Lee and Buxton Reading

I think that this chapter makes some very good points on student diversity and how future teachers can use these perspectives to meet the needs of their students. Even though this chapter was centered on science-based curriculum and instruction, it most definitely could be replaced with other content areas. Developing cultural congruence in the classroom will be a challenging task, but one that is not impossible, in my opinion. I think for myself, I always try to look at the bigger picture and the lives of my students (future) beyond the classroom. The chapter provides a strong argument for the importance of examining the students everyday experiences and informal language for teachers to be better positioned to bridge the gap between home life and academia. Essentially, this is part of seeking out the background knowledge that a student may or may not have in the subject area. I think its imperative to build upon what the student already knows, but the teacher must figure out what that is. As noted in the chapter, teachers are often too quick to assume a student's prior knowledge and background. The chapter also touched on the issue of student inquiry and the importance of a student to ask questions and form thoughts and opinions on the topic. Inquiry leads to student autonomy, student interaction and discussion, and increased confidence. I think that these are all important methods and techniques to use in the classroom as a teacher. I would hope to utilize the perspectives listed in this chapter in my own classroom someday. I think a way to make a lesson meaningful to all students would be use a variety of activities and methods of instruction to keep them engaged. Assessing your students can take some time and lots of practice of determining what works best for your classroom. I thought it was nice when the author noted that there is not a one size fits all approach to this issue. It takes trial and error and self-determination by the teacher to figure out what the best approach is for the classroom and for the students.

For me it would be quite difficult to think of ways to make science more relevant to students of a non-mainstream background because I do not desire to be a science teacher, but to be an English. In my classes so far, we've discussed using culturally diverse texts. A lot of the time in English Language Arts, teachers will focus on using texts only from the western literary canon (your classic texts like Romeo & Juliet, Pride & Prejudice, Scarlet Letter,etc.), which isn't bad because those texts are of value. However, most of these texts are written by dead Caucasian heterosexual males, who would have a vastly different background from non-mainstream students. We, as pre-service English teachers, are encouraged to use culturally diverse texts that will will give minorities (women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+, etc.) a voice. This gives the students the exposure to different types of perspectives and the chance to connect to a text (text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world). I think to build on the students' differing levels of prior knowledge, the teacher cannot assume that they know certain things.

The only thing I could really think of for science would be to use problem based learning experiments (I think that is the proper name). Its basically when the teacher presents students with an authentic/life like issue and students have to think of creative ways to solve it.

When I think about bringing cultural congruence into my classroom, many things come to mind. One thing I am really excited about is bringing many aspects of various cultures into my classroom. Specifically, I have thought of hanging a lot of flags around the room, and having culture days where we recognize other culture's holidays and bring in food and artifacts while also centering my lesson (short stories, novels, political events, etc.) on it. For example, I would celebrate with my classroom Hanukkah, Chinese New Year, Kwanza, Christmas, and many more. This way my students from different cultural background can speak about their culture and feel united and included with their classmates.

I worry about this to, especially the older I get and more removed I am from pop culture, let alone language and new activities. Still, I think that being honest with students about this and letting them teach me about their interests will be the way I handle it and then (hopefully) get inspired. It might also be a good modeling opportunity to show what it is like to be interested in something new. kasee bought up the point that none of this is one size fits all. I think that whatever you do, not every student in the class will be intrinsically interested in it, for example some might like sports but not music and vice versa. In that case, I think trying to include variety is good so that over the course of a year or semester there has been something for each student at least once. Finally, it all takes time and practice and I think that as long as we are responsive (as you said before) and continue to reflect on and revise our instruction (over years!) then we'll get there.

Cultural congruence is an excellent way to try to align a students "non main-stream" primary discourse with their secondary discourse- school. The article talks about how the academic discourse that takes place at school is the "the culture of power" and that the rules are usually not taught explicitly, leaving non-mainstream students not able to access/participate in the discourse as easily. Building and relating to students background and previous experience is a way to bridge that gap between the discourses. We have learned strategies in our TSL classes to make subject area content more comprehensible with strategies like relating the content back to their culture or explicitly reviewing assumed cultural norms that mainstream students would be aware of. Like Keturah said, for English teachers, introducing multicultural and noncanonical texts can make the reading more accessible to a culturally diverse classroom.

A part of the article that I thought was interesting was not just gauging what the students know and don't know, but finding out what their values are- and sometimes they these personal values conflict with what is valued in the classroom. The example given was that in science instruction autonomy and inquiry are important tools in learning, but some cultures discourage children from asking questions and making their own decisions. How do we encounter this conflict in the classroom without dis-valuing the student's culture?

This is a very good point, inquiry is incredibly important in science. For students that are unfamiliar with this, it can be uncomfortable and it is important to not dis-value their culture. I think one way to approach this would be to build up to it over time. In the beginning, allow students to choose the way they wish to express themselves- through graphics, writing, videos, etc. Over time, encourage students to participate at least once in a discussion until they become more comfortable. Or even tell those students which question they are going to ask so they can prepare an answer and feel more comfortable sharing to the whole class. I don't think this is something that can be done immediately but is a combination of showing that you, as a teacher, are trying to accommodate and respect them without forcing them into a predetermined set of rules, but also push their boundaries a little to see what they are capable of.