checklist worksheets

 

Kohn/Intro Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

 Kohn- While reviewing the list of what a classroom shoud or shouldnt look like, I found many ascpects to be "givens", like students faces, teachers voices, around the school, ect. However there are things on the list that I am pleasently surprised to see. When looking at class discussion it was common in my elementary school days to only speak when talken to, but it is extremely important students feel comportable to use their voices. Same with the location of the teacher in the classroom, I remember the teacher to always be sitting at their desk infront of the room or standing infront of the board. When reading this list all I could think about was how these rules have affected my education, even in college. While at CCRI I found a lot of my classrooms to have students work surrounding the walls rather than rules or teacher chosen posters. In these cases I felt the vibe to be more comfoting and I was actually interested in reading the wall decor. Also it is common in college courses to not sit in rows and I have found this to envoke a lot more class discussion. Not to mention all of the professors I have had that enforce these classroom positives, tend to be my favorite and the classes I have learned the most in.

When watching the youtube video it stuck out to me when they said" Students do not learn as blank slates". This is such a beautiful way to explain in simple terms why culturally relevant pegagogy is important in childrens success. Children live for years in their cultures at home before they go to school it is bizzare to expect that all of these learnt behaviors, beliefs, emotions, just go out of the window. This video did a good job of explaining how children learn better and are more involved when their cultyres are taken into consideration. Building on students prior knowledge will help them understand new concepts and make connections to their culture with a possibly new learnt culture. Although we talked about it not too long ago, this immedietly made me think of the Tuscon High School students. When their MAS program was in affect some students whole lives were changed. Suddenly they had hope for their future after they were deemed devient, their families all saw a change in their drive. There was proof in grades, attdendance, and attitude that these students were positively affected by RAS and nobody was negetively affected. White students were still allowed to take this class, everyone was welcome. Yet state officials turned the racist card on this program claiming it to promote segregation. To me and most people in their right mind, this was a manipulative and victimizing tactic to accuse such a positive program of. Their situation and trial proved to me that those people didnt truly care about the well being of those latino students and they wanted their whiteness to show dominance.