Reflection Rough Draft

1. As Victoria Gates points out in “...As soon as she opened her mouth!”:

“….children from homes of poverty who experience other people in their lives reading and writing for many different reasons in the years before they begin school are better equipped conceptually to make sense of- to learn from- the beginning reading and writing instruction in their schools. It also suggests that, as a group, children from homes of poverty experience fewer instances of people reading and writing for a broad number of purposes than do children from mainstream homes. To the extent that parental education-which is going to affect the frequency and types of reading and writing people do-, is related to poverty, this makes some sense.”

From this reading, and the readings about Cultural Deficit and Cultural Capital, I have learned that the idea that a student’s culture is to blame for hindrances in his/her ability to learn may seem to be grounded in evidence, but are actually false. As pointed out in this quote, an educator may make the argument, “Every student I have ever had from this part of town and with this way of speaking and with this skin color also performed very poorly as students, so I conclude that those factors are what is causing a deficit.”, but they are missing an important point. Some minority students face significant challenges to learning not because of the cultural characteristics that set them apart, but because they were not given the same advantage of exposure to literacy at a young age. The parents did not forgo this duty because of the way they spoke or because of their ethnicity, but because they did not receive solid literacy instruction themselves, and therefore are not comfortable preparing their children for school. It is a vicious cycle of poverty and lack of education that can lead to learning set-backs, not a student’s culture. And even these setbacks do not limit an individual’s ability to learn, just make it more difficult. When teachers and employers (people in power) form stereotypes about people based on the way they speak, it causes another achievement cycle, one supported by the stereotypes themselves and not the person’s actual abilities. A child with a dialect that a teacher automatically associates with low achievement will likely fulfill the teacher’s low expectations because he or she will adopt those expectations for him/herself.

However, it would easy to get into the habit of making assumptions about students if the same cultural factors and poor achievement seemed to go hand in hand, which is another reason that it is important for teachers to be culturally responsive. In order to have an inclusive classroom, a teacher should know about the cultures and backgrounds of students, and know them as individuals. If teachers did this, they would be able to see that a poor student was struggling because he had never been read to before Kindergarten, not because he is from West Virginia. Patterns of poor performance may appear because the minority group is stuck in literacy-education-poverty cycle that is not at all inherent to his/her culture.
It is important for teachers in Appalachia to understand these cycles and the relationship between language, literacy, and power because many students will speak in Appalachian dialect. The teacher must know how to increase understanding and achievement in Standard English without alienating students by teaching them that their dialect, which is a part of their culture, is wrong. Doing so would only feed the cycle of Appalachian children with strong dialects performing poorly in literacy and dropping out of school just like their parents did, because no one wants to hear that who they are is wrong. Telling a child that how they speak and how their parents speak is wrong will likely create hostile feelings toward school, and tensions between parents and educators. Instead, a teacher must balance instruction in Standard English with code switching, making sure the students understand that the way they speak is an acceptable part of their culture, but there are other, more formal ways of speaking that need to be learned as well.

2.To overcome cultural deficit perspective in students, teachers can use the cultural capital, the knowledge and resources the students have as a result of their cultures, as a starting point for learning. Luis Moll’s research into hidden family resources revealed that instruction methods and assessment in the classroom were overlooking a vast amount of knowledge and resources that the students already have.

“ By the end of the semester, 20 parents and community people had visited Hilda’s class and shared their knowledge with her students….’These visits shaped the students’ and teacher’s perception of the parents and the community.’ Moll concluded”

By tapping into the students’ culture and personal interests, teachers implementing Moll’s research found a gold mine of motivation for students to learn, and saw achievement levels of poorly performing students rise significantly. By building on what students already know, teachers avoid intimidating the students about the material. Also, In this way, teachers can show students that their own heritages, family histories, and culture are valuable resources, just as the students in this reading learned that their parents and the people in their own communities have an important place in the classroom, and had thier perspectives of where they were from shaped in a positive way.

3.Teachers and schools can contribute to poor literacy instruction by alienating minority students by making them feel that the way they speak or look is unacceptable (and therefore that they are unacceptable) in school. A child who is constantly drilled that the way he speaks is wrong will likely feel hostile towards school and choose to side with things he already is invested in, such as his family and culture, and may decide he doesn’t need school. A teacher should avoid creating dividing lines between school and home, instead working to integrate students’ culture and family resources. Instead of suggesting to students that their backgrounds are something that hold them back and must be overcome to learn, as in the cultural deficit perspective, teachers should take the cultural difference perspective and use the students’ interests and backgrounds as grounds for learning, teaching children that those things are valuable and a source of pride and identity. The benefits of the “cultural difference perspective” over the “cultural deficit perspective” are clear.

“Ultimately, the Cultural Deficit Theorists viewed cultures and environments outside of the mainstream Euro-American, as inferior. …In one article Martin Deutsch clearly outlined the middle class expectations and values existing in the educational system, while pointing out the deficiencies inherent in other groups such as ‘American Indian children, mountain children and children from other non-industrial groups’”

No one will be motivated to learn by a teacher whose educational philosophy automatically labels them as “inferior”. Teachers can also contribute to poor literacy by sticking with traditional teaching methods that clearly are not working for their students. As Amy Clark, Appalachian Writing Project director says,

"Some teachers tend to copy pedagogical instruction that mirrors the way they were taught. For many, this is a correctionist or formalist approach to teaching writing that has been around for years and places standard grammatical and mechanical forms at the forefront of writing instruction. The result is diminished writing among our local students due to a fear of judgment."

Forcing students to make “counterintuitive” choices on tests that conflict with their first language or way of speaking, puts these students at a considerable disadvantage. Therefore, standardized tests and rote learning methods of teaching may not be effective tools in classrooms with students of different language pattern backgrounds. (Gates)

4. Some strategies that can improve literacy instruction for speakers of non-standard English are to integrate literacy instruction into every subject, to recognize that students may struggle in some literacies while succeeding in others (and use the literacies they succeed in as a learning base) and to extend literacy instruction to new media such as non-digitized multimedia, digitized multimedia, and hypertext or hypermedia. (The National Council of Teachers of English)
For teaching literacy instruction to speakers of non-standard English, Victoria Gates suggests that educators must first hold and apply the belief that “children of poverty are learners, have been learning since birth, are ready to learn at any time, and will learn.”. Secondly, she says that it is “necessary to accept their language to help them begin their education” Thirdly, she concludes that “..we must realize that speakers will use the appropriate oral language…to fit to the social context they find themselves in. (Gates)

Another strategy, suggested by educational researcher Luis Moll, is to use the students' own "funds of knowledge" in the classroom. Every student has a background of resources in the knowlege carried by his or her family and community, and in areas that his personal interests have lead him to learn about on his own. Moll found that basing lessons on these funds of knowledge engaged students in education on a high level not prevously reached. Students will be engaged in learning when their culture is intergrated into education rather than excluded. Taking the "cultural capital" approach of viewing students' unique histories, ways of speaking, and ways of living as valuable, and showing them that those things can be assets to learning by incorporating them into lessons, causes students to be invested in learning the material.

The National Council of teachers of English also provides some strategies for teaching speakers of non-standard English.
“The teaching of writing should assume students will begin with the sort of language with which they are most at home and most fluent in their speech… The goal is not to leave students where they are, however, but to move them toward greater flexibility, so that they can write not just for their own intimates but for wider audiences...The teaching of excellence in writing means adding language to what already exists, not subtracting.”
Teachers must be ready to accept and incorporate a child’s native language or dialect in literacy instruction because teaching is a collaboration between the sudents and teacher. If the teacher only allows his or her language to be used, the child is left without a voice. If the teacher instead educates him or herself about the child’s language and community and works to make the classroom inclusive, the child is free to add a new “standard” dialect to the one he already knows.

5.Making this video, along with the readings and the discussions we have had in class so far, has helped me to think of my culture and heritage in a way I never have before. In fact, I have never really thought much about Appalachian culture. When I heard the word “culture,” I thought of people from Europe or Native Americans. I guess I hadn’t thought of culture as the everyday things- what our houses look like, relationship with nature, what we eat, and what we do for fun. But of course, those things are culture and West Virginias do have rich and interesting cultural backgrounds. Making this video helped me to understand the importance of my own culture, and built connections between home and school experience, which is an inclusive classroom practice.

I have learned that when a student walks into a classroom, the teacher gets the whole person, including his/her experiences, values, family influence, perspectives, and culture. Since one of the best ways to teach, and to have an inclusive classroom, is to draw on what the students already know and are interested in, a teacher must be able to accept and work with parts of a student’s culture that he might not understand. Making the Where I am from video was an example of this because I know I was personally very invested in doing as well as I could on it because it represents everything that is already important to me. I wanted to do justice to my family and the things I love. If I had just been making a video on some prompt that the teacher gave us (that probably would be something the teacher, rather than I, was interested in) I wouldn’t have put in all the time I did or have been as satisfied with the results. I enjoyed making it, yet I still feel like I met the learning objectives of the lesson. Since the video gave us a chance to share their varied perspectives and experiences, the classroom is more inclusive and supportive.

The project showed me how important being culturally responsive as an educator is also because one characteristic of an inclusive classroom is a sense of community. After watching and reading the poems of many of the other students in the class, I feel more connected as a group and as individuals. I still don’t “know” everyone, but I know enough to understand that we all have a lot in common, and I found many other students’ backgrounds very interesting. This changed my thinking in another way because I hadn’t thought of West Virginia, especially this area, as ethnically or culturally diverse. This was really a stereotype on my part because I assumed that because most of us have the same skin color, we are rather homogenous. But that’s not true at all. After watching the Where I am From videos, I found out that even though we all have many things in common ( such as being very close to family and loving to be outside) we come from a variety of cultural heritages that continue to influence our lives. Some of us are Irish, English, German, Italian, etc., and some have different experiences because they were raised in a different state. I am much more likely to start a conversation in class or ask someone I don’t know for help. And now I know that I want to create that kind of atmosphere in my own classroom too. Being a culturally responsive educator is tied to inclusive classroom practices because it would be impossible to be truly inclusive without accepting and utilizing aspects of students’ culture in the classroom.

6.One strategy I plan on using to support literacy learning for all learners in my classroom is incorporating literacy into my lessons. Even though I am going to be an Art teacher, I know that literacy instruction should be taught in all subjects because it is an integral part of every subject. Art has its own vocabulary and language and students will need to understand it. I do what I can to know students as individuals and know their interests so I can use those interests as a starting point for learning. I will use self-directed learning whenever possible to motivate students to read by drawing on their interests, not just mine. Since some students are more successful in some literacies than others, I will also be sure to incorporate a variety of literacies, such as social networks, media, and magazine articles, rather than just readings from text books. When I assign a reading or writing activity, I will be sure to discuss the material to check comprehension and retention, and to see if my methods are working. I will look for ways to keep informed about developments in literacy instruction and use assessments to reflect on my success as well as my students’.( The National Council of Teachers of English)

Sources

The National Council of Teachers of English. (n.d.). Adolescent literacy. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Positions/Chron0907ResearchBrief

(2002). As soon as she opened her mouth. In L. Delpit & J.K Dowdy (Eds.), In The skin that we speak: An anthology of essays on language culture and power. (Print: Anthology)

Inos, R. H. I. (n.d.). Research review for inclusive practices. Retrieved from http://www.prel.org/products/Products/Inclusive-practices.htm

Bolima, D. (n.d.). Contexts for understanding: Educational learning theories . Retrieved from http://staff.washington.edu/saki/strategies/101/new_page_5.htm

Č