S. public school population is made up of students of color; in many urban school districts, that number is well over 80 percent. In independent schools the total enrollment for students of color is about 22 percent. Although there has been an increase in classroom diversity, the demographics of the teachers in U.S. classrooms, particularly in k-12 public schools, have changed little over the past decades, creating a cultural mismatch between students and teachers. Teachers match the typical profile of White, female, English speaking, and middle class (Banks, 2001). These demographics are similar in independent schools where only 12 percent of the faculty are of color.
Teachers have a unique responsibility and opportunity to provide optimal learning for such a diverse group of students. However, this can be challenging for teachers unfamiliar with their students' backgrounds and communities. This article suggests what teachers can do to provide all students with opportunities for academic success.
Reaching Diverse Student Populations
Many teachers, of course, are effective at using instructional approaches which enable all students to succeed. Many teachers create a positive classroom culture, where differences become strengths. Many teachers understand how their own cultural beliefs and attitudes influence their interactions with students and continually develop their capacity to see the perspective of every student in their classrooms. I know teachers who work hard to bridge the cultural gap with their students and provide meaningful curriculum that integrates students' backgrounds. A teacher recently told me that he used the latest trend, texting phone messages, to teach his students to distinguish between formal and informal English. The 11-year-olds were asked to translate passages of text language into standard English and vice versa. Abbreviations such as "B4," "CUL8r," "luv u2," and "thnx" were very popular. "I know people are alarmed about texting because they feel that it will ruin students' ability to speak and write standard English," he says, "but I just believe students will be text messaging and instant messaging a lot more than they will be writing formal papers for school, and therefore, they need to know the important skill of code switching--that is, the when and where to use standard and non-standard English." High school teacher Julia Washington puts it this way: "You have to embrace and respect the home language of the students and use strategies that will move them to a competency level in English." Another teacher told me that she invites her students and their parents to become experts in the classroom. "I look at parents as inside persons connected to the curriculum, not outside persons only connected to the child," she said. "This helps break down the barriers." For example, last year she had three families from different countries represented in her classroom, and she asked the students and the parents what they felt were unique about their culture. From that, she created some learning objectives. The class learned to write peace in three different languages and used that information to create holiday greeting cards for the elderly at a local nursing home. Through this experience, the teacher said that the students learned things about each other that she couldn't have taught them herself. Specifically, students became aware of the many ways in which they show both respect and disrespect toward each other, learned to appreciate each others differences rather than fear them, and became interested in learning more about their own roots and those of their classmates. This same teacher told me that she uses a variety of instructional strategies to capitalize on learning style preferences to meet the needs of her diverse learners noting that such strategies as cooperative learning really did encourage student relations and produce positive effects on academic achievement of many of her students of color. She admitted that she had to learn how to let go of the traditional teacher-centered instruction and move towards a student-centered instructional model where learning is supportive, collaborative, and community-oriented. She encourages students to work with each other on assignments and projects that are both socially and culturally relevant to them, and her students' self confidence has increased tremendously.
Strategies for Teachers
Through the voices of teachers who have overcome some of the cultural barriers in their classrooms, we see how it is possible to develop these inclusive productive environments. Many teachers, however, find it overwhelming to make their classrooms places where differences become strengths; and they do not know how to create optimal learning environments to ensure the success of all their students. These teachers do not recognize the creative ways that students express themselves, are not able to see students' perspectives, do not nurture and support competence in both home and school cultures, and do not seek out ways to make their instruction compatible with the cultural learning styles of minority students. Solid teaching strategies will empower educators to create the conditions under which they can effectively serve all of their students.
Build a Sense of Community in the Classroom.
Every classroom has the potential to be a welcoming, diverse and inclusive community, a place where students feel their culture is respected and valued and represented in the curriculum. Children have a natural curiosity about people and the world around them. Make the classroom safe for everyone to voice their opinions by accepting all views as worthy of consideration. Teachers should avoid creating situations where students are placed in the position of being representative of their race. Children learn best when they are in a safe environment that develops their capacity of connections to a particular group of people while preparing them to be citizens of the world. If we are intentional about building classroom community, we should consider the words of Parker Palmer:
History suggests two primary sources of knowledge...one is curiosity; the other s control... But another kind of knowledge is available to us...This is a knowledge that originates not in curiosity or control but in compassion. The goal of knowledge arising from love is reunification and reconstruction of our broken selves and worlds... In such knowing we know and are known as members of one community and our knowing becomes a way of reweaving that community's bonds. (Palmer, 1983: 7-8).
Adapt Classroom Instruction and Materials to Reflect a Diverse Group of Students.
No one-size-fits-all model of instruction will work in any classroom. Teachers must customize the content of their lessons and their pedagogical techniques to reach all students. Teachers must select and use instructional strategies that best meet the particular needs of their students and the objectives of the lesson. Some of the instructional strategies designed to enhance comprehension, develop concepts and encourage critical and reflective thought would include the following: brainstorming, whole class and small group discussion, direct instruction, peer teaching, simulations, role play, cooperative learning strategies, and critical thinking or problem solving activities.
To fully adapt and differentiate instruction and curriculum to serve the needs of all students in the classroom, teachers must have the ability to detect, analyze, and strategize ways to alter their teaching practice to better meet the needs of diverse students. Teachers should consider personalizing the content by using the places, locations, and names familiar to students or using analogies to relate new concepts to experiences within students' backgrounds. Ladson-Billings (1994) and Moll and colleagues (2004) found that students' academic performance is strengthened when students' community knowledge is tapped.
Keep High Expectations.
High standards and high expectations are an integral part of being culturally responsive. Teachers' expectations for students–whether high or low–can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Holding high expectations for students is a function of one's belief system. It is easy to say you hold high expectations for students; it is not easy to act as if you do. Brophy (1986) advises teachers to "routinely project attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and attributions...that imply that your students share your own enthusiasm for learning. To the extent that you treat your students as if they already are eager learners, they will be more likely to become eager learners." Wilson and Corbett (2001) added that urban teachers should have expectations that are clearly stated, should accept no excuses from students, and should immediately deal with inappropriate behaviors. Several studies have shown that when traditionally low-performing students were given the opportunity to be in higher level classes with small-group collaborative work and using higher order thinking skills, they excelled in those classes (Cooper, 2002; Sheets, 1995; Waxman & Tellez, 2002)
Activate Student Voices
In some classrooms, student voices are hardly ever heard; the teacher dominates the dialogue, and he or she is viewed as the person with all the knowledge . When students' community voices are underrepresented or devalued in the curriculum, students may feel silenced in classroom activities. By contrast, a curriculum that represents students' cultures in a positive light invites students' participation (Cooper, 2002; Sheets, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 1994). Student participation can be increased when students are allowed to sit in groups and are encouraged to ask questions of each other rather than coming to the teacher to ask questions about everything. By doing this, a classroom community is created where students expect to hear from one another and appreciate the various perspectives that they bring to the classroom. When students have a voice in classroom practices, they share in the construction of knowledge. Onore (1992) points out that giving students a voice entails more than asking them to respond to questions during direct instruction. Teachers need to take on new roles in which they become a source of knowledge and a facilitator of knowledge in the classroom. In this role, the teacher is also viewed as a learner in the classroom. It is important for teachers to realize that the real problem is not how to motivate students to participate in the classroom dialogue, but rather how to assist in the growth of those voices.
Conclusion
None of this, of course, is easy. It requires highly qualified teachers committed to advancing the academic achievement of all learners. Much of the work can be done in the context of what schools should be doing anyway to support good instruction and improve academic outcomes for all students. Teaching effectively today means that educators must be willing to embrace minority children, to reconstruct and redesign curriculum, to renovate teaching practices, and to have high expectations for all students, including those from diverse backgrounds.
Works Cited
Banks, J. A. (2001). Cultural diversity and education: foundations, curriculum, and teaching (4 th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Brophy, J. On motivating students. Occasional Paper No. 101. East Lansing, Michigan: Institute for Research on Teaching, Michigan State University, October 1986. 73 pages. ED276 724.
Cooper, P.M. (2002). Does race matter? A comparison of effective black and white teachers of African American students. In J.J. Irvine (Ed.), In search of wholeness: African American teachers and their culturally specific classroom practice (pp. 47-66). New York, NY: Palgrave.
Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College press.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Moll, L. C., and Gonzalez, N. (2004). Engaging life: A funds of knowledge approach to multicultural education. In J. A. Banks and C. A. M. Banks (Eds.) Handbook of research on multicultural education (2 nd ed., pp. 699-715). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2000). Fast facts (available at www.nces.ed.gov). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
Onore, C. (1990). Negotiation, language, and inquiry: Building knowledge collaboratively in the classroom. In S. Hynds & D. L. Rubin (Eds.), Perspectives on talk and learning (pp. 57-72). Urbana, Illinois, USA: National Council of Teachers of English.
Palmer, Parker J. 1983. To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.
Sheets, R.H. (1995). From remedial to gifted. Effects of culturally centered pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 34 (3), 186-193.
Waxman, H.C., & Tellez, K. (2002). Research synthesis on effective teaching practices for English language learners . Philadelphia, PA: Mid- Atlantic Laboratory for Student Success. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service ED474821)
Wilson, B.L., & Corbett, H.D. (2001). Listening to urban kids: School reform and the teachers they want. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.