Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

1. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Melissa Turriaga EDUC 535, Rossier School of Education Paula M. Carbone

2. What is Culturally Relevant Pedagogy? • High Expectations • Emphasizes success for all students • Cultural Competence • Assists students in the information of a positive cultural identity • Critical Consciousness • Guides students in developing a critical awareness that they can apply to analyze or impede current and historical social inequities (Morrison, Robbins, Rose , 2008)

3. Why It Is Important • Creates equal opportunities for all students to succeed through lessons that are challenging and innovative • Makes content more relatable, so students are more engaged • Empowers students by making them socially aware • Students will be able to “see contradictions and inequalities in local and larger communities”. (Milner IV, 2010)

4. History of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy • Over time, misconceptions have developed about CRP. • Some teachers have struggled with the application of CRP in the classroom. • Sometimes seen as not being conducive to standardized education (Irvine, 2010), ( Rogers, 2008)

5. Misconceptions about CRP What does this mean? • “Only teachers of color can be culturally relevant”. • “Culturally relevant pedagogy is not relevant for white students”. • “Caring teachers of diverse students have no classroom management” • “The purpose of culturally relevant pedagogy is to help diverse students ‘feel good’ about themselves”. • Teachers who share these notions can create uncomfortable and ineffective teaching practices. • They may also neglect attempting to incorporate any culturally relevant material at all • As a result, students will lose out on opportunities to learn in ways that will allow them to be successful and active participants in their learning (Irvine, 2010)

6. Struggle With CRP • While some educators choose not employ culturally relevant pedagogy into their lessons, others are unable to because they do not have the tools and/or knowledge to do it. • Some schools do not provide their teachers with professional development that shows them strategies or methods of implementing CRP in their classrooms • Some schools are more concerned with achieving high API scores, rather than contributing to the development of socially aware and successful scholars. • As a result, CRP is not considered to be a priority.

7. Going Against the Grain What does this mean? • Christine Rogers refers to standardized education as Coyote the Trickster who she describes as being “so cunning that many educators actually ponder his suggestions associated with No Child Left Behind, despite our simultaneous suspicion on his promises. Sometimes Coyote’s claims are alluring: If we offer the same opportunities- through the same curriculum, instruction, and assessment-it seems we are promoting equity in the classroom.” • Shows that teachers are tricked into thinking that the standards do not allow for creative or innovative instruction • Teachers can be disheartened by the bureaucracy of school politics • Educators need to remain focused on the students and their overall success as students, not just as test takers (Rogers, 2008)

8. CRP and Student Literacy What does this mean? • According to Vygotsky, “who a person becomes depends on his or her interaction within the family, school, and other systems”. • If students can make connections between what they are being taught in school to what they are experiencing at home, then greater opportunities for learning will be created. (Bedard, Van Horn, Garcia, 2011)

9. How It Can Be Achieved • Know your students • Build on what they already know • Believe they can achieve • Develop creative lessons, and promote social awareness

10. Know Your Students • Teachers need to get to know their students • “knowledge of students’ literacy histories would enable their (professors) to tailor learning experiences to fit the students’ needs and to make the curriculum more authentic and culturally relevant”. • This assists teachers in differentiation, and accommodating lessons to the students’ needs, rather than making students adapt to the constraints of the lessons. (Bedard, Van Horn, Garcia, 2011)

11. Building Blocks • Tap into students’ funds of knowledge • “elements in a child’s life ranging from tangible cultural or family experiences, events, or artifacts, and equally important, the intangible cultural or family ways of being, as in values, feelings, language, and identity”. • This also includes students’ interests • This can be achieved through class discussions, games, or questionnaires. • After learning about students, teachers can work to “build bridges between these funds of knowledge and the curriculum”. (Morrison, Robbins, Rose, 2008)

12. Believe They Can Achieve • Don’t dumb it down • Challenge students, but provide them with support • Provide clear expectations and objectives • Model strategies, allow students to work collaboratively • “Closely monitor student learning” to measure progress (Morrison, Robbins, Rose, 2008)

13. Critical Literacy • Create text sets that will engage students and make lessons more accessible to them. • Incorporate music, poems, images, short stories, media clips, etc. • Help students develop a critical stance by “including texts with critical perspectives to providing critical thinking prompts before reading a text, allowing students to discuss controversial topics, and asking students to take a critical/political view of texts”. (Morrison, Robbins, Rose, 2008)

14. Cultural Competence • “Helping students to recognize and honor their own cultural beliefs and practices while acquiring access to the wider culture, where they are likely to have a chance of improving their socioeconomic status and making informed decisions about the lives they wish to lead”. • Students will be empowered to create change within their own classrooms, schools, and communities when they are given the tools and knowledge to be transformative agents within those settings. (Milner IV, 2010)

15. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Practice • The Line Game • Students were able to make personal connections to a text on the Civil Rights movement by sharing their own experiences. • Equal opportunities for participation • Building on what they know • Creating social awareness *Click twice on the video to start This is a small segment from a lesson I created.

16. Conclusion Culturally relevant pedagogy is essential to the development of socially competent scholars. It creates multiple and equal opportunities for a diverse group of learners because it presents content in a way that is relevant to their lives, and challenges their critical thinking skills. Similarly, culturally relevant pedagogy assists in creating responsive members of society that are knowledgeable and equipped with the tools to construct change in socially unjust conditions. Furthermore, culturally relevant pedagogy fosters a learning environment that supports diversity, and empowers students through rigorous instruction, and powerful teaching.

17. Bibliography • Bedard, C., Van Horn, L., & Garcia , V. M. (2011). The Impact of Culture on Literacy . The Educational Forum, 75, 244-258. • Irvine, J. J. (2010). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy . Education Digest , 75(8), 57-61. • Milner IV, H. R. (2010). Culurally Relevant Pedagogy in a Diverse Urban Classroom. Urban Review , 66-88. • Morrison, K. A., Robbins, H. H., & Rose, D. G. (2008). Operationalizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Synthesis of Classroom Based Research . Equity and Excellence in Education, 41(4), 433-452. • Rogers, C. (2008). Cofronting the Coyote: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in an Era of Standardization . Democracy and Education, 17(3), 46-50.