Tag Archives: Culturally relevant pedagogy

Confronting Bias

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Issues of race have hindered students’ access to an excellent education. Gould (1981) pointed out that racism has been around as long as “recorded human history,” (p. 31) however it has only been in recent history that there has been a biological justification by scientists that attempted to make an argument that people of color are biologically inferior. This shows that there was ‘proof’ for racism that the scholar community provided. Even President Lincoln, who had respect for freedmen who fought in the Civil War, believed that “freedom does not imply biological equality” (Gould, 1981, p. 35). These beliefs, held by historically respected academics and leaders, are sure to have been passed on to many in society, both the educated and non. Therefore, we can infer that minority groups have been long viewed as not deserving of an excellent education.

Gould (1981) described that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that “arguments did not contrast equality with inequality” (p. 31). With that, we can see that equality and access are fairly new concepts. So, as a teacher who got into teaching to serve students of color who are mostly poor, I questioned, are educators concerned about making equality a priority? What can we do to ensure that educators are concerned about this? Garcia and Ortiz (2013) made it clear that educators need to think about students’ cultural context in order to make the right decisions for them, especially students with disabilities, but unfortunately do not. Instead, “researchers and practitioners tend to locate the source of achievement and behavioral difficulties within students, without examining performance in the context of teaching and learning environments in which that performance occurs” (Garcia & Ortiz, 2013, p. 38). As Howard (2003) made it clear that our future teaching force will continue to be mostly middle class women and that our student population will increasingly be low income students of color, it is important that our educators confront their biases in order to ensure that every decision we make is in students’ best interest.

The idea of educators confronting biases in order to be culturally relevant practitioners is something that must be made a priority.   As the EdD “focuses on preparing practitioners…who can use existing knowledge to solve educational problems” (Shulman, Golde, Bueschel, & Garabedian, 2006, p. 26), I cannot begin to use this degree to solve the problem of early literacy for low-income students without examining the context that many of my students are living and learning in. For example, are they given the proper support at home? If not, are the schools supporting the parents with strategies to increase their children’s literacy? Last, are educators providing the right methodologies and interventions that respect the cultural context of their students? It seems unlikely that educators are currently making unbiased decisions with their students or even trying to. For example, in the study conducted by Paufler and Amrein-Beardsley (2013), the majority of principals were against randomly assigning students to classes, meaning that teachers and principals make those decisions. This means that students will undoubtedly be grouped based on many subjective factors, which will surely be somewhat biased.

Therefore, in thinking about my own research in investigating the best ways to teach students how to read, I will need to consider how and why students were grouped. I will need to consider their educational settings, such as Special Education (SPED) inclusion, English Language Development (ELD), cluster (gifted), heterogeneous, homogenous, etc. and the rationale for putting students into those settings. Lastly, I will need to look at the training and beliefs of the teacher to get a sense of why they are implementing certain instructional strategies. Overall, this week’s readings made me see that action research must consider the culture of students in order to actually make change.

 References

Garcia, S. B., & Ortiz, A. A. (2013). Intersectionality as a Framework for Transformative Research in Special Education. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 13(2), 32–47.

Gould, S. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Howard, T. C. (2003). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Ingredients for Critical Teacher Reflection. Teacher Reflection and Race in Cultural Contexts, 42(3), 195–202.

Paufler, N. A., & Amrein-Beardsley, A. (2013). The Random Assignment of Students Into Elementary Classrooms: Implications for Value-Added Analyses and Interpretations. American Educational Research Journal, 51(2), 328–362. doi:10.3102/0002831213508299

Shulman, L. S., Golde, C. M., Bueschel, A. C., & Garabedian, K. J. (2006). Reclaiming Education’s Doctorates: A Critique and a Proposal. Educational Researcher, 35(3), 25–32. doi:10.3102/0013189X035003025

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Self Reflection

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According to Tyrone Howard (2003), “the formation of a culturally relevant teaching paradigm becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, without critical reflection. The nature of critical reflection can be an arduous task because it forces the individual to ask challenging questions that pertain to one’s construction of individuals from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds” (p. 198). As an academic advisor, I am often the very first person a new student meets upon being accepted to the university. Therefore, I am constantly mindful of how my past experiences, expectations, and biases can be passed on to my students which can result in a positive or negative first impression of the university on the part of my students.

This article was particularly poignant in that it identified a problem of practice and posed a relevant solution that can implemented in a variety of educational settings. The issue is that teacher-educators lack self-reflection in determining how their biases affect their pedagogy. The article posed the question, “what does race have to do with teaching?” Teachers generally build curriculum based on theory and desired learning objectives rarely considering the cultural and ethnic background of their students. While viewing students as learners, regardless of their cultural experience, is one way of leveling the playing field between students, it omits the tendency of students to relate principles to their own experiences. To remedy this problem of practice, Howard (2003) presents the notion of cultural reflection in which teacher-educators become culturally relevant by reflecting on their own experiences and biases in order to see how their position in the learning process affects the student in a positive or negative way.

Howard (2003) proposes a solution to the question at hand by suggesting that teacher-educators engage in a self-reflective process to examine their own biases and how their pedagogy and classroom environment are impacted by those biases. I agree with Howard’s point that the process of cultural reflection poses a challenge for teacher-educators because it forces them to question their own construction and ideas of students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Facing the arduous and possibly painful process of reflection in which the educator must identify the complexities of teaching students who are from backgrounds different from their own. Howard (2003) suggests the process is often painful because it forces the educator to recognize their views on cultural differences were instilled by family members who may have impressed their prejudiced views on the educator, which innately impacts the learning process in the classroom, especially for ethnic minorities.

Cultural reflection also requires that teacher-educators take personal accountancy for their own pedagogy and teaching methods (Ladson-Billings, 1995). While the district or university may mandate certain curricula and learning objectives in the classroom, educators must take personal action to ensure the academic and social competence of their students remains intact. This notion can prove to be challenging as it calls educators to find a balance between the student’s home life and school environment, however, doing so will produce students who are successful academically, are culturally competent, and socially equitable (Ladson-Billings, 1995).

As an African American, I greatly understand the importance of culturally relevant pedagogy in the learning environment. When I was in first grade my teacher sent me home with a homework assignment. The following week we would be studying the 1950’s in class. The teacher asked us and our parents to conduct some research about the decade, and come dressed in the fashion of the day to share with our classmates. The purpose of the exercise was for us to reflect on the “good times” of the decade and pay homage to the happenings of the era. Needless to say, my mother, who was a child during the ‘50s was extremely angry with this assignment, for the era was anything but “good times” for people of color. Sadly, the assignment objectives were completely lost on me as the cultural difference between my teacher and myself (family) were at odds. While the intent was not necessarily one of malice, the learning objectives were not socially, nor culturally relevant to me. Howard’s notion of cultural reflection could have been applied to this example resulting in greater impact for the classroom environment.

References

Howard, T. C. (2003). Culturally relevant pedagody: Ingredients for critical teacher reflection. Theory into Practice, 42(3), 195-202.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465-491.