The theme of my weblog 4 entries is the notion of building “culturally responsive” classrooms and schools which is a term that arose in each of the articles on the websites/reports below.
Barnhardt, Ray
1998 Teaching/Learning Across Cultures: Strategies for Success. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ankn.uaf.edu), University of Alaska Fairbanks.
http://ankn.uaf.edu/Curriculum/Articles/RayBarnhardt/TLAC.html
This article was found on the Alaska Native Knowledge network and outlines ways to teach across cultures. While the Western world view and the indigenous world view are at the more extreme opposite ends of the spectrum the article does offer an interesting comparison. One of the different world views is one that came up in the in Dr. Brown’s video is the concept of linear vs. circular.
| Time is circular with natural cycles that sustain all life | Time is a linear chronology of “human progress” |
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/004/913/PCRE.pdf
This article is on CRE (Culturally responsive education) and has the three following objectives:
- Define and understand what CRE is and what it looks like
- Understand how privilege and social power play a systemic role in how culture is
- practiced
- Be able to reflect on personal assumptions about students, parents, & communities in order to recognize the importance of how culturally responsive education impacts student outcomes
While it doesn’t discuss indigenous cultures specifically it has a lot of interesting tools and discussion questions to help in understanding cultural differences, which was an interesting theme of our week 9 discussions.
http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/tl-strategies/crt-principles.shtml
This website outlines culturally responsive teaching and has seven different discussions in regards to this. Some of the characteristics of culturally responsive teaching are:
- Positive perspectives on parents and families
- Communication of high expectations
- Learning within the context of culture
- Student-centered instruction
- Culturally mediated instruction
- Reshaping the curriculum
- Teacher as facilitator
#5 – Culturally mediated instruction is particularly interesting as it outlines strategies for teaching those from different cultures and recognizing all of the different cultures within the classroom.
This is a link to an article which discusses culturally competent schools. Although the article discusses the US aspects of it are equally applicable to Canada. The article discusses the term subtractive schooling (taken from Valenzuela (1999)) in reference to Mexican American high school students where the schools ignored students’ knowledge of Spanish or even treated it as a deficit. This term can probably be applied to the Canadian school system which ignores students’ prior knowledge or even treats the knowledge as less important than what needs to be taught.
http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/culturally-responsive-school-division
This is a report that came out of a research project done by Saskatchewan public schools. The report focuses on what is culturally responsive schools and how to achieve culturally responsive schools. The action research project involved site visits (1 elementary- Pleasant Hill Community School; 1 secondary- Mount Royal Collegiate) as well as international visit to Alaska. A quote from page 6 of the report states “The traditional Alaskan worldview and philosophy for learning is the foundation for student learning. Students learn through traditional stories, songs, Language, culture camps, and direct interaction with Elders. The curriculum becomes the medium for traditional knowledge to be integrated into the daily learning of teachers and students.”