Culturally Responsive Teaching

I believe one of the main problems in today’s schools is that most educators do not know how to incorporate culturally responsive teaching into their curriculums and classrooms. The lack of culturally responsive teaching hinders the education of the students who are culturally diverse. Culturally responsive teaching needs to become an important part of every curriculum due to the rising amount of diverse students in schools. Unfortunately, students of non-white cultures tend to struggle in the classrooms due to the fact that most teachers are, “white females, with the majority of these women being heterosexual, middle class, and monolingual,” who do not understand their cultural backgrounds. It’s not only the teachers, but the majority of
These children then live almost double lives because they use different names and languages at home versus at the names and languages that they use at school. I believe instead of changing the child’s name, teachers should introduce the child with his/her given name to the other students and show that it is acceptable. The teacher should also research the student’s background and be willing to incorporate it into the curriculum. A child’s name is most commonly the first thing the child learns to recognize and spell; therefore, it is the basis of their literacy education. Their name is what makes them individually different from all other children. Changing a child’s name can take them away from their cultural identities. There are several solutions to incorporate something as simple as names into curriculums. According to Gunn and Brice, books like the “Name Jar” can be read in class or names can be pulled out of a jar and students can take turns pronouncing names while using them in
According to Geneva Gays, “developing a knowledge base about cultural diversity, including ethnic and cultural diversity content in the curriculum, demonstrating caring and building learning communities, communicating with ethnically diverse students, and responding to ethnic diversity in the delivery of instructions,” are all solutions for educators. This includes culturally responsive learning in the curriculum. I believe that this goes much deeper than just a generalized idea about a culture from preconceived ideas. There needs to be research and information on a culture in every classroom. Talking to a child’s parents and understanding their concerns and suggestions for the student is a great place to