Nichole Smith

TED 2250
April 22, 2016
Culturally responsive teaching is important because our country is not homogeneous, so
our classrooms wont be either. Each students is different, with their own backgrounds,
experiences, needs, and dreams. All of these children are entitled to a quality education that takes
these factors into account for each student. They deserve teachers who care about them, believe
in them, and push them to do their best. As an educator it is important to respect the cultures of
our students and to bring their cultures into the classroom. The identities of your students should
be encouraged, valued, and celebrated. Learning about your students and their families is critical
to understanding your students.
While working on this project, I learned that the majority of the community is African
American, with smaller white and Hispanic populations. This information reminds me that as a
teacher I may be in a school where there is a difference between the backgrounds and
experiences of my students. There is also a visible difference that can cause students to feel like
they cannot connect with other students or with the teacher. I grew up in a community where the
majority of the population was white and our high school only had two teachers that were not
white. This made me think about how the students in my community who were not white
probably felt this type of disconnect with the teachers. In our school they did not make much of
an effort to learn about the differing experiences of the students in their classroom, I think that
this is an area where my school could have improved. I think that learning about your students is
one of the most important things you can do as an educator.

In this community I would probably have a class, like John Nguyen in Finding Joy in
Teaching Students of Diverse Backgrounds, where many of my students are African American
and have preconceptions about what kind of teacher and person I am because I am a different
race than them. I would need to work to challenge this, as John says Thats the first thing:
dispelling stereotypes, and we continue to do that throughout the year (pg. 66). I think that
getting to know your students and letting your students get to know you is the first step to
breaking down stereotypes. I would have open discussions in my class that allow students to talk
about the experiences that have had an impact on their life and discuss shared experiences.
Before having these discussions, though, I would need to gain their trust and show them that I
care because if I dont they wont feel comfortable sharing with me.
I also learned that many of the students in my classroom at Merrill Palmer did not live in
the same community as the school. The high school that I went to was a school of choice so there
were also many students who didnt live in the community. I want my students to have a
connection with the community that the school is in, but I dont want my students who dont live
in the same community to feel left out. I would have my students research their own
communities as a project and then share their information with each other, because growing up in
different communities can also affect who you are. I think a good way to connect the students
would be to utilize the resources in the other communities as well as the one the school is in to
allow them to experience the communities of their classmates.
Some important assets of the community that I could utilize in planning for culturally
responsive teaching and learning are things such as an art museum, a history museum, a public
library, cultural centers, and members of the community. Museums and libraries would be great
locations for field trips and inviting members of cultural centers and members of the community

into the classroom, bring the community to the students. Taking students to an art museum
allows students to see works from different cultures. Viewing art is a good way to see what a
culture finds important and what messages a culture is trying to share. Local history museums
are a way for students to see the different cultures that have had an effect on the community they
are living in and learn about events or people that are not included in their books. These types of
field trips can give students visual examples of the lessons, which I will have been teaching in
the classroom, and seeing these things in person can make them feel more tangible to the
students than just seeing pictures or reading from a book.
Reading books can still be very helpful in teaching students about different cultures.
Taking a trip to a public library can give students access to books about and written by authors
from many different cultures. I could also have a librarian show them how to conduct research to
find information about other cultures or about their own. Cultural centers are another place that I
could take my students, or I could invite members of a cultural center into my classroom to speak
with my students. This would give students the opportunity to personally hear information and
stories from people of different cultures. It also gives them the ability to ask questions about
what they found out and any additional things that they want to know about a culture. Inviting
other members of the community, such as the parents of the students, into the classroom can also
give the students these opportunities. Bringing in family members of the students in my class
would allow the students to learn about the cultures of their classmates.
My role as a teacher in this community would be to be a culturally responsive educator
and to be an advocate for my students. As a culturally responsive teacher I would honor the
cultures and identities of the students in my classroom and of the people in the community. I
would bring in lessons and materials about different cultures, while involving the community in

my classroom and my students in the community. I would also reflect my beliefs about social
justice in my classroom through my lessons and my actions. In Finding Joy, Sonia Nieto states
that being a social justice educator also means fighting injustice whenever and wherever one
finds it (pg. 107). So I would also become an advocate for my students and their families. As an
advocate I would actively work to educate about stereotypes and actively work towards getting
rid of those stereotypes. I would work to make sure that my students are provided with equal
opportunities and speak out for them when they are denied those opportunities. I would also
speak out on issues that are important to and affect my students.
As a teacher in this community I would also make sure that my classroom becomes its
own community. I want my students to be comfortable in being themselves and expressing their
individual identities. I want my classroom to be a place where students feel safe, not only
physically but emotionally, as well. I want to be a teacher who takes the time to learn about their
students and allows them to learn about each other, as well as allowing them to learn about my
life. I want my students to know that I care about them and that I believe in them and their
abilities. I want them to have a passion for learning, to want to be in school, and to enjoy the
process of learning; I want to be a teacher that makes them feel this way. My classroom will be a
place where students feel free to talk to me about their problems or successes, or anything that is
going on in their life. My students will see that I dont know everything and that I am still
constantly learning and searching for knowledge. That as much as I want them to learn from me,
I also want to learn from them, because each student has had their own experiences and can teach
others.
In my service learning site I have seen examples of how I can incorporate students
identities into my lessons to be a more effective urban educator. At Merrill Palmer I saw that they

have multicultural markers and paints that they make easily accessible to the students and
encourage them to use them when they are drawing or painting themselves or others. This is a
way to show to the students that all of the colors of skin are equal and important. This also keeps
students from feeling that their skin color is somehow wrong or not as favorable as another,
which is something that they may often see being said about skin color. Another thing that I saw
in my time there was a lesson about why there are differences in the color of skin. They talked
about how the color of skin was effected by the temperature of the region that your ancestors
came from. They told the students that if your ancestors have darker skin, they would have come
from a warmer place and if their skin was lighter, then they came from a colder place. This is
way for them to teach the kids that the only differences between people of different skin colors is
locations.
There were also two books that I saw in their classroom which I found very interesting.
The first one was called Shades of Black which talked about the many variations there are in
color of black skinned people. This is an important issue to talk about because I know that within
the black community there is often shame either placed on those who are darker or lighter
skinned and tension between these two groups because of it. It is good to have a book that
celebrates the different shades of black skin so that black students are reminded that their shades
are equally beautiful, as the book says. Another book that addresses an important issue that I saw
in the classroom was a book called I Love My Hair! This book talks about some of the different
ways that black girls wear their natural hair. It also mentions how the girl was made fun of for
wearing her hair in an afro and talked about how she should be proud of her hair. I think that this
is an important message to have in the classroom for young girls because society often shames
them for their natural hair. Seeing these types of things in the classroom gave me ideas for the

types of materials and lessons that I can have in my classroom that may seem small to some
people but can be very important to my students. I will make sure that my classroom has a
library of different books written about and by people from different cultures, backgrounds,
abilities, languages, etc. and incorporate them into my lessons or create lessons around them.
This project has made me realize that being a culturally responsive teacher is an everyday
requirement. It is not just teaching a lesson about a different culture or having culturally diverse
materials. I now understand that to teach diverse students I need to be on a very personal level
with them where we have mutual trust and understanding. This project has shown me how
researching the community can better help me understand my students and help me to consider
every students needs and backgrounds when preparing and teaching. This project also made me
think about how I can utilize the assets of the community in sharing and creating experiences for
my students. My research while doing this project also made me think about students that I often
overlooked when thinking about teaching diverse students, which are immigrants or children of
immigrants. While doing my research, I found out about the International Institute of
Metropolitan Detroit, which is a block from Merrill Palmer and provides services for legal
immigrants. This made me think about if there are any services for illegal immigrants which
wont threaten their ability to stay in the country. I have decided that as a teacher I want to find
services to help my students whose needs are overlooked or ignored and that if I cannot find
available services, I will work to help create these services for my students and the community.