Blog Post #7

 
 What to Look for in a Classroom by Alfie Kohn and "Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy"

When watching "Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy," I was reminded of the documentary "Precious Knowledge" because the video explains the importance of connecting students education to their culture or "culturally relevant pedagogy." This is the same pedagogy behind the ethnic studies program in the documentary. An important quote from the assigned video said by Jacqueline Jordan Irvine is "We have to remember that students approach learning not as cultural blank slates...culturally responsive pedagogy build on students' prior knowledge." This is such a useful way of thinking for teachers because students become much more engaged when they can make connections with curriculum and their lived experience. This is what made the ethnic studies program so important in Precious Knowledge. The student in documentary were remarkably engaged, and parents noticed a positive change in their children's attitudes towards school once the program was implemented. 

                    What to Look for in a Classroom also reminded me of Precious knowledge. Many of the 'good signs' in the chart were things that I observed in the students' classrooms. I saw a frequent hum of activity, eager students, thoughtful discussions, student collaboration, and "purposeful clutter."

Reflection: I also want to connect "Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy" to Shifting the Paradigm from Deficit Oriented Schools to Asset Based Models: Why Leaders Need to Promote an Asset Orientation in Our Schools by Shannon Renkly and Katherine Bertolini. The reading and video both use asset based models of teaching instead of deficit based. Using students' culture to enhance and shape their learning uses an asset based model. Seeing students' culture and backgrounds as something that could negatively impact their learning would be deficit based. 

Blog Post #6

 Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13uwa4Ia50poEpUD2QJUnIY76if7HhF9W/view

    In this article Lisa Delpit argues that the culture of power and the silenced dialogue leave some students (mostly minorities, ESL, & lower class) at a disadvantage. The culture of power is something found in most schools, it is when the dominant culture (white/upper-middle class) is reflected in schools through rules, teaching, and language. There a different verbal styles of communication- white/mainstream culture styles of communication are typically used in the classroom. This is the culture of power. Teachers with power must acknowledge its existence in order to teach every student. All students come from different backgrounds and home-lives; this means that we should teach without the assumption that all students automatically understand the culture of power. If teachers make this assumption, it can lead to miscommunication between teacher and student. It can even lead to students being punished for doing nothing wrong! Teachers should explicitly say what the mean when giving rules and instructions. This will help students learn and acquire the code of power and set them up for success. The silenced dialogue is what happens when student who are not familiar with the culture of power are silenced because of it. These students learn to disengage and not try to communicate becuase they have been shut down too many times by people unwilling to understand them. I will end with this powerful quote from the article: “We must keep the perspective that people are experts on their own life. There are certainly aspects of the outside world of which they might not be aware, but they can be the only authentic chroniclers of their own experience.”

Reflection:

This article was hard for me to completely understand at first. After talking about it in class, doing group work, and doing the card game activity in class today, I feel like I have a firm grasp on the concepts discussed in the article; it actually makes so much sense now and it is something I have seen and have experienced in my own life! My question for the class or any commenters is how do these concepts relate to the card game activity from today's class?