Culturally Competent Approaches to Teaching and Learning

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Culturally Competent Approaches to
Teaching and Learning
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Opening Reflection

• As an educator, what difference do you make in
  the lives of students and their families?

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• What successes have we had in working with a
  diverse population?
• What challenges do we face in working with a
  diverse population?
• What questions do you have regarding working with
  a diverse population?

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• Diversity training must go beyond providing human
  relations activities to providing meaningful
  opportunities for educators to examine their
  beliefs about cultural differences and to
  consider the impact of culture on teaching and
  learning.

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Table Talk

• What?-What does this statement mean to you?
• So What?-What are the implications for us as we
  work with families?
• Now What?-What actions might you consider next?

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Diversity Defined

• A general term indicating that people who differ
  from one another are present in an organization
  or group. It refers to ethnicity, language,
  gender, age, ability, sexual orientation and all
  other aspects of culture.

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Aspects of Culture

• Sense of self and space
• Communication and language
• Dress and appearance
• Food and eating habits
• Time and time consciousness
• Relationships, family and friends
• Values and norms
• Beliefs and attitudes
• Mental processes and learning style
• Work habits and practices

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What is Cultural Competency?

• The awareness of ones own cultural background has
  been consistently identified in the literature as
  critical to the process of acquiring cultural
  competence

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Culture Defined

• Everything you believe and everything you do that
  identifies you as a member of a group. Cultures
  reflect the belief systems and behaviors informed
  by ethnicity as well as other sociological
  factors such as gender, age, sexual orientation
  and physical ability.

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Culture Defined

• All communities have a culture. It is the climate
  of their civilization

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Culture Defined

• All people have culture. Culture is the name of
  what people are interested in, their thoughts,
  their models, the books they read and the
  speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip,
  controversies, historical sense and scientific
  training, the values they appreciate, the quality
  of life they admire.

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Culture Defined

• The ways of believing, feeling and behaving of a
  group of people the way of life of a people,
  their values, skills, customs, and resulting
  material culture.

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Culture Defined

• The ever changing values, traditions social and
  political relationships, and
• world view shared by a group of people bound
  together by a combination of factors that can
  include a common history/her story geographic
  location, language, social class, and or
  religion.

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Culture Defined

• The collective behavior patterns, communication
  styles, language, beliefs, concepts, values,
  institutions, standards, symbols, and other
  factors unique to a community to conform.

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Activity

• Discuss the definitions provided with your table
  group. As a group, using 12 words or less, and
  come up with own definition of culture.
• Select a reporter to share definition with large
  group.

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Principles of Culture

• People are served in varying degrees by the
  dominant culture.
• Describe the dominant culture of education and
  the impact on families.

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Principles of Culture

• Diversity within cultures is vast and significant
• What are the major cultures represented in your
  school? What diversity is present within those
  cultures?

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Principles of Culture

• Each group has unique cultural needs.
• What are some of the cultural needs you have
  observed in your classroom?
• Nuri Robins, K., Randall B. Lindsey, Delores B.
  Lindsey and Raymond D. Terrell (2002). Culturally
  Proficient Instruction A Guide for People Who
  Teach. Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press, Inc

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Sample Questions

• What questions have you used as you work with
  families?
• What questions might you ask that would provide
  insight into the cultures of your families?

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Greetings! I am pleased to see that we are
different. May we together become greater than
the sum of both of us.Mr. Spock (on the
television series Star Trek)
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We know what we are, but know not what we may
be.William Shakespeare
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We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful
mosaic. Different people, different beliefs,
different yearnings, different hopes, different
dreams.Jimmy Carter
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There never was in the world two opinions alike,
no more that two hairs or two grains the most
universal quality is diversity.Montaigne, Of
the Resemblance of Children to Their Fathers
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Diversity the art of thinking independently
together.Malcolm S. Forbes
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Closing Reflection

• Think about the conversation we have engaged in.
  What insights have you had? What ideas do you
  want to consider further?