Know Your Students
Introduction
Having
already gone through many education classes, I realize the importance of having
a “tool box” full of teaching strategies to use with students. This is crucial
for all teachers, no matter where they are teaching. However, we run into some
danger when we take the strategies we are taught and assume that the way we
teach them will work for every student we will have. The first and most
important rule of learning how to become a culturally responsive teacher is to know your student.
If you are
reading this handbook, then you are concerned with being a culturally
responsive teacher, and you believe there is some degree of importance to this.
Even if you plan to teach only in the United States, no matter where you teach,
there will always be a diverse student population. Your job is to learn their
needs and teach according to those individual needs. This section will give you
a better grasp of how to do that.
We can break this section down into 3 categories:
- Understanding your
students’ cultures
- Understanding your
students’ interests
- Understanding your
students’ needs
Knowing about your students’ cultures, interests, and needs
will allow you to teach them effectively. In the next three sections, we will
be referencing a book by Lisa Delpit, Other
People’s Children, Cultural Conflict in the Classroom.
Understanding Your Students’
Cultures
- Know the Culture of your
Students
Knowing
about the cultural backgrounds of your students allows you to better understand
how to meet their academic needs. Investing and learning about the different
cultures of your students is important. One of the best ways to do this is
asking questions of your students and their parents. Delpit states, “The
question is not necessarily how to create the perfect ‘culturally matched’
learning situation for each ethnic group, but rather how to recognize when
there is a problem for a particular child and how to seek its cause in the most
broadly conceived fashion” (p. 167). You must know the cultures your students
come from to better understand their individual needs.
- Understand the Culture of
Power.
An
important part of understanding culture in general is being aware of the
underlying culture of power that exists in our world. The culture of power is
dominated by those who know how to succeed in the professional world, typically
upper and middle-class white people. Teachers must be aware of this power structure
and know how it affects their students. Teachers must make students aware of
this unfortunate reality and teach them how to succeed in this culture.
Students of poverty and students of color should be encouraged to embrace their
own cultures, but they should also be made aware of the culture of power,
because they are the ones who are most negatively affected by it (pp. 27-28).
- Direct vs. Indirect Communication
Many
children who come from the working class are familiar with direct forms of
communication. Therefore, it is important for teachers to be direct in their
communication with these students, so there is clear communication and no
misunderstandings. If you know your students and their cultural background, you
will understand which students need firm, direct communication and which
students need more indirect communication (pp. 34-36).
Students
will come to the classroom with many different discourses. Teachers must value
these languages represented while also teaching the students professional
dialect. There must be a balance of both; if this is neglected, students will
either be discouraged or be unsuccessful. In short, “teachers need to support
the language that students bring to school, provide them input from an
additional code, and give them the opportunity to use the new code in a
nonthreatening, real communicative context” (p. 53).
Communities
of color tend to highly value human connectedness much more than the white,
middle-class community (p. 95). Therefore, teachers must learn to understand
the value placed on relationships and respect this cultural value. One way to
do this is to learn more about this value. Teachers must seek the wisdom and
advice of parents and other adults who are a part of the culture and understand
the cultural values. This allows teachers to better understand the cultural
values they are striving to understand and respect (p. 102).
- Positive portrayal in the
classroom
Teachers
are responsible for providing rich literature for their classrooms that depict
a positive portray al of people of color. If they are going to display posters
around the classroom, those should also represent people from various cultural
backgrounds in a positive light. This is of the utmost importance. As Delpit
puts it, “The problems we see exhibited in school by African-American children
and children of other oppressed minorities can be traced to this lack of
curriculum in which they can find represented the intellectual achievements of
people who look like themselves” (p. 177).
Understanding Your Students’
Interests
As one
teaching proverb says, “Know thy students.” Understanding how to reach students
academically starts with knowing your students and being in touch with their
interests. Once you are familiar with the interests of your students, you will
be able to make the curriculum applicable to their lives, making instruction
much more meaningful for them. One example of this would be rewriting a problem
so that it is in “terms relevant to the student’s life” (p. 65).
- The Importance of
Motivation
It should
come as no surprise that students will not be motivated unless the curriculum
reflects their interests, and learning will not take place unless the students
are motivated. When students are motivated to learn, the quality of their work
will reflect what they are actually capable of doing, which is often (and
unfortunately) far above what is expected of them. Therefore, teachers must
find ways to motivate their students. Delpit gives the example of allowing
students to write what they are interested in and seeing their creativity and
talent in that writing. “I wonder how many… teachers know that their black
students are prolific and ‘fluent’ writers of rap songs. I wonder how many
teachers realize the verbal creativity and fluency black kids express every day
on the playgrounds of America as they devise new insults, new jump-roping
chants and new cheers” (p. 17). Teachers cannot be ignorant of their students’
interests or they will fail to motivate them; if the students are not
motivated, then, more than likely, learning will not take place.
Understanding Your Students’
Needs
- Thinking Critically and
Creatively
Teachers
must teach their students how to be critical and creative thinkers. While they
do need to be taught specific skills, they also need to know how to think for
themselves. “Students need technical skills to open doors, but they need to be
able to think critically and creatively to participate in meaningful and
potentially liberating work inside those doors” (p. 19).
It is
important to balance the types of instruction used in order to meet the needs
of all students. One example of this is balancing skills and the writing
process. Delpit suggests, “There is much to be gained from the interaction of
the two orientations and that advocates of both approaches have something to say
to each other” (p. 20). This is why a balance of multiple approaches to
instruction is vital in the classroom.
Delpit
quotes one teacher who states about her African-American students, “What they
need are the skills that will get them into college” (p. 16). This is in
response to another teacher who favored a whole language approach to reading
and suggests working on fluency instead of skills. However, it is clear that
these students need to learn the reading skills necessary to pass the SAT and
college degrees. Teachers must be in tune with the academic needs of their
students so that they can meet those needs with the proper instruction.
- Harmonizing with the World
Students of
color need to know that their heritages, cultures, languages, and customs are
valuable and they should not leave those rich roots. They must also be taught
how to survive in the professional world, made up mostly of middle-class white
citizens. Taking the example of language. Some progressive white teachers refuse
to criticize the writing of students of color, thinking they are helping them
to “find their voice.” What teachers should be saying is, “I’ve heard your song
loud and clear. Now I want to teach you to harmonize with the rest of the
world” (p. 18). It is important to teach students the necessary skills they
need in order to succeed in the professional world.
Summary
“Rather
than view these diverse students as problems, we can view them instead as
resources who can help all of us learn what it feels like to move between
cultures and language varieties” (p. 69). As teachers, we must respect our
students; we must learn from them and their experiences. In order to do this,
we have to ask questions and gain insight into our students’ lives and
cultures. “It is impossible to create a model for the good teacher without
taking issues of culture and community context into account” (p. 37). To be
culturally responsive, teachers need to be open, vulnerable, and willing to
learn.
Once the
questions are asked, we begin the process of really knowing our students. “If
we know the intellectual legacies of our students, we will gain insight into
how to teach them” (p. 181). This is the foundation of culturally responsive
teaching. We need to take steps toward knowing each student personally. Next to
that, we must know our students’ potential. “When teachers do not understand
the potential of the students they teach, they will underteach them no matter
what the methodology” (p. 175). “Underteaching” students is detrimental to
their academic success. It is essential for all teachers to first believe in
their students and next to hold them to the standard of the potential you see
in them; you will know their potential when you know them personally.
Everything boils down to the fact that teachers must know their students, and
their teaching will reflect that knowledge, being effective for each student.
