a) Reflect on your culture’s influence on your teaching and your definition of equity in education.
As someone from an upper-middle-class Canadian background, my culture has undoubtedly shaped my perspective on teaching and views of equity in education. Growing up, I was privileged to attend well-funded public schools in safe neighborhoods, where almost all of my teachers and classmates shared my socioeconomic status and cultural background. This homogeneous environment meant I had little exposure to diversity until later in life. As a result, my understanding of equity needed to be improved and focused more on equal treatment rather than equal outcomes.
When I began teaching, I brought with me the assumption that students from all backgrounds had essentially the same opportunities and faced similar challenges. It took meaningful interactions with students from various cultures and life experiences to recognize my blind spots. I learned that equal treatment does not necessarily result in equity, as some students face disadvantages outside of school that affect their ability to learn and achieve. Factors like low income, lack of access to resources, English language barriers, discrimination, and cultural dissonance between home and school environments can impact student engagement and performance in subtle but powerful ways. My definition of equity has since expanded to incorporate ideas of fairness, support, opportunity, and the redistribution of resources according to need. I now strive to consider all students’ diverse circumstances and proactively address barriers through differentiated instruction and support.
b) Discuss creating a school culture that celebrates diversity (going beyond the food and festivals approach).
Schools can employ several strategies to celebrate diversity beyond superficial tactics like multicultural food festivals. A key first step is ensuring diversity is reflected in curriculum, resources, and everyday lessons. Teachers should incorporate culturally sustaining content, themes, texts, and activities from various traditions (Ladson-Billings, 2014), for example, in social studies, including non-Western perspectives in historical units. Literacy provides mirrors for all students through multicultural literature. Schools should also prioritize hiring a teaching staff that mirrors student diversity to provide role models (Amos, 2020). Professional development can equip educators with knowledge and skills for culturally responsive practices to engage all learners.
School leadership must foster an inclusive climate through visible commitments like prominent multilingual signage and celebrating cultural holidays meaningful to the community. Multicultural clubs and after-school programs provide peer support and identity development. Translating into major community languages demonstrates the value for all families. Finally, partnering with local cultural groups facilitates students’ learning beyond the classroom through interactive events, field trips, and guest speakers (Egalite et al., 2015). Authentically centering diversity celebrates unique student strengths while instilling mutual understanding and respect among all cultures.
Schools can apply knowledge of students’ backgrounds in several ways. One is to connect lessons to students’ prior knowledge and experiences through cultural references, local examples, and community issues relevant to their lives (Ladson-Billings, 2014). For instance, they incorporate current events from their home countries. Two, learn about students’ cultures through home visits before school starts or family interviews to better understand their funds of knowledge and communities (Moll et al., 1992). Third, invite families to share cultural traditions in the classroom to foster cultural sharing and pride among all students. Fourth, provide culturally responsive books, manipulatives, and visuals reflecting student diversity in learning centers and throughout the school (Ebe, 2010). Finally, assign group projects that allow students to tap into their heritage through research, creative works, or community service learning experiences (Egalite et al., 2015).
Schools can maintain ongoing communication through frequent positive phone calls, emails, and in-person meetings to build relationships and share student successes. Two, translate all notices and maintain a multilingual homepage with translation features to involve families linguistically. Third, use ClassDojo, Remind, Google Classroom, and Seesaw to share classwork and live translating messaging functions. Hold family nights where students mediate technology to showcase their learning for relatives in relaxed settings.
References
Amos, M. L., & Ely, M. (2020). Practicing What We Teach: Using SoTL to Challenge Preservice Teachers’ Assumptions With the Reading/Writing Workshop Model. In Evidence-Based Faculty Development Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) (pp. 238-261). IGI Global.
Ebe, A. E. (2010). Culturally relevant texts and reading assessment for English language learners. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 50(3), 5.
Egalite, A. J., Kisida, B., & Winters, M. A. (2015). Representation in the classroom: The effect of own-race teachers on student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 45, 44-52.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: aka the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74-84.
Moll, L. C. (1992). Bilingual classroom studies and community analysis: Some recent trends. Educational researcher, 21(2), 20-24.
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