culture Book ver final 5 - Flipbook - Page 96
and culturally competent teaching are a few of the most recent movements and initiatives that
have been used to try to create more balance in the cultures that are represented within education.
Each has tried to explain the importance
and value of all groups seeing themselves
well represented within settings. This led to
name changes in reading material and Math
problems, updated illustrations and more
complete historical accounts that
mentioned the contributions of people who
before went unnamed.
Countless studies have proven that
these changes are crucial. In simple and
direct terms, children respond better to
educators and lessons that consider and use
their cultural norms and values. In fact, the
last several years in education have been
dominated by a move to include as many
positive references to different “cultures” as possible in education. Classroom lesson plans in
many areas now require teachers to add a relevance section, the reason why children should care
about what they’re being taught, to their plans. The relevance portion of the lesson is meant to
show children how the lesson applies to their daily life or to their future plans thereby giving the
child a reason to want to pay attention and learn what is being taught.
Unfortunately, attempts to correct the cultural imbalance in education have been met with
resistance. Opponents see efforts to portray more cultures positively and to balance the way that
culture is currently used as an attack on the dominant culture, since its references had to be
reduced in order for other cultures to be shared. What should be seen as a correction to a problem
that should never have existed and that was damaging to so many other groups is typically seen
maliciously.
In June 2014, I completed my dissertation. The purpose of that research was to determine
if the achievement gap, especially for diverse students, could be closed by using culturally
relevant teaching practices. Loosely translated: Do students learn better if teachers acknowledge
and use what they know about a student’s cultural difference and background. The results were
shocking, even to me and and the results were true in both of the two groups of teachers that
were studied (American born and foreign born -a teacher who was born and raised outside of the
United States). Overwhelmingly students performed better with the teachers, irrespective of their
identified culture or background, if that teacher got to know them and their culture and used it in
lessons. It didn’t matter the subject that was being taught nor did it matter the type of institution
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