Facing the Pressure of Teaching Someone Who Actually Does Look Like You…

I’m a 22 year old, African American woman who actually looks like all of her students…except for one.  I’m not too keen of the title Bonnie Davis chose for this text, mainly because looking like my students has not always made my job any easier or less confusing.  In fact, while reading the text, I noted that much of what Davis recommends can be applied to the teaching experience of a an educator who actually does look like her students. 

According to the text, culture is the total of everything an individual learns by growing up in a particular context and results in a set of expectations for appropriate behavior.  In other words, culture is everything your do that allows you to identify with people who are like you and distinguishes you from people who differ from you.  It is often perceived that people of the same race share the same culture.  While this is sometimes true, there are many more factors that contribute to one’s cultural makeup.  Nonetheless, I must contest that being able to understand some of the struggles that my students have faced as an African American and continue to face in and outside of school has helped me in a lot of areas of my first year teaching experience.

Davis says “diverse learners enter in our classroom with a diversity experiences.”  Even as a Black woman and someone who looks like most of my students, I found myself often being frustrated with my children in the beginning because of their learned practices.  I often had to charge myself to check my own biases, after failing to acknowledge the idea that although my students were brown like me, their experiences in Baltimore were completely different from mine growing up in New Jersey.  Just as their educational, family, and community experiences had shaped each of them into someone different, so had mine.  I had to learn how to “reach and teach them all.” (Davis 13) instead of putting up walls in front of the students who required a little more work to reach.

One of the most important points that Davis makes is the fact that we as educators have to learn the communication styles and preferences amongst our students.  Moreover, the more you know about the cultures of your diverse learners, the better equipped you will be to teach them. For me, this expands beyond skin tone.  While communication styles differ amongst different races of people, from my experience it is clear that there is a regional difference in communication style as well.  Another important point that Davis stresses is the fact that misreading cultural communication cues can result in behavior issues and incorrect feedback about learning (Davis 15) Just like in any other relationship, the teacher/student relationship can experience growth or failure because of communication.  It is up to us to look deeper into our students’ lives.  We can’t always look at surface.  We must get to know them on  a slightly more personal level.  Where do they live?  With whom do they live?  What schools did they attend before?  Do they go to church or to mosque?  Are they living with their parents or a guardian?  Is he or she one of six or an only child?  All of these factors and more are things that can alter the communication style of a student and can determine how culturally comfortable a child feels in our classroom. 

Although many of the ideas in the text are relevant and applicable for many, I’d be curious to know the following:

•         If I was actually teaching students who looked differently than I, do I have a right to stereotype them and teach based on their “obvious” culture?  I.e.: is it safe to assume that all Vietnamese children appreciate structure in the classroom?
•        How is it appropriate to judge your classroom on television shows, which typically over-exaggerate many stereotypes?

All in all, we as educators must always be inclusive, and must always find ways to reach each and every one of our students.  Meeting our students where they are and guiding them in order to meet high expectations in our classroom is key.  We cannot allow our own biases and/or cultural differences to negatively interfere, but instead use it as a tool to grow ourselves and our students

Jasmine

Literacy-focused Teaching Strategies

Within the text, Davis cites many reasons why some students have no developed a love of reading. These reasons include:

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•     They may have had teachers who weren’t readers and writers themselves.
•        They may be in schools where a culture of reading and writing is not valued.
•        They may not see themselves in their assigned texts in schools.
•        They may never be offered the opportunities to write about themselves and tell the most important story – their own.
•        They may now know how to read or to write.

In order to create a classroom of learners who love to read, Bonnie M. David provides strategies to reach students who have often resist reading and writing. These strategies include utilizing texts that reflect the students’ cultures, exposing one’s own reading preferences and experiences, and reaching out to our students’ individual interests. These recommendations all, to some extent, acknowledge the need for our students to see themselves in a text. A specific sentence within the book quickly glazed over one of the most critical pieces of a student’s ability to connect with a text – “it is important for students to read texts that reflect their cultures and reflect them accurately” (Davis 104). The word accurately is the driving force behind the movement to allow students to connect themselves and their experiences to a text.

After reflecting on my own classroom library which was provided by my school, I am not convinced that the “accurate” reflection is present in the majority of the texts. The characters in many of the fiction stories, while ethnically diverse, do not connect to my students’ daily experiences. While the surface-level view of diversity is achieved, that is often times where the connections end. As educators at many different grade levels, do you find that the texts required by your school and curriculum provide a real opportunity for your students to connect with the stories? If you do not feel that your students are able to connect with the stories, what would it take for them to identify with the plots and characters? Are there enough resources at your disposal for you to make these connections?

-Michelle

Teaching Strategies: Diverse Learners

One major portion of How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You by Bonnie M. Davis concerns how to teach diverse students in the classroom. In chapter two, Davis explores the diverse students in our classrooms. She discusses the different communication styles that they may bring, the varied backgrounds they come from, and the different responses our diverse learners may have to stereotypes.

Throughout this chapter and Part IV, Davis offers numerous strategies for teaching diverse learners and making sure that instruction is culturally relevant to our students’ lives. First and foremost, Davis believes that the best way for an educator to prepare him or herself for a diverse class is to develop relationships with the students. By getting to know the students, their families, and the various cultures and customs they come from, teachers can make their students feel more comfortable and cared for in the classroom. Doing so will also help the teacher understand the social cues that students may be giving from their cultures, which may reduce misunderstandings and tensions.

Additionally, Davis offers some ethno-centric suggestions for reaching students of different backgrounds. She suggests the use of rhythm and movement for African-American students, group work for Latino and American Indian students, and long wait times for American Indian students. Davis also suggests making sure that different ethnic groups and types of people continually present themselves in the texts and literature students are exposed to. This increases investment and creates meaning in the material. Certainly, these “strategies” are not solely for these groups; to act in such a way would be stereotyping. Rather, these strategies should be thought of and utilized as best practices to keep all students engaged and to address the multiple ways that kids learn.

Beyond these more obvious strategies differentiated along racial/ethnic/cultural lines, most of Davis’ suggestions are fundamentally best practices for teaching literacy and differentiation along learning styles. For example, Davis devotes two chapters to utilizing read-alouds and setting up a balanced literacy block. Then, she offers examples of differentiated projects and activities. These suggestions fell mostly across the lines of learning styles (e.g. visual, kinesthetic, auditory, etc.) and were truly applicable across all cultural and ethnic lines.

Davis’ suggestions are not particularly revelatory. For a book that purports to be primarily about differentiating along the lines of culture, a surprisingly small amount of the content deals specifically with the issue of culture. Rather, the true takeaway from these strategies may be that the most important strategy for differentiating and being culturally responsive in a classroom is to get to know the students as individuals – not as stereotypes and not as a single entity with uniform ability levels. Student from any culture will struggle and excel at different things – beyond understanding the different cultures, perhaps seeing and addressing students for themselves is the most important strategy any teacher can use.

Jeff