Part I

The disposition I believe that I have and will continue to make the most personal growth in
this semester is Affirming Attitude Toward Difference. ALL students should be held
accountable for high learning expectations. If I have learned anything from my professors and
my Intern Mentor teachers, it is that. In my internship setting, the "regular" Junior English class
was given the same assignment as the AP Junior English class (a predominantly Caucasian class)
and knowing this they immediately let themselves think that they were incapable of performing
the same task. A girl even wrote at the top of her paper, "This is too hard; I can't do this! They
can, and they need to, so they should. It is not the content that has to be entirely different when it
comes to different realms of students. Instead, paying attention to the pacing based on the
students needs will better suit their needs. All students should feel challenged, and challenged
enough to feel valued, not incompetent. Ana Maria Villegas asserts in "Culturally Responsive
Teachers" (2007) that "to engage students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, we
must see them as capable learners" (p.28). Students need to be able to discover their own abilities
and should be encouraged to expand those abilities to foster greater confidence in themselves.
In my classroom, students will understand the capabilities of a safe environment. Students
will have the ability to share and discover aspects about themselves that they did not know
before. It is not safe to assume that all students experience culture in the same manner. Cultural
responsiveness means suspending judgement of all cultures and create a bigger focus on what
that particular cultural means to specific students. This also involves supporting students who are
not comfortable sharing their experiences. A safe environment means that students can share
openly without feeling judged, but a safe environment also means that students are given
opportunities to pass on activities that involve sharing personal experiences with feeling berated.

These students should not experience pressure from their peers, and they should definitely not
experience pressure from their teachers to do so. It is up to me to truly listen to what students
have to say so as to have the proper critical consciousness when it comes to my reactions and
responses. It is not up to me to pry but to ensure that students have an understanding of all
experiences shared.
To further my cultural responsiveness approaches, I will incorporate various professional
competencies in my teaching methods to ensure that I am effectively serving my students,
parents and colleagues. One of the most important professional competencies to take into
consideration is interpersonal awareness. There is not one assumption that is a safe one,
especially when it comes to classroom teaching. This involves understanding the limitations of
my own perspectives as well as making a conscious effort to understand the perspectives of
others. In regards to a safe environment, this means not assuming that a students is a merely a
jerk because he constantly disrupts class. It is up to me as a teacher to investigate the root of the
problem rather than making such assumptions. As such, students need to feel respected, and I
need to be willing enough to put myself in place of students to come to a full awareness of the
situation. This also coincides with suspending judgments. Because a student is a constant
behavioral issue does not mean that his or her parents are offering those poor parenting. It
remains imperative to treat parent concerns with care and with alacrity in this sense as well. I
want them to be an ally in promoting life-long learner for my students, so addressing their
concerns remains vital to that concept. In terms of asset-based thinking, I will rely on my
colleagues to offer my resources and content expertise to better my teaching. Everyone has
something to learn. Just because my methods differ from their does not mean, I can't value what
they bring to the table. That's the great thing about teaching. Even if you borrow a lesson from a

colleague, you will present it differently in your own way. Keeping this mentality with surely
offer some positive relationships.
In terms of classroom content, it is entirely up to me to teach it however I feel is necessary
to teach the content. Because of this, I feel that it is necessary to incorporate literature that speaks
to culturally diverse backgrounds. However, it remains important to suspend judgement in
thinking that one author speaking of one account will be representative of all of those similar
race of students in my class. Again, students experience culture differently, even if they come
from seemingly similar backgrounds. It is important for students to analyze an author's particular
choice in creating that particular text. To expand on this idea, students will be encouraged to
construct narratives that they will be able to personalize to their own experiences. This task is
two-fold--students will be able to participate in writer's workshops to learn the essentials of
creative writing, and they will be able to reflect on events from their lives that have shaped some
aspect about themselves today. This is best achieved through memoir writing, which students are
not exposed to highly at the high school level. However, if students are to articulate their own
ideas into critical theory writing, they need to be able to articulate themselves in their own way
with their own unique thoughts, pulling from several points of evidence. Students will be better
able to make those informed decisions if they understand who they are as a person and therefore
as a writer.

References
Villegas, M., Lucas, T. (2007). The culturally responsive teacher. In Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development, 28-33. Retrieved from
https://myasucourses.asu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-11671339-dt-content-rid56484310_1/courses/2015Fall-W-SED322-72357/Culturally%20Responsive
%20Teachers.pdf