Based on what I have read so far, the most important takeaway from Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain is that the main source of tension between cultures in the classroom comes from two cultural archetypes: collectivism and individualism. Hammond states that cultures with an emphasis on collectivism “lean more toward a communal culture that downplays self-promotion in favor of promoting harmony and interdependence in the family or workplace above all else” (26). This belief is in direct opposition to the ideals of individualism which centers “around a self-reliance ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ mindset, with a strong focus on competition and self-promotion” (26). The United States prides itself on being an individualist society, so it is no surprise to see that people who do not adopt the ideals that accompany this society struggle to navigate it. Most Eastern, Latin, and African countries are part of a collectivist culture. Recently, there has been an influx of immigrants from Latin American countries which means that there are many students in the American school system that are culturally alienated by most common practices in public schools. As ELA teachers, we need to incorporate aspects from collectivist cultures in the classroom to accommodate said students which would hopefully close the achievement gap between white students and students of color.
Culturally Responsive Teaching
(CRT) involves paying attention to students’ cultures. Oral traditions are
highly valued in collectivist societies. Hammond notes that, “the oral
tradition places a heavy emphasis on relationships because the process connects
the speaker and listener in a communal experience” (28). In an ELA classroom
setting, this could take the form of presentations, discussions, Socratic
seminars, and read-aloud/share-aloud. By offering minority ELA students
alternative methods of expressing the English language we can evaluate their
skills in different ways from usual, as well as providing a bit of variety in
the classroom.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your analysis of collectivist and individualist cultures and how students need to feel included in the classroom, and they shouldn’t feel “alienated” by the schools. I like how you describe incorporating the oral tradition into the classroom so that students have other ways of expressing their ideas that are responsive to their needs. I think this could also help multilingual learners in expressing themselves, especially if there are opportunities for them to bring their home language into the classroom during presentations and things like that.
I appreciate your thoughts about incorporating multilingual learners by incorporating their home language. However, I am not confident in my ability to speak Spanish/French to speak it or write it into a lesson. Hopefully, there will be an ESL (ELL?) teacher to help me with that stuff in the future!
DeleteHey Tim, I like how you wrote about the collectivist vs individualist cultures in this blog. I agree that it is important to be considerate of the students whose culture lines up with more of a collectivist mindset. Your blog also made me think about the benefits of teaching all students to think about their learning in more of a collectivist way. I think it would be great if students could start to look at their education in this way instead of focusing solely on their individual success. What do you think about this?
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