- Morrell and Duncan-Andrade argue that students benefit from culturally relevant instruction, yet there has been (and continues to be) ardent resistance insofar as rethinking or recapitulation the “canon” is concerned. Why do you feel that there has been continued resistance to the incorporation of this kind of pedagogy?
- The authors cite Ferdman (1990) who argues that cultural valuation leads to higher levels of literacy acquisition; why do you believe this is the case? More specifically, do you feel that cultural valuation (i.e., valuing a student's culture) in fact leads to higher levels of literacy acquisition?
- Why is it important for students to be taught in their own “native” tongues; and, what kind of transformational experiences do the authors attribute to this kind of instruction?
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Morrell & Duncan-Andrade
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It is important for students to be taught in their own native tongues because they are better able to understand what they are learning. They are more accustomed to their own native tongues and therefore will be able to digest the material and be more influenced by it. In another tongue that they are not as familiar with, they may be able to pick up a few concepts and ideas here or there, but ultimately, they will lose out on the full meaning of what they are trying to learn because of the culture that comes engrained in the tongue. By learning in their own native tongue, students do not need to take that extra step of translating the language and culture of instruction into their own, and thus will be able to respond and express themselves better in their education. The transformational experiences the authors attribute to this kind of instruction is that the students were able to really link their education in the classrooms to what they were interested in. When analyzing the rap songs juxtaposed with the canonical poetry that was part of the curriculum, the kids were able to draw multiple interpretations from the classical pieces of literature. Through analyzing the rap songs, they could connect it to similar situations that they were experiencing in their own lives, and apply these sentiments and thoughts to the feelings they got from the poetry in their own ways.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the question regarding the resistance to culturally relevant instruction I believe that the short answer is that there is resistance from the quantitative thinkers. There is such a focus on the quantitative and analytical aspect of instruction: the scores on standardized tests, meeting or missing growth scores for children in different minority subgroups, evaluating teacher effectiveness, etc. This is to the detriment of the educational system at large because of the tendency to emphasize the fact that culturally relavent instruction does not have broad implementation and research showing its effectiveness. However, this is the central catch-22 of culturally relavent instruction: the nature of culturally relavent instruction is that it is tailored to the particular educational community in which it is being implemented. I believe, however, that there is a clear and present need to implement this culturally relavent instruction in our educational paradigm. The old way of educating our children has been a consistent failure in terms of giving students a broad base of applicable knowledge and skills that they can apply to the real world. I think that there is a growing desire from the educational community to explore and utilize all new and available educational tools, including culturally relavent instruction. The old resistances are beginning to break down
ReplyDelete