Cultural Proficiency: A Manual for School Leaders Lindsey, Robins, & Terrell

Cultural Proficiency: A Manual for School LeadersLindsey, Robins, & Terrell Dale Ellis, Ed. D Superintendent Montgomery County Schools January 9, 2013

Chapter 4: Framing Your Work • The key to understanding cultural proficiency begins with recognizing the existence of different worldviews. Differing cultural worldviews become problematic when one’s worldview causes one to judge a culture as “inferior” or “less than” rather than “different.”

Step 1 Commitments • A commitment to examining your own values, assumptions, and behaviors. • A commitment to working with colleagues to examine your school’s and district’s policies and practices. • A commitment to being an integral part of the community you serve by learning with and from the community. Is the community, or certain parts thereof, viewed as a detriment or a resource?

These commitments involve the use of… • Introspection as a means to understand your own thoughts, feelings and motives. • Reflection as a means to examine your actions. • Examination as a means to study current policies and procedures. • Analysis as a means to understand all aspects of the education process. • Planning as a means to be intentional in serving ALL students.

Table Talk • Review the Table on Page 60…starting at the bottom and working up. • What possible complications do you see with your faculty? • What possible bridges do you see on your staff from which to build?

The Barriers • The presumption of entitlement and privilege makes some people blind to barriers experienced by others. • Systems of oppression and privilege are forces that affect some individuals based upon membership in a distinct cultural group. • Unawareness of the need to adapt is a type of resistance to change where some individuals believe other groups need to change to adapt to the dominant group.

The Guiding Principals • Culture is a predominant force…You can’t not have a culture. • People are served in varying degrees by the dominant culture. • Group identity of individuals is as important as individual identities. • Diversity within cultures is vast and significant. • Each group has unique cultural needs. • The family, as defined within the culture, is the predominant force in a child’s education.

The Guiding Principals-Cont.’ • Marginalized populations have to be at least bicultural, which creates unique issues. • Cross-cultural interactions are dynamic and must be acknowledged, adjusted to, and accepted. • The school system must incorporate cultural knowledge into practice and policy making.

The Continuum • Cultural Destructiveness – Seeks to eliminate cultures within the school. • Cultural Incapacity – Trivializing and stereotyping other cultures….making others inferior to the dominant group. • Cultural blindness – Not noticing or acknowledging other cultures and being blind to the need for differentiation.

The Continuum – Cont.’ • Cultural Precompetence– Increasing awareness of what you and the school don’t know about working in diverse settings. Can move forward or regress from here. • Cultural Competence – Inclusive of different views in such a way that healthy and positive interactions can take place. • Cultural Proficiency – Holding the vision that you and the school are instruments for creating a socially-just democracy; interacting with your colleagues, your students, their families, and their communities as an advocate for lifelong learning to serve effectively the educational needs of all cultural groups.

The Essential Elements • Assess Culture – Identify the differences • Value Diversity – Embrace the differences • Manage Difference – Reframe the differences so it is not viewed as a problem to be solved • Adapt to Diversity – Teach and learn the differences so you can respond effectively • Institutionalize Cultural Knowledge – Change systems to ensure healthy and effective responses

Table Talk • How comfortable are you with your knowledge of cultural proficiency? • What questions do you have? • What more do you want to learn about the tools of cultural proficiency? • How do you see the tools of cultural proficiency helping you and members of your school community narrow and close educational gaps?

Chapter 5 – The First Tool Overcoming Barriers • “If we tell ourselves that the only problem is hate, we avoid facing the reality that it is mostly nice, non-hating people who perpetuate racial inequality? - Ellis Close (1998)

Systemic Oppression • It is there. It may not be systematic, but it is there. It is systemic. • Is there an expectation that ALL children can learn to high levels? Is there an expectation that ALL children can accomplish the requirements of the Common Core, or just a few? A culture of low expectations is systemic oppression. It’s not mean and maybe not intentional, but it is there…in society and schools.

Privilege and Entitlement • By the very nature of the system, those who are not oppressed have the benefit of privilege and entitlement. • What was the cause of the Revolutionary War? • What was the cause of the Civil War? • Who were the main beneficiaries of the Industrial Age? • Who was Jim Crow? • The key is getting those who have been the beneficiaries of privilege and entitlement to recognize that fact.

Meanwhile, here in MoCo… • We have an additional dynamic of poverty extending deeply into a historically privileged group. • How does that impact us?

Unawareness of the Need to Adapt • Change is difficult • That is especially true in areas you are not even aware that change is needed. • The biggest need for change in education is in the EXPECTATIONS.

Culturally Proficient Educators… • Have an emerging awareness of their strengths, their limitations, and what they need and want to learn. • Are not afraid to change their worldview or paradigms about their students’ cultures. • Are eager to begin the change process, both individually and institutionally.

Core Beliefs • We can learn (improve). • Paradigms can change. • Change is beneficial.

Two Responses to Resistance • Acknowledge the feelings of the complainers. Change is seldom easy and often unwanted, especially when it involves more work. • Explain the changes are to better serve the students and their families. It is not about fixing something that is broken, but about improvement and to grow as a school for the benefit of the children.

Table Talk • What areas of privilege and entitlement do you see in your school? • Do you think those in your building see it? If so, who? • Has any of these topics been addressed in your school before? If so, what was the outcome? • If these discussions have not taken place, what has been the dominant barrier in your opinion?

Chapter 6 – The Second Tool The Guiding Principals • Accepting diversity enables us to see that each of us is needed. It also enables us to abandon ourselves to the strengths of others, acknowledging that we cannot know or do everything on our own. - Max De Pree (2008) PDSA anyone? PLCs? Anyone, anyone?

Culture is Ever Present • You don’t notice culture until it changes. • It is the predominant force in shaping values and behaviors. • It is a defining aspect of humanity. • Offensive behavior may not be personal but cultural. Do some of your teachers take discipline cases personally?

Served by the Dominant Culture • The dominant culture sets expectations. • Values and behaviors can be adjusted to serve everyone. • The dominant culture will find the overall culture comfortable and beneficial, and some oppressed people may find success in the dominant culture, but what about the many oppressed people who do not?

Diversity Within Cultures • There are wide differences within a given ethnic culture. • From poor to rich, and all levels in between. That is why socioeconomic factors impact all within the “poor” group.

Each Group Needs Respect • Some schools/policies refuse to adapt to the need for change. • We must encourage the change we want to see. • We must make sure everyone has access to the same privileges and benefits.

Family is the Primary Support Structure • How do we define “parent involvement?” • If parents send students to school prepared to learn, do we need them at the school to be “involved?” Are they not already “involved?” • What can we do if they are not “involved?”

If not Dominant, They are Bi-Cultural • Oppressed people belong to their own culture. • They are also trying to assimilate into the dominant culture. • Students are punished if they do not assimilate as expected.

Social and Communication Dynamics • We are dealing with history here folks. • Those who are oppressed continue to be so and the dominant culture often doesn’t even see it, or they see slights as small and inconsequential. • EC vs. AP/AIG for instance…

Cultural Knowledge Must Be Incorporated • This book study is the first step….

Conclusion • Questions? • Comments. • Concerns!

Cultural Proficiency: A Manual for School Leaders Lindsey, Robins, & Terrell