TeachersTopic is a periodical feature about a subject of interest to the teaching community written by a prominent expert in the field. This month, Ms. Renee Moore, answers questions about culturally engaged instruction.
You’ve developed a strategy called Culturally Engaged Instruction (CEI) for teaching English and, in particular, grammar to African American high school students. What are the basic tenets of this approach?
Culturally Engaged Instruction (CEI) is a term I gleaned from the work of Gloria Ladson Billings, author of The Dreamkeepers: Effective Teachers of African American Students (I communicated with her while I was doing my own classroom research), and other educational researchers who have plowed this ground before. She and other researchers use the term “culturally relevant teaching” to describe the practice of teachers using approaches that are harmonic with the backgrounds and experiences of their students. I chose the word “engaged” to emphasize the transactional nature of teaching and learning as I observed and practiced it in my own classroom.
I define CEI as dynamic practice shaped by informed and collaborative analysis of the particular cultural experiences, strengths, and learning goals of a specific group of students within a particular community. On the surface, it is basic good teaching to get to know one’s students and their backgrounds. I just took it a step or two further in relation to the specific history of language instruction and Blacks in America.
Your writings point to the beginning of the school year as the most critical time to begin understanding students in their cultural context. How can teachers take maximum advantage of this opportunity to engage their students?
The beginning of the school year, as Harry Wong and others have told us, is very important for many reasons. In relation to CEI, it represents a fresh start for teacher and students; getting to know each other based on the realities of who we are right now in our life journey, rather than based upon pre-conceived ideas or formulas. We do ourselves and our students a great injustice by assuming things based upon such demographic factors as living conditions, socioeconomic levels, relatives, or what last year’s teacher said.
Engaging in meaningful activities at the start of the year to learn about students and their level of performance also introduces the concept of real research and real learning. It establishes tangibly the importance that you attach to each student as a unique learner, and helps reinforce the work habits and procedures you expect for the year (circa Wong). I made a very BIG DEAL out of my first-of-the-year assessments, setting aside at least one full week of class to conduct and analyze them. Students were involved in the analysis as well as the performing of these pre-assessments. Also, teachers should make sure they’ve given every type of learner an opportunity to express his or her knowledge, skills, goals, and talents.
The beginning of school is also the time to establish meaningful connections with parents, guardians, or significant adults; in order to further understanding of the cultural context of the students and to establish healthy communications before any problems arise.
Would CEI be applicable for the teaching of other subjects?
Some of the features of CEI that I talk about in my research are tethered to the language arts because of the relationship between culture and language. However, I am sure it is applicable in other subject areas, simply because it is built around the time-tested concepts of getting to really know one’s students, the community, the school’s climate, and all of the factors that impact on what we do. I think it is supremely counterproductive to pretend that we can create an insulated little world within our classroom into which the other aspects of our lives or our students’ lives do not permeate. It is possible, however, to establish a clear perimeter that demarcates our classroom experience from the rest of the world, where we and our students can consciously choose to move into different types of relationships and conduct.
Would CEI be applicable for teaching other minority students? For teaching white students?
