I had the best two week adventure in Lima, Peru. It was truly magical and full of great food, culture, and people. No surprise I decided to podcast during that time to make it even more special. I think fresh spaces help to enliven your mind to new experiences and ideas. This was true of my time in Lima. So many ideas flooded to my mind while I was there. Something tells me that I will be back very soon for part two!
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Zaretta Hammond states, “Building background knowledge begins with becoming knowledgeable about the dimensions of culture as well as knowledgeable about the larger social, political, and economic conditions that create inequitable education outcomes…teachers also have to be aware of their beliefs regarding equity and culture.” We all heard about culture being referred to as an iceberg, which is the work of psychologist Edgar H. Schein, but Hammond refers to it as a tree. A tree has many different levels, but it’s also part of a bigger ecosystem, rather than being socially isolated. This makes sense to me, because our cultures have similar roots to other cultures, but how we engage with them might be different. If you have ever seen a cultural iceberg or tree diagram, you know that there is a tip, which can be quite superficial. It’s what we can see, such as the food, dress, music, art, and holidays. These are at the surface culture level and if used to describe a culture can feel like tokenism. For example, when I moved to Dubai, someone asked me if I knew how to surf and did I know any celebrities, because I came from California. I began talking like a Valley Girl, if you don't know what I’m talking about researching it on YouTube, and shared that I knew so many actors I couldn’t count them all. The next level is shallow culture. This is what makes up everyday social interactions and norms, such as friendships, concepts of time, personal space between people, communication styles, and eye contact. These aspects help us to know how to interact within society. For example, when I moved to Germany, I had a difficult time interacting with everyone. Every time I left a shop, the clear would say “tschüss”. I didn’t know how to respond so I would hurry away until my German teacher shared that they were simply saying, “bye”. Hammond describes deep culture as a way of being consciously and unconsciously that drives our worldview, such as ethics, spirituality, health, and theories. “Deep culture also governs how we learn new information.” This part stopped me in my tracks. I had to think about an example of what this means. Hammond gives this example that adds clarity, “In Eastern culture, the color red means good luck while in most Western cultures red means danger.” This makes sense, because I usually associated red to danger and violence growing up in the United States. It’s sad to say, but these are the messages that I saw growing up with red being associated with blood and death. Not all Americans might think the same of course, but it has been a common thread since I was a little girl. Naturally, we are going to have learners with different cultural backgrounds in our classroom. So how do we honor each of them? Hammond suggests building relationships that are based on the deep level. Look at the shared values, principles, and worldviews that we all share and how they are demonstrated similarly and differently. This makes sense, because this is the heart of international or global mindedness. We seek for areas where we have similar ground and work up from there. Even within similar cultures, there are going to be differences based on how the culture is orientated towards collectivism and individualism. She speaks about people moving from different communities and how it can create individualism. I noticed this while teaching in Germany. Weather in Europe was cold in the winter, so many colleagues would scamper home after work, except my Spanish colleagues. They would frequently meet up and do things within their latin community in Koeln. Anyone was a friend, including myself, whereas German colleagues were much more reserved and primarily spent time with school mates. My Spanish colleagues were used to living in a collectivism society whereas my German colleagues were used to individualism. Neither is better than the other, but it does shape our level of expectations and interactions. Hammond delves further into this process by looking at Hofstede's list of individualism-collectivism continuums. Looking at individualism, Hofsted looked at self-orientation, individual effort, competition, etc. No surprise that the United States scored 91 out of 100. We are a very individualistic community that strives for excellence and living the American dream of going to university and home ownership. This isn’t a bad or good thing once again, but just another way of identifying similarities and differences. While Guatemala scored the lowest for individualism, which means there is a strong emphasis on making decisions within the community. It’s all about building up the community so everyone thrives. Very interesting. All of this discussion reminds me of an interesting book that I have on my shelf called The Culture Map. This book was recommended to me from a mentor, Dalit Halevi, about being more aware about how culture drives out interactions and transactions with each other in the business world. I remember reading a story about a woman who transferred to the United States for work. Her reviews were broad, so she assumed that she was doing a wonderful job while the employers were distressed about her approach of communication. This miscommunication occurred, because of the two contrasting ways of evaluating employees. It’s not right or wrong, just recognizing that we can’t assume that people from other cultures know our way of doing things. What are specific things we need to be mindful of in learning?Now that we have set the stage about how culture shapes our interactions, what are some specific things that we need to be mindful of in our practice?
Oral and written traditions: Some learners will prefer to share their ideas in a story-like format. This is natural in many cultures where oral traditions are alive and thriving. While sharing oral and written traditions, learners are building relationships with each other while demonstrating language skills such as figurative language, alliteration, movement, and emotion. Implicit bias: our unconscious attitude and beliefs towards certain groups based on their race, class, and language. An example is meeting learners from a certain community and determining that they cannot achieve, because of their linguistic ability. Structuralized racialization: how social, political, and economic policies strive to make neutral policies, but have racialized outcomes. An example, public/state school funding in the United States is based solely on property tax values. The areas with the lowest amount of values receive the least amount of support. This is justified, because they didn’t have to pay the same amount of property tax. It is deemed equitable. Culture of poverty: there are certain stereotypes of families with lower economic means as not caring about education, lifestyle choice, and being involved in illegal activity. For example, my eyes were opened about the culture of poverty while working in a low income school. Many parents were considered lazy, but they were struggling with their own issues and did the best they could. Cycle of poverty: this is where families are trapped in the cycle of poverty for three generations. There is no living member of the family that has ever possessed the intellectual, social, or cultural power to get out of poverty. This shapes the next generation to lose motivation in school, because they know that poverty will continue with their lives. I’ve seen this with my own eyes and it breaks my heart each time. As you can see, culture has a lot to do with our roles as educators. I’ve engaged with other people from around the world who tell me that racialization is a United States problem. Ironically, this was coming from a person of Caucasian heritage and I wonder if the answer would be the same from a person of color living in poverty. I had the priviledge of leading Making the PYP Happen with this amazing group of passionate educators in Lima, Peru. They were so open-minded to the programme and willing to apply the understandings to their practice. They stand out in my mind, because of their passion to be better. This to me is a World Changer. Who do you know is a world changer? Lima Day 4: I had the opportunity to lead a one-day mini workshop for teachers from the region who were not attending the official IB training. What a wonderful way to give access to schools who need a refresher in certain areas. The one day workshop focused on the difference for Assessment OF, FOR, and AS Learning. We had rich discussions about their differences and how we can scaffold the process in our classrooms. Did I mention that I love these people? They were so enthusiastic and grateful for the learning. I was grateful to be their workshop leader. These people are the salt of the earth, which is something my grandfather would say. They were open, kind, and so fun. I feel so privileged to be allow to lead a workshop amongst these giants. This is our last evening before the end of the workshop. I can't believe this part of the journey has ended. A big thank you to Martha and her amazing team for being such amazing hosts. Lima Day 1: I arrived to Lima to be greeted by Elena Vizurraga and her team of passionate educators at Hiram Bingham School in Lima to discuss concept-driven inquiry. What a treat! Elena and I met while be IBEN development coaches for new workshop leaders. This experience brought us closer together, so imagine my excitement when we got to work together. A couple days before my workshop, I worked with this fabulous school to uncover concept-driven inquiry. With a staff of over 50 teachers, I was challenged to make the workshop interactive while meaningful. The staff were so flexible that dynamic learning was the only outcome. Would I return to this amazing school? ABSOLUTELY! Fingers crossed that I get to lead a workshop in Lima with this group of educators again! Of course, I had to hug the dynamic Elena. She is one magical person and it was a pleasure to spend several days getting to know her even more.
I never like to put the light directly on me, because it feels a little boastful. But, I am going to make an exception this time. When I began my podcast, I didn't think it would get more than 100 downloads, because it's just me rambling about various ideas. When it began to increase, I did get excited, but put it the back of my mind. You can imagine the elation when I passed this milestone. More than anything, this means that I am helping others out there that might be struggling. This makes it all worth the effort. Thank you for listening.
The repetitive instruction sparks behavior issues, which increases learners from being removed from the learning setting. The decrease in instruction widens the gap for developing young people who can critically and creatively think. The pipeline can largely be attributed to the “pedagogy of poverty”. Hammond describes this as, “setting up students up to leave high school with outdated skills and shallow knowledge. They are able to regurgitate facts and concepts but have difficulty applying this knowledge to new and practical ways.” Unfortunately, you often see this at the elementary/primary level in poorer schools. Having worked in these conditions, I’ve seen the pedagogy of poverty used repeatedly by teachers who came from a similar background. They are often perpetuating the same low-level instruction to the next generation without knowing it.
AwarenessAwareness is the first part of this dynamic framework. We examine our own social and political viewpoint and how it impacts our instructional practices. We begin by asking ourselves these questions:
This particular portion of the framework became clear to me when I worked in a pre-dominant culture that was not my own. I had to learn about how my behavior was building a culture of responsiveness or a wall of exclusion. I had to face some truths about my behavior and level of privilege compared to my peers and learners. Learning PartnershipsLearning Partnerships focuses on building strong relationships where learners trust us and our process of delivering learning. They know that we are doing everything we can to create opportunities for their growth. We might develop these partnerships by asking these questions:
Relationships always come first before instruction. At the beginning of the school year, I heard Emmanuel Acho cite this quote: Rules before Relationships = Rebellion. This is true to all of us. As a teacher, we might take umbrage with a new administrator demanding curricular or cultural changes before they have learned about our teaching practice. If we don’t like it, why would we do it to our learners? Information ProcessingInformation Processing is about deepening our learner’s intellective capacity, which has been defined by Hammond as, “the increased power the brain creates to process complex information more effectively.” This requires us to examine our teaching practice to determine if we are using the adequate processes, strategies, tools, and products to help learners engage with the curriculum at a deeper level. We can examine our practice by answering these questions:
Community BuildingCommunity Building focuses on leveraging the power of the group to create a safe and caring environment that connects with the learner’s background. It’s difficult for them to connect to something they don’t understand, which may be our view of what a community looks and feels like based on our personal experiences.
Things to considerThe thing I appreciate about each chapter is there is a summary of the big ideas, invitation to inquiry questions for application, and additional resources to explore further. This really helps us as learners to broaden and deepen our perspective.
Can you believe we have only made it to chapter 2? There are so many nuggets of wisdom that I can’t contain myself! The thing that has stayed with me the most is preparing our learners for rigor, so we get out of the loop of watered down instruction for more economically disadvantaged youth. I’m so grateful that this book openly addresses so many concerns that rest upon my heart so beautifully. Before you know, we are heading into the chapters about neuroscience that went over my head. I’m excited to revisit them through a new lens to help us grow into loving and appreciating this amazing book. Have a blessed day. I'm always amazed at how many new terms come out in education to describe certain theories and practices. Sometimes, I get very confused. One set of terms that has caused debate is between culturally responsive teaching and critical race theory. Sonya Whitaker provides an easy to read article about the difference between critical race theory, which was meant for college students and culturally responsive teaching. I found an article by Future Ed that speaks to the benefits of culturally responsive teaching and its origin story. At the end of the day, both approaches to exploration within curriculum are centered on race, culture and sexual orientation and how those subjects should be included in classroom teaching. Depending on your culture, you might have strong opinions of these topics being shared in school. You have the right to your beliefs and values. For those who would like these explored in school, they also have the right to allow their child to be exposed to these ideas. The importance is that culture is one way that we can misunderstand each other. One idea in one culture is perfectly acceptable, while in another it is very taboo. This is the importance of culturally responsive teaching. Recognizing our differences, but allowing our unique voices enter into the curriculum design. This is what I champion for in the current educational landscape. |
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