Cultural Competence With Children: Chapter Analysis

According to Belonging, Being & Becoming, the Educators’ Guide ‘we need to ‘think about our own values, beliefs and attitudes related to diversity and difference and acknowledge and address any bias that we may hold’. As well as critically examining our own assumptions, ‘cultural competence’ requires early childhood educators to take a strong approach to countering racism and bias when we encounter it. This will require educators to make a conscious decision to promote children’s cultural competence in order to build and maintain an inclusive Australian society.

According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, cultural competence comprises of “understanding and appropriately responding to the unique combination of cultural variables that [individuals] bring to interactions (2004).”

In previous chapter readings, I learned about different ways to engage with children with different ethnic backgrounds, and how to prepare myself for further learning when it comes some difficulties along the way. There isn’t a step-by-step list to go by because every

In addition to creating a culture of care, ELLs’ learning styles, affective behaviors, and home-culture classroom norms should be considered when creating a culturally responsive classroom. As a teacher, I encourage all my students “…to learn from and interact respectfully with people from one’s own and other cultures” (Habib, Densmore-James, and Macfarlane 173) when I follow the six recommended tenets (173). This fosters an effective learning environment while also modeling and emphasizing respect for others, something of which our society is starting to lose

As a teacher, I’ve had the opportunity to work and interact with many professionals and families from different cultures. Personally, and considering the fact that I also come from another country, I’ve seen myself facing several cross cultural barriers.

Cultural competence is something that develops as we grow as individuals. Our life experiences what shapes and influences our interactions with other cultures. The more we learn about other cultures the better we are able to understand them, which in turn will lead to an increase in positive interactions involving diverse groups.

My cultural perspectives are based on my life experiences of growing up and living in the Midwest to a middle class, mixed nationality family. I’ve learned what is appropriate and how to act to survive in my world, based on my culture. My fiancé is from a similar culture to me, and even we have different beliefs on certain issues. Inside a culture, every one is not exactly the same. There are different individuals in each group, who can all relate to each other. Professionally, I am different and similar to many teachers in my school, and also the students in my school. As a colleague and educator, we all need to learn how to interact and succeed together. It can be difficult to align different cultural values of students and teachers to all be successful and teach the students how to survive in their world. The article gives solutions to the myths that surround multiple cultures coming together.

Teachers that stay abreast of their students’ lack of social experiences will have a definite advantage over those that do not. A teacher will be unable to have an effective learning environment without cultural awareness of the social experiences of their students that fill their classroom. This enables the teacher to present the curriculum in a more practical way, when it takes into consideration the encounters that are diverse to student and applies these elements to learning. Relating to student problems and allowing students to interactively relate to their peers works for the teacher and the student. Meeting cultural learning challenges prepares students for social

Looking at the teacher dispositions that indicate cultural competency I found three that were of interest to me. These three are empathy and caring for students which is developed, self-analysis, being a reflective practitioner and being reflective in general which is emerging and high expectations and a belief that students are capable learners which is developed. I feel that I am aware of the fact that I have empathy and I am caring for my students. Especially because many of them have

Second, teachers need to have a relationship with parents and their students. This will create an assertive classroom environment and a partnership. Meaning teachers getting to know the caregivers being prepared to work with the diverse cultures represented in America. Understanding will open doors of knowledge that will increase the relationship. When learning other cultures is not to label or separate into groups instead bring people closer together to

We all grow up in a culture, we develop our learning skills from our culture, based on an individual’s culture we can be informed on how the individuals communicate with each other. Also we can tell a lot about how the individual receives the information and how their thought process works. Culturally responsive teaching recognizes the importance of including students' cultural positions in all aspects of learning, stimulating classroom experiences and keeping students engaged.

While the Storti text provides practical knowledge on how to bridge cultural gaps, the Smith & Carvill text provides the reader with a Christ like focus on how and why to interact with individuals from other cultures. When attempting, as recommended above, to explain the expectations of the US culture, the teacher should not disregard or disrespect the practices of the individual’s native culture but help them understand the expectations here. Smith & Carvill (2000) note, “as good hosts, teachers need to value, affirm, and deepen the life experiences of their guests, the students” (p. 87). If the teacher can help the student feel accepted and understand the culture, they will have better motivation and better success in learning. This

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky is a well known to be a theorist who focused on the sociocultural development in young children. Lev Vygotsky strongly believed in the importance of the interaction with peers when it comes to the children’s growing process of learning. Through Vygotsky’s research, he came up with the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The zone of proximal development is the range of the child’s development of skills and abilities to which the child is able to complete a task by him or her self and needing a more experienced and knowledgeable person to help the child in order to complete a task. The zone of proximal development is an ongoing process; it constantly moves forward. As the child learns the

In this article, the authors describe a framework based on culturally relevant pedagogy. The overall research questions that guides this study is how would the teacher, be able to build cultural competence in ways that allowed him to be more effective at teach his students (Milner & Tenore, 2011)? The authors also observe the ways the teacher could develop relationships with the students’ inside and outside the classroom. The article explains how the teacher must build a trust factor with the

Cultural diversity: Throughout this semester, I have gained a better understanding about cultural diversity in classroom and why teachers should promote their cultural competence. Before I took the class, I was not aware of the issues of diversity play an important role on effecting the classroom. Students come to schools with different backgrounds, race, class, and cultural contexts, which lead to different learning styles. How a teacher incorporates teaching strategies for addressing differences is the key to students’ success, especially when facing minority groups. Ogbu mentioned that what is even more significant is the nature of the relationship between minority cultures/ languages and the culture and language of the dominant white Americans and the public schools they control (Ogbu, 1992.) This is why I need to foster cultural awareness by learning different types of cultural characteristic of minorities. I also conclude that effective teaching is also about teachers who embraces students’ cultural backgrounds. From the class, I also enjoy writing personal narrative history and family tree. It helps me to gain a new insight of what a multicultural perspective is about, that is, to affirm differences rather than deny them.