Empowering Educators Through Cultural Competence
The act of listening is perhaps the most underrated skill there is in education. As teachers, we are often asked to "do" a lot more than necessary: memorize standards, plan lessons, prepare for various assessments, call homes, provide a warm environment for our students (and visitors), attend faculty meetings with varying effectiveness and relevance, grade mounds of papers, and take what little time we have left to eat and sleep, usually less than we should.
Yet, with the laundry list of things that teachers do, check for, and assess, we might be better off staying still and letting students tell us more about what they need.
This is especially crucial in situations where we may or may not share similar backgrounds with the students we teach. We've known for decades that building relationships is a central part of our work, but this has even larger implications when we work with disadvantaged students. The teacher-student relationship has so many subtle nuances across race, gender, and class lines that opening our eyes to these nuances would make us better educators. Time and again, we see a growing number of educators willing to forgo the need to jump directly into teaching, educators who are more into getting to know the students.
After all, we shouldn't be preparing to teach content or the students we imagine might be there, but rather the students in front of us.
We can do this by taking up some of the skills we wish to impart on our own students. In our classrooms, however, that's not enough. For excellence, we may need to switch the way we talk to and about students. Here are some workable strategies that I've used and observed.
Build Relationships, But as a Teacher First
Everyone has a different approach to classroom management. Some don't smile until December, if ever. Others can't help but smile and laugh throughout the year. Some impart their wisdom with diatribes and speeches, while others know how to quietly move about the room and make their presence felt. The common thread in all of those cases is students Empowering Educators Through Cultural Competence | Edutopia:
Middle school math teacher and coach
