Why We Need Culturally Responsive Teaching Now More than Ever
Embedding cultural relevance in teacher education programs may be our only chance in narrowing the achievement gap
Teachers are often given mixed signals when it comes to talking about race in the classroom. As a former teacher, I remember attending diversity workshops shrouded in the kind of language that’s designed to be palatable for all educators, regardless of how accepting they were of diverse voices in the classroom. None of these workshops ever offered a valid, in-depth analysis of racism in America or even really explained why it was so important to teach books written by African American authors.
The high school where I taught — like many others in America — was one where white teachers were the norm amongst a diverse student body. A public charter school in South Florida, 86% percent of our students were non-white, three-quarters of them came from low-income households, and many did not speak English as their first language. And yet, throughout my entire teacher training program, we were required to take only one course on multicultural literature, which, unsurprisingly, did not adequately cover the breadth of diverse cultures that would one day make up the student population in my classroom.
National disparities in graduation rates amongst racial groups, taken from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, show that not all students are receiving an equitable education. Additionally, Latino, black, and Native American students are not receiving the same challenging coursework as white students according to 2017 data released by the New York Equity Coalition. Even worse, it’s 2019, and elementary school teachers are still using mock slave auctions to teach students about slavery. Our system has to do better. Our students deserve more.
Past research has shown that a culturally responsive education — or an education that recognizes a students’ cultural references in the classroom — can help students feel more connected with school and enhance learning. Fostering a positive relationship with school is particularly important for culturally and linguistically diverse students, who have historically performed well below their white counterparts in all areas and across all grade levels, according to the National Center for Education Statistics’ 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report.
If implemented correctly, cultural responsiveness in the classroom could help close this achievement gap between students of color and their white peers. However, the change must start by educating teachers about their own implicit biases and how their race has shaped and influenced their entire lives. After teachers have done the work on their own biases, then they can begin to learn how to teach within a cultural framework that is relevant to the students in their classroom. This culturally responsive education needs to start early, when teachers are learning how to teach, and should be embedded into teacher education programs rather than taught in a one-off workshop at a learning conference.
Multicultural literature courses are a necessary part of this strategy — especially for future English teachers who are tasked with teaching texts written by and about people who may not reflect their own culture — but they need to be implemented in tandem with other courses that specifically address the topic of overcoming racism in the educational sector.
My own program required us to develop lessons on young adult novels written by diverse authors — everyone from Sherman Alexie to Toni Morrison — which were then evaluated by professors who were well-versed in equitable curricula. These trial-and-error lesson plans are vital to the process of becoming a more culturally relevant teacher because people need a space where they can safely make mistakes before they start to work with real students.
One incident comes to mind that happened in a course that required us to teach mock lessons on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. We were to execute a timed lesson that taught a specific English Language Arts teaching standard, focused on one literary theme, and engaged the rest of class in an activity. To make things more complicated, other classmates were assigned to play the “attention-seeking student,” which meant they could interrupt lesson whenever they felt like it. The assignment was not easy; failures were bound to happen.
One of my white classmates tried to tackle a theme on why it’s wrong to stereotype people by asking the class to list words that came to mind when looking at a photograph of an Afghani girl. It was clear from the beginning that she was trying to get the class to label the girl as a terrorist because of her looks, but as college students, we knew better than to openly stereotype a Middle Eastern girl based on a still PowerPoint image. The lesson flopped, and the tension remained palpable throughout the feedback session afterward.
Though uncomfortable, this experience was so important for my classmate, who had the opportunity to make this mistake in front of her peers, instead of her students. We can’t forget that the people training to become teachers are also a product of their own whitewashed curricula. The mistakes must happen before they get into a real classroom.
In addition to learning about multicultural content, future teachers should be required to take a workshop-style course that helps them recognize their own implicit biases — a phenomenon that occurs when people unconsciously attribute a particular quality or stereotype towards a group of people. Zaretta Hammond, one of the pioneers of culturally responsive teaching, explains that everyone has implicit biases, and that there is not turnkey solution to “fixing” them.
“Your brain naturally has this bias,” Hammond told me. She added that bias is embedded in how most white people are socialized, and how most teachers, regardless of color, are socialized. Hammond said that these natural assumptions coupled with deficit thinking — the idea that low income, minority students fail in school because of their families deficiencies — result in harmful views of certain groups.
This work can be difficult or uncomfortable for teachers who aren’t used to having conversations about race — another reason why the programs should begin early on. Joe Truss, principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco who has worked with many teachers on their cultural competency, says there is one major pitfall: teachers who are just not ready to do the personal work involved.
“If they’re not coming to that table or walking through the door ready to say they’re interested in not doing that kind of work, it’s not going to work,” Truss told me.
Another important piece of creating equitable classrooms is allowing all students access to high-level rigorous instruction. This means enabling all students to become independent learners, which involves preparing students to engage in higher order thinking, creative problem solving, and analytical reading and writing.
Some theories attribute the low performance of student of color, English learners, and low-income students to a “culture of poverty” or a difference in cultural values toward education. In her book, “Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain,” Hammond argues that these students are not struggling because of their race, language, or poverty, but because “we don’t offer them sufficient opportunities in the classroom to develop the cognitive skills…that would prepare them to take on more advanced academic tasks.”
Although the results can vary from program to program, Truss has observed positive effects on students as a result of teachers successfully implemented a culturally sensitive curriculum. He said that students were understanding the material better, and overall were more engaged in the topics they were discussing in class. He said one buy-in for teachers is that they are always looking for ways to build better relationships with their students, which the program undeniably helps them achieve.
“Ultimately it’s stuff that’s really engaging kids to be active, empowered members of society.” -Joe Truss
Teachers need to be able to validate the academic abilities of their students of color by utilizing a culturally sensitive approach to teaching. But in order for them to achieve this, teachers need to be taught how to recognize the consequences of acting on their own implicit biases. This process cannot happen through one or two annual summer workshops. Instead, a more rigorous cultural competency curriculum for teachers should be embedded in teacher training programs across America.
