Diverse Learners Can Blossom in Culturally Responsive Classrooms

Posted by on March 24, 2006

[posted from Public Education Network newsblast]

DIVERSE LEARNERS CAN BLOSSOM IN CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE CLASSROOMS

Increasingly, teachers and students come from different cultural backgrounds. Line up a representative sample of students from the nation’s classrooms with a sample of teachers, and you’ll see striking differences. Teachers, say Carol Weinstein and her colleagues at Rutgers University, are overwhelmingly white and English speaking. But more than one-third of K-12 students nationwide are not white, and about one in 10 speaks limited English. Socioeconomic differences are also significant, reports Susan Black. Most teachers are middle-class, but about 20 percent of U.S. students come from poor families and neighborhoods. The differences can erupt into cultural clashes, says Geneva Gay.. Her studies show that many teachers expect their ethnically diverse students to learn and behave according to mainstream European-American cultural standards — in other words, to learn and behave as the teachers do. How can schools overcome deeply embedded cultural conflicts? Gay recommends that teachers and school leaders become experts in “culturally responsive teaching,” a method that uses students’ “cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and learning styles” in daily lessons. Teachers should learn about their students’ cultures and behaviors, determine what is acceptable in their environment, and acknowledge these beliefs and actions in their day-to-day teaching.

http://www.asbj.com/current/research.html