Summary Of Challenges To Conceptualizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Incorporating Social Justice in Education The article “Challenges to Conceptualizing and Actualizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: How Viable Is the Theory in Classroom Practice?” by Evelyn Young is an insightful piece on social justice involvement in teachings. In this article, Young discusses the main points of culturally relevant pedagogy and how they can be analyzed in the classroom setting and studied to improve cultural differences in the classroom. Young relates back to Ladson-Billings’s study throughout the piece on the same topic. Then, Young explains her own study on cultural relevant pedagogy at Maplewood Elementary School. There are many ways to involve cultural differences in the classroom with all subjects, and teachers
should be trained better in this area. Cultural relevant pedagogy is a “pedagogy that empowered students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills and attitudes” (Ladson-Billings pg.17-18). This is a very important aspect to have in a culturally diverse school. When students are distracted in a intellectually, socially, emotionally, or politically way they are not going to take in and understand information as if those aspects weren’t there. To make sure all the aspects are met the teachers have to focus on three main concepts which are academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. Academic success is about prioritizing academics and getting students ready for the future.
This concept is very similar to Sadker and Zittleman’s essentialism philosophy, which is education based on the essential academics and traditions. Critical thinking and real world experiences are also parts of academic success which contribute to the focuses of progressivism. Cultural competence is to focus on the students cultural practices and beliefs. The key ways in which teachers can influence this in the classroom is to get to know and have relationships with their students. Teachers can discuss the cultures of all students in the classroom and make it an open topic within the class. Once a teacher learns about the different cultures of the classroom, they can involve all the different types of cultures by celebrating holidays and having different types of foods from all cultures. This will help students get to know who they are and their culture and learn about other cultures of students in the classroom. Sociopolitical consciousness is preparing students for the real world experiences of racism and inequality. This is sometimes the hardest one for the teachers to incorporate because of the lack of knowledge some people have in this area. Sometimes if oppression isn’t involved in people’s daily lives they are unaware of the issues around them. To help teachers better understand these concepts Ladson-Billings came up with three other
concepts. The concepts that teachers are told to better understand culturally relevant pedagogy are “concept of self and others, social relations, and concept of knowledge” (Young, pg.253). These concepts can be applied to lesson plans for teacher to use in the classroom. Concept of self and others from a teachers prospective is about learning from students being able to adapt to the differences the students have. Social relations is like cultural competence and combing curriculum with different cultural views. The concept of knowledge means that there is not only one way to teach a topic and all topics that are learned can be applied to real world experiences. These key concepts were used to study the cultural relevant pedagogy at Maplewood Elementary School. Maplewood Elementary School is a very diverse school with the majority of the students being African American and Hispanic/Latino. On the other hand, most of the teachers involved in this study were white. This study was based on interviews, meetings, observations, discussions, and reflections. The interviews were to analyze the changes views about racism and their beliefs. The observations were to observe the teacher’s and student’s actions within the classroom. This was also to get a sense of the teacher’s lessons plans and how they were carried out. Young gives many examples of the lessons that she observed within the classroom. Within the data that she presented it is not surprising that the math teacher has a high rating in academic success, because mathematics is based on very strict essentials. One teacher even stated that it is hard to fit all the material that they need to teach in such a short time and then to try and focus it into something culturally would be difficult. Also, in the data given it says that social studies was one of the top classes for sociopolitical consciousness. This is very reasonable because social studies is based on real world experiences, so a teacher would need to involve that topic in concept in the class. Young also gives many ways in which classroom lessons involved these concepts very well. In math a teacher brought up the history of slavery and the 3/5 of a vote. This is a way to involve African American history into math and then use math to understand what 3/5 of a vote means. A science teacher discusses in the class about how the United States is losing fresh water and relates that to more strict immigration laws and control. This discusses the immigration problems from Canada and Mexico and could lead to a discussion on the students thoughts of that topic. This is a simple way to relate the discussion of water to a more world wide situation and tie in the different cultures of Canada and Mexico. These examples got me to thinking about how I as a teacher in the future could incorporate these different elements into a lesson plan. I am going to school to become a high school math teacher. This will involve teaching students algebra, geometry, calculus, and more. The field that I really enjoy is algebra, and I thought of the immigration issues and how I could create problems in which students would solve for the amount of immigrants that come to the United States. I could also involve calculating the different ethnicities that make up the United States. Last year I went to Logan High School in La Crosse and was a teacher’s assistant. One day the teacher had to step out and asked me to take over the class. Involving social justice in my teachings I had the students calculate the amount a person would get off an item if they had food stamps. In this example, I involved classism into my lecture and that people out there need food stamps from the government. This is just one way in which I involved social justice in the classroom, but I have had many teachers that try to involve cultures into the classroom as well. When I was in grade school for a week we had to put ourselves in the shoes of an African American. The teacher labeled the water fountains “Blue eyed people” and the other “Every other eye colored people”. This was very eye opening to me as a kid, because even in first grade we were learning about the inequalities of the people of color verses white people. I thought this was a very interesting way to teach us about social studies and I have remembered it ever since, therefore it was really an impacting activity. Another example that I can remember from when I was younger was in fifth grade we had to research our culture. Everyone researched their culture and then we had a day called all around the world in which you would go around to each station and learn about everyone’s culture. For this project everyone had to bring in a food that was related to their culture that you have a lot at home. We also got to research the language, holidays, clothes, and interesting facts about your culture. I thought this was a very unique way to learn about everyone’s culture and have everyone express their culture. This was the first time I really got to know where I came from and how everyone is different and they should be proud of that. This was an amazing experience and I hope that teachers still do this activity today. All in all, teachers need to learn how to incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy.
Teachers need to think about the six concepts and try to get a good variety of all the different aspects. I think that all teachers should read the studies and examples that Young presents before they are sent in the field. When children are young and learning about knew things they are usually learning in the classroom, so if we can make classrooms more culturally based then students will start leaning about inequalities at an early age. Teachers need to be more informed on the concepts and how they can incorporate these topics into their lesson plans, because the main problem is the lack of knowledge teachers have in this area. Therefore, Young’s piece and studies can be very helpful to teachers and future
teachers.
Resources
Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Young, Evelyn. (2010). Challenges to Conceptualizing and Actualizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: How Viable Is the Theory in Classroom Practice?