Why Culture Counts

"Why Culture Counts" by Donna Walker Tileston and Sandra Darling is relevant, applicable and useful for reflecting on.

Reviewing for Cultural Responsiveness:

If we are to teach children and youth and they are to successfully learn at or above grade level, we must see not only the similarities but also the differences in our students.

By differences, in this context, we don’t mean individual differences or uniqueness, but group differences. We must see and understand, without negative judgments, that our students come to us with culture, and that 'culture' is a group (not an individual) phenomenon.

1). Students of colour and NZE students bring cultural attributes to the classroom that are often overlooked. Some teachers will state that they do not see the colour or culture of their students. In fact, many teachers believe these students "do not have culture."

The late John Ogbu, a noted educational anthropologist formerly at Berkeley, referred to this failure to perceive colour or culture in schools as cultural discontinuity in the schooling experience.

One effect of cultural discontinuity is that some teachers tend to view all their students as culturally white, and when they do not respond like white students, regard them as less intelligent, or in need of being fixed, or as behaviour problems who are “hard to teach.”

A hidden aspect of cultural discontinuity is that many educational institutions tend to value only European Anglo-Saxon culture. By not allowing the cultures of students of colour to be an integral part of the school environment, schools are requiring these students to enter a cultural environment that, for them, is unhealthy. Thus, while white students enter school and concentrate on academics, students of colour must concentrate on learning the “school culture” so that they can fit in. Since students of colour must also learn the academic information, this cultural discontinuity becomes one of the causes of the achievement gap.

In other words, while children may come into school with an achievement gap, it actually grows while they are there. We must strive to overcome poverty and colour‐blindness. When we impose our mistaken belief that students of colour or poor children have the same values, beliefs, world-views, and customs as white middle-class students, the teacher is setting poor students and students of colour up for failure.

Teachers must examine their own background knowledge and experiences in dealing with and understanding their own culture and race. This is such an important component in improving student achievement because without understanding one’s own culture and its influence on learning, it is very difficult to understand the impact that students’ cultures have on their learning.

When there is an environment of learning, one demonstrating that all students can really achieve beyond mediocrity, then everyone benefits.

Differentiating instruction for all students forces the standard to rise:

Students find themselves doing more, and teachers find themselves raising the bar and preparing for success. Parents benefit, the community benefits, and the achievement gap closes. There is less crime and there are better cross-cultural relationships and fewer people in jail; economic growth rises, and everyone is prepared to fully participate in this new and wondrous, rapidly changing information age.

Closing the Achievement Gap

- Focus on the learner

- Culture trumps poverty.

- Culturally responsive teaching

- Honouring collectivist value systems

- Building resilience

- Differentiating context, content and product, process, and assessment, for culture and poverty

We see the results of these low expectations playing out in the number of students of colour and students from poverty placed in special education, expelled from school, and dropping out. We see the results, too, in the lack of diversity in many international baccalaureate classes, advanced placement, honour rolls, and classes for gifted students.

Successful teachers of students living in poverty and students of colour are committed to assuring that all students achieve success; these teachers truly believe they can make a difference (Ladson‐ Billings, 1994).

What Must We Do?

- We must place fully qualified teachers who complete teacher education programs with students of colour and students living in poverty.

- We must provide professional development in the elements of effective pedagogy that apply to a culturally diverse classroom. We know what has to happen. We need to find the will to assure that it does.

- We need to find teachers who truly believe that all children can learn (and that they are capable of teaching) and place those teachers with diverse learners.

- We need a “no-excuses” approach that lets students know we will never give up on them.

- We must find ways to both let our students know we see the potential they possess and to mirror it back to them. This is especially important to children “who have been labelled or oppressed, in understanding their personal power to reframe their life narratives from damaged victim or school failure to resilient survivor and successful learner” (Benard, 2003, p. 120).

There are four important things for teachers to keep in mind to successfully approach the task of differentiating instruction:

First, we need to remember that many cultural groups hold a collectivist value system that values sharing, collaboration, and a different view of learning than the Euro-American value system that is prevalent in schools today. Most American teachers identify with the individualistic value system and need to provide a way to teach the expectations of the dominant culture while finding ways to honour the value systems of o u r students’ homes and communities ‐ to show respect for their culture and, implicitly, for the students themselves.

Second, we need to remember that we can level the playing field with explicit instruction in vocabulary. In doing so, we build crystallised intelligence, one of the best indicators of academic knowledge. Crystallised intelligence is demonstrated by many school-related skills: the ability to recognise or recall facts, generalisations, and principles, along with the ability to learn and execute domain-specific skills and processes. We can close the vocabulary gap between our poor, minority children and our white, middle-class children and provide them with the background knowledge to learn new tasks.

Third, we need to create a culturally responsive classroom by finding ways to integrate the cultures of our students into the con‐ t e n t we are teaching. Culture determines how children will view the world, where they will focus their attention, and how they value learning. Addressing the cultures in o u r classroom that may be different from our own will override the impact of poverty on academic achievement.

Last, we need to keep first and foremost in o u r minds the power of holding high expectations for all of our students. We need to remember to help them see the potential that they cannot see themselves.

We cannot give up ‐ ever!

Four - apply strategies that best meet their unique needs. The following teaching practices are known to encourage culturally diverse students, including those from poverty:

- Cooperative learning

- Graphic representations

- Wait time

- Affirmations

- Group investigation

- Call and response strategy

- Visual imagery

- The KIVA Process

Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning involves student participation in small groups to maximise learning for all. It enables learners to achieve a specific goal, to communicate with other students and help each other with learning tasks (so important for collectivist cultures), and to demonstrate individual and group accountability. It also develops social skills as students process their achievements within the group and monitor and evaluate the results.

A critical component of cooperative learning is providing a way to check that each student is learning. Without it, this strategy will have significantly less impact on academic achievement (Darling,

1999). Explain, model, and guide students in how to think critically and work collaboratively. Compose your groups, furnish resources, and structure tasks so that students m u s t depend on one another for personal and group success. Provide a resource-rich, positive, and safe environment for students to achieve their individual and group goals. Encourage the positive and productive interaction of all team members, and provide time for reflection. Cooperative learn‐ ing can affect achievement by as much as 28 percentile points (Darling, 1999), in addition to meeting the unique needs of diverse learners. It can also be delivered with other instructional strategies, such as concept mapping, to add to its effect on learning.

Group Investigation

This strategy, also called inquiry, presents students with an area of investigation, helps them to identify a conceptual or methodological problem, and invites them to design ways to overcome it. It does this by requiring them to process information by observing, collecting, and organising data; identifying and controlling variables; and formulating and testing hypotheses and explanations. It is a natural strategy for culturally responsive, student-centered class‐ rooms, in which students bring diverse cultural perspectives to any issue. Once they have drawn inferences about the data and the results, students present that information to the group.

The steps of the group investigation-inquiry process are as follows:

1. Students encounter a puzzling situation (planned or unplanned).

2. The teacher and students explore reactions to the situation.

3. The students formulate a study task and organise to study the situation (problem definition, role, assignments, and so on).

4. The students engage in both independent and group study.

5. The teacher and students analyse progress and process.

6. The teacher and students refine the original puzzling situation and recycle through steps.

This strategy can involve having students interview people in the community, storytelling, students writing from their own experiences, inviting community members in to share information, or using technology for research, art, music, and so on. It has applications for all cultural groups and can result in as much as a 37 percentile point increase in learning (Darling, 1999).

Graphic Representations

Graphic representations come in many formats for achieving a variety of purposes. They are wonderful because they can be used either by individual students or groups to record their thinking.

Table 5-1 shows correlations between specific types of graphic representations, brain function, grade level, cognitive process, and memory path.

Concept mapping, a graphic representation showing relationships among ideas using words or pictures, is a powerful tool for diverse learners. A concept map consists of a circle in the centre of the page with spokes. At the end of each spoke is another circle. When we want students to show the critical attributes of a concept, we p u t the concept name (or a picture that represents it) in the centre circle. Each circle at the end of a spoke contains a defining attribute of that concept ‐ either in words or pictures. Concept mapping is a great tool for embedding information into long-term memory and can produce as much as a 49 percentile point gain in achievement with o u r diverse learners (Darling, 1999).

The KNLH Chart has four columns in it with the letters K, N, L, and H at the t o p of each column (see Figure 6-2 on page 93). Either individually or in groups, students write in what they already Know under the K, what they Need to learn under the N, what they Learned under the L, and H o w they learned it under the H. The K N L H chart allows students to bring in experiences and skills rooted in their own cultures.

Call and Response

This is an excellent strategy to use, especially with African and Pasifika students, and is based in a cultural pattern that renews energy through its expression (Shade, Kelly, & Oberg, 1997):

1. A vision or message activates the emotional and spiritual power within each of us.

2. This creative power expresses itself through music and rhythm ‐ in song, dance, or drums.

3. Some form of participation reinforces the power of the vision or message that in turn empowers each individual and collective group. This form of participation connects the mind and body in total engagement.

The “caller” sends a message to the group (“responders”) who immediately affirm the individual power and unique style of the caller. This strategy provides an opportunity for everyone to participate. It reinforces the memory of the message because of the repetition and choral response. It is multisensory, and all children can have a turn leading the group.

Wait Time

Wait time is a strategy that most of us know about but often forget to use. When you ask a question of the group, count to five slowly before either calling on one individual or signalling the group to respond chorally. This allows for individual differences in the brain’s response time. This strategy is appropriate for all diverse learners. (You can read more about wait time on page 121.) Provid‐ ing thinking time for your students can create as much as a 40 percentile point gain in achievement (Darling 1999). That’s worth waiting for!

Visual Imagery

This strategy has the power to help immigrant students develop English skills and provides a natural connection between previous learning experiences and new learning. Students recall an image from their past and use their imagination to expand it. A new, enriched image is then formed, which the individual students draw, adding more detail to the drawing as they learn more, and labelling it with both their native language and English words. This takes an idea from a figural basis (an image in the mind’s eye), to a symbolic basis (a drawing representing some meaning), to a semantic basis (words representing the drawing). For example, in our mindmap drawing, students might use words in their native language as well as pictures to represent the features of animal migration. The teacher would then lead them to add the words in English. Using the words in their native language with the drawing as a bridge to the English words will help these students store the information in a context. Since English-language learners often do not have the vocabulary skills to recall information appropriately, providing the context of the drawings helps them to experience easier recall.

Affirmations

This strategy is often used in both African American and Native American cultures. One affirms oneself relative to the collective community or the universe. It allows students to relieve inner conflict and focus their actions during the day, and it integrates personal and collective values. Teachers can choose affirmations that reinforce the concepts students are learning, that acknowledge that children come to school with cultural experiences that must be honoured, and that reinforce them as academically successful students. Ask children to stand in a circle facing each other. The leader recites the affirmation (this can be the teacher or a student) and then asks everyone to be silent for a minute. The followers then echo the affirmation. This is repeated three times. Then the leader asks everyone to be silent for a minute again to think about how this affirmation will help them today. Students then leave the circle. Use this at the beginning or end of each day, or both.

The KIVA Process

The KIVA process, developed by Lila N. Carol (1993), had its beginning in Pueblo Native American tradition. Shade, Kelly, and Oberg (1997) adapted it for culturally responsive classrooms. It can be used to identify a problem, analyse it, and resolve it with a consensus process for students. KIVA honours every voice in the room, so it may take several days to complete. Change your classroom space so that tables and chairs are arranged in a circle. Place other chairs in concentric rings around the tables. The teacher or leader then stands or sits in the centre and asks essential questions related to the issue. The participants sitting at the tables have 10 minutes to respond to the questions. They then stand up and move to the outer ring. The ring next to the tables and chairs sits down, and now it is their turn to respond to the essential questions about an issue. This continues until every person has had a chance to share. Recorders write down both the questions and the responses. At the end of the rounds, the participants prioritise the responses to indicate either the most important problem or best solution from the discussion. When KIVA reconvenes, the facilitator synthesises the viewpoints represented and identifies where the significant differences are. Students then identify the themes that have evolved. There may need to be further clarification. The leader tries to articulate the consensus of the group.

KIVA might be used for such issues as the following:

Should students be required to wear uniforms? Why or why not? Should students attend school year round? Why or why not?

A Checklist for Culturally Responsive Environments

To create culturally responsive environments that are inviting to your students, in which they feel affirmed and have a sense of belonging, consider doing the following (Shade, Kelly, & Oberg,

1997):

1. Use colour and designs ‐ for example, ethnic cloths, prints, art work, and so on.

2. Provide a variety of kinds of multimedia, with students able to listen to music through headsets.

3. Plan opportunities for creative expression, such as dance, visual arts, choral reading, music, and graphic arts.

4. Build on previous experiences from your students’ culture using hands-on learning, and create space for activities and a climate in which they can take risks and feel safe enough to have more questions than answers.

5. Arrange tables and desks to facilitate cooperative learning.

6. Involve students in the room arrangement and change it often.

7. Position your desk to send a message of collaboration rather than authority.

8. Plan long- and short-term interest centres.