Reading this article left me with some worries, being a new developing teacher. The main focus of this article was urging teachers to be aware of all the cultures in their classroom and to be knowledgeable and responsive to these different cultural norms. My first thoughts – WOAH, that’s overwhelming. I feel that this is a lot of pressure to put on teachers when there is no proper training or easily available information on the matter. I think that in order to make these culturally responsive classroom environments truly effective there needs to be formal training for teachers. I think a representative for each unique culture in the classroom needs to come and give teachers some background information. Expecting teachers to find all of this information themselves is a lot of pressure, especially since most will turn to the internet which isn’t always entirely accurate. I also think that this is a great opportunity for other types of inclusion to be brought in. Teachers need to be responsive and respectful to all cultures but this is also important in terms of homosexuality, mental health issues, and other “non-mainstream” ways of life.
I was brought up with the idea that it is important not to see colour, everyone is equal everyone deserves respect and no one deserves to be stereotyped. This idea used to be the big thing in society, and now in just recent years it has changed to the idea that we NEED to see colour and we need to respect each culture and treat each individually and special as their own. For me this is an easy concept to grasp although a confusing one. It is easy to say that every students culture will be respected and included, but where do you draw the line? In some cultures the abuse and total control of women is accepted, in some cultures homosexuals are either exiled or killed, where should we draw the line? Although it feels like it makes sense to just say “well those aspects of the culture don’t count we can’t accept those”, but that seems to go against the whole idea of cultural responsiveness. How can you only be responsive to PARTS of a culture and not the culture as a whole? Confusing stuff.
Madison Handford's Blog 