Respecting our students' funds of knowledge can mean reaching out to families, visiting students' homes, and involving yourself, as a teacher, in the communities of your students. But that's only part of the journey.

The most important step is integrating students' own funds of knowledge into the classroom at a fundamental level.

With secondary students, teachers can directly ask students to bring their funds of knowledge to the classroom as active participants in their own learning and in the instruction of their peers. Genuine co-teaching is fairly radical, revolutionary even, but it does work! Check out the videos and article link in this section for more information. You may find that giving students the reins is exactly what you've been working towards all along.

The Algebra Project supported by the Young People's Project (YPP) in Miami/Dade County, Florida

Giving students agency as learners and transformers of their own lives and the world around them. Emphasis on students using their funds of knowledge to peer-teach other students. So empowering.

To better understand your students' funds of knowledge, you need to engage personally with students and their families, but how? With younger students, home visits might be the best way to understand the context of your students' knowledge base. For secondary-age students, talking directly with the students is the fastest way to understand the complex world of their families, communities, and peer groups.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has numerous teaching resources, including this useful handout (see the questionnaire on this page) that teachers and students can use to document sources of their funds of knowledge. Teachers can use their own answers to identify areas of potential bias or misunderstanding with their students from differing backgrounds.