Prompt #6 and Dewey

In order to be a culturally competent teacher, I must learn to communicate with my students in ways that demonstrate sensitivity to sociocultural and linguistic differences, while using a variety of verbal and non-verbal communication techniques that encourage positive social interaction and support learning in my classroom. So far I have observed the teacher whose classroom I volunteer in, communicate in ways with the students that demonstrate her sensitivity and responsiveness to sociocultural and linguistic differences. After observing her styles time and time again, I was able to start to slowly communicate in the same way with my small group of students. To begin, although I observed the teacher communicating with her students in ways that demonstrate sensitivity and responsiveness to sociocultural and linguistic differences, there is one particular event which I witnessed that best exemplifies this.


The first example I will provide of when the teacher did this was when on one occasion I was asked to test the children’s speed at reading a certain passage in one of the books- we were looking for the student’s level of fluency, accuracy, etc. The next student on the list was a student named James. I was looking around for James but didn’t see him in his usual seat or anywhere else in the room. So I brought it to the teacher’s attention that James was absent. When I told her this, she looked at the clock and told me to skip over him for now, but to give him an opportunity when he arrived because she insisted that he would be arriving shortly. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, James did show up. He came right in, hung up his coat and backpack as if he wasn’t late, and nothing was out of the ordinary. The teacher in her anticipation for his eventual arrival, left work on his desk, and greeted James and asked him to get started on his work. Never disciplining or even making mention of the fact that he was late. So the morning went on as usual, but just as I was about to leave, the teacher took me aside and explained that in the beginning of the year James tardiness was a regular occurrence, and she naturally became alarmed and called the mother of the student. She said that before she could even get out how concerned she was with James’s pattern of tardiness to his mother, she was already apologizing. The mother explained that Friday mornings were particularly hard for her to get James to school on time as she usually worked the night shift on Thursday and was getting home right around the time that James was suppose to be getting off to school, and that without a father figure around, she was the one responsible for getting James to school on time, but if for some reason she was ever held late at work, it would then affect James’s arrival time at school. The teacher went on to say, “Things like this don’t go on in other districts, we (the teachers) get that. But if the parent is making an honest effort to better an unfortunate situation for the sake of their child, who am I to ruin all those efforts and hold it against my student? We just find ways, together, to make it work. Sure it may affect my plans sometimes, but it’s worth it in the end.”

This whole situation reminds me of theorist John Dewey who believes that education is a social function. The excerpt of the article when Dewey talks about social factors is what comes to mind after talking about this story. Dewey says that “failure to take into account the significant social factors means none the less an absence of mind…”. If the teacher were to fail to acknowledge the mother’s social factor of work, the child would be the one who was paying the cost. Dewey goes on to say that the deeper purpose of education in a democracy is to get to know and interact with other groups, and allow for different ways of thinking for ourselves, which is exactly what was occurring between the teacher and this family.

The teacher was taking into account the hardship that this student’s family occasionally had to endure. Instead of holding it against the student, the teacher recognized the sociocultural difference and made the best out of the situation- thus she was making the communication between herself and the mother much easier as there existed a great sense of sensitivity and respectfulness on her end.

Prompt #5 and Delpit

To be a culturally competent teacher, I will have to work with families while utilizing community resources and understanding the differences of the families of each of my individual students. The influence that family participation has on a student’s learning is immense and incredibly important as is the benefit of collaboration with the wider school community. As much as I would like things to always be easy, I know that it would be naïve to think that a conflict will never arise between me and the parent(s) of my students. Challenges that may come up would be problems that will affect the communication that I have with the parents. These problems may be things such as difference in language, and furthermore how fluent the parents speak English, as English is the language which I speak. The second problem which I may encounter in collaborating with the parents of my students could be more culturally based issues. For example, the way which I handle disciplining the student may be different than how the parent would handle it. We may even talk to the student differently. This issue is where theorist Lisa Delpit comes in.


Lisa Delpit believes very strongly in the importance of communication- communication between teacher and student, student and parents and parents and teachers. But it seems she feels the most important would be the communication which occurs between parents and teachers. In much of her discussion she refers to poor children and children of color who are the ones most in need of a productive communication between their parents and teachers. Delpit believes that “the dilemma is not really in the debate over instructional methodology, but rather in communicating across cultures and in addressing the more fundamental issue of power, of whose voice gets to be heard in determining what is best for poor children and children of color.” These ideas will help me to address the challenges which I will face with the parents of my students.

I would address the challenges that come about with the communication, or lack thereof, between myself and the parents by creating alternative ways to the methods which I will do things. For example if Johnny were to repeatedly fail to hand in homework assignments, I would have to find a way to punish him in order to discourage him from repeating the behavior. Before taking any sort of action though, I could call Johnny’s parents and inform them of the situation and then ask for words of advice, perhaps what they would do if they were in my situation. In the words of Delpit, by doing this I would be “…seeking out those who perspectives may differ most, by learning to give their words complete attention…and to listen, no, hear what they say”. Then I could combine how I would have handled the issue, with how the parents would’ve handled the issue keeping us all on equal terms and on equal levels when it came to the punishment and the influence which the punishment has on Johnny. Furthermore, I would just try to address ever challenge open mindedly, and perhaps as always being second to the parents, because after all they know their children better that I would as their teacher. This would ultimately show, I think, a great amount of respect for the contributions of the parents when it comes to the academic area of the child’s life.