Inclusive Pedagogy
In the last two weeks of class, we have been discussing culturally responsive teaching and inclusive pedagogy. I must say that my biggest take-away from this content is that I still have a LOT to learn. The following paragraphs discuss some of the points I found particularly interesting from our discussions and readings.
I really enjoyed reading Gloria Ladson-Billings’ “But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy.” Honestly, until this point, I had given very little thought to how “typical” classroom instruction in the US caters primarily to the “White, middle-class mainstream.” Undoubtedly, this is because 1) I fall squarely into the aforementioned category, and 2) I have succeeded in this system without having to overcome many significant challenges. That said, I was blown away by how much sense it makes to develop and utilize culturally relevant pedagogy in the classroom (this seems to be a common reaction, as reflected in the article’s title). Ladson-Billings includes a point from Pewewardy (1993) that asserts that the failure of US schools to cater to a diverse audiences stems from the fact that educators try to “insert culture into the education, instead of inserting education into the culture.” What a profoundly accurate description!
The question then arises, how do we insert education into the culture? Ladson-Billings provides several examples drawn from a study of exceptional teachers of African American students. In one example, a teacher uses the lyrics of her second grader’s favorite (clean) rap songs to teach the fundamentals of poetry. Another teacher set up a series of seminars inviting students’ parents or relatives to come into the classroom and teach the students a particular skill that they were good at. In sourcing role models from the students’ own community, the teacher reinforced the idea that the culture backgrounds and competencies of her students and their families were recognized and valued.
An interesting point came up in our last class discussion that perhaps culturally relevant and inclusive pedagogy is more suited for some disciplines compared to others. This thought has often crossed my own mind, as my field is highly technical and on the surface, cultural competency almost seems irrelevant. I thought that Homero’s counter-example to this point was spot-on: if you insist to a student who has an extreme distrust of authority on the first day of class that 1+1=2, instead of accepting this fact, this student will spend the rest of the semester trying to prove you wrong (even if they are not correct). And I had never thought about it this way! Every single topic we teach, and every interaction we have with our students has layers of subtext. Of course a student’s culture will come into play when they are learning new things (no matter what the subject is, or how black-and-white something may seem to us as an instructor) – it is woven into the fabric of who they are as a person.
I think an overarching idea of culturally relevant and inclusive pedagogy is that students must feel like their identity is recognized and valued in order to have an effective learning experience. As a future instructor, I hope I will be able to follow in the footsteps of some of the impactful teachers discussed in these readings and create a classroom experience that is both culturally relevant and inclusive for my diverse population of students.
Articles I referenced in this post:
Gloria Ladson‐Billings (1995) But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy, Theory Into Practice, 34:3, 159-165, DOI: 10.1080/00405849509543675
Pewewardy, C. (1993). Culturally responsible pedagogy in action: An American Indian magnet school. In E. Hollins, J. King, & W. Hayman (Eds.), Teaching diverse populations: Formulating a knowledge base (pp. 77-92). Albany: State University of New York Press.
September 28, 2020 @ 3:03 am
I definitely agree with you about having a lot to learn. You mentioned some disciplines being much more technical than others, and now that I am more aware of the cultural and background differences that may make learning that much harder in those fields, I am now in the phase of thinking about what to do in response. I am in the field of biology, which while sometimes not as technical as other fields, still tends to be fairly jargon-y especially in the upper levels. Beyond ensuring that I’m teaching from research and materials that aren’t only based on white males, I’m unsure of how to fully account for cultural differences in my day to day teaching, and that is something that I wish to improve on now and in the future!
September 28, 2020 @ 1:07 pm
Thank you for the post Kaleigh! I agree with what you said, and the sentence you cited about inserting education in culture resonated with me too. We often tend to neglect the need to teach students utilizing their cultures, something they are more familiar with and can better refer to. Since we are both in the field of engineering, I totally understand what you mean by our field being technical that we often don’t really pay attention to inclusive pedagogy. Personally, I vaguely remember very few references said in our classrooms that I could not relate with, but I think this is more prone to happen in other fields. I think it is really important that this class sheds light on such incidents so that future American professors will better acknowledge that in their classrooms!
September 28, 2020 @ 8:04 pm
I am also in engineering and as you have mentioned, it is difficult to see the need for inclusion of cultural diversities into the classrooms. One aspect that I have found critical is the stereotypes based on different ethnicities. I think inclusive pedagogy might be to forget about these stereotypes and think about every student as the same and listen to them and find ways to support their learning.
September 29, 2020 @ 2:09 am
I was also struck by the statement of “insert culture into the education, instead of inserting education into the culture”. What a simple, yet profound statement! I really enjoyed the example of the teacher having students bringing in examples of their favorite songs to help increase their understanding of poetry. I think we often times think of this as teachers ‘going above and beyond’, but I am curious to see if as more and more educators learn about inclusive and culturally relevant teaching if these strategies will begin to be viewed as the norm rather than an extra step? At the end of the day, all educators have the goal of increasing students’ understanding. Here’s to doing that in a way that is accessible to all students!
September 29, 2020 @ 2:25 pm
Kaleigh– thank you for your thoughtful post! I’ve similarly been thinking about how culturally relevant pedagogy can be put in the engineering classroom. I know in highly technical fields, the equations and theories are what they are and they must be used, there’s no doubt about that. I think an interesting thing to consider is even what knowledge is welcome in the classroom. If a student brings in an example from home or from their community related to some engineering concept, how does the instructor respond? I’ve heard some instructors completely knock someone down, even though what the student was talking about was relevant and actually a better example than what the professor gave because it was something with which we were all familiar. I think a big part of inclusive pedagogy, as you pointed out from Ladson-Billings, is that the knowledge, experiences, families and communities should be recognized and valued as an important part of a student’s education.
October 1, 2020 @ 8:22 pm
Hi Kaleigh,
Thanks for your post this week. You are asking important questions about how to bring inclusive practices to the classroom. One thing that might help (across all disciplines) is, like you said, to show students that their identities matter.
One way to do this is to introduce students to the work of scholars who represent different minority groups. One way to show students you care is to include a photograph of the scholar (if it exists) and describe their background, even if it is just as simple as where they went to school and a brief about their work. This demonstrates 3 things: 1. that you care about who your students study, 2. that diverse backgrounds matter, 3. that representation matters. This practice helps to create a human/empathic connection for your students to the scholars in your discipline and with you as the instructor.