Culturally Responsive Teaching

Literacy, language, and power are three things that a teacher needs to understand in order to be culturally responsive. When you hear a person in power speak, how do they speak? Do they speak with an Appalachian accent? Educators know that people in power have great literacy skills and speak in Standard English and that they must teach their students that but also make sure that their student's do not lose their dialect. Us as educators need to let our students know that it's not wrong to speak the way they do but we should also teach them how to code switch. It is very important to not let the students feel that they cannot succeed because they are from the Appalachian area. In the article, "...As soon as she opened her mouth!” one quote stated "Bright, capable, young men and women do not think they belong in college because they are hillbillies." One should not feel unsuccessful because of where they are from. I saw another article that stated “Not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but children have the equal right to develop their talent, their ability and their motivation.- John Fitzgerald Kennedy” This quote represents the way every teacher should feel, especially those in the Appalachian region.


"We believe that a meaning-centered model ... allows bilingual students to take full advantage of their first language abilities, and to surpass the limits set by their more limited knowledge of their second language." Moll believed that educators should let students use their first language abilities in the classroom and then work on their second language abilities. To overcome their cultural deficits, teachers need to assure students that they can succeed. Teachers can show them things that they understand really well and incorporate their interests into lessons. The teacher in the article made a thematic unit around construction because that was what the majority of the community had jobs in and the students were very interested in it and the community became involved as well.

Teacher may not know this but they can actually contribute to poor literacy instruction by not understanding cultural deficit and cultural difference. A teacher may think that her foreign exchange student from Central Asia has already learned and excelled in mathematics so she doesn’t help that student as much as she helps the others or for cultural deficit, a teacher may think that her Appalachian “hillbilly” student will never learn or succeed because of where they are from. These assumptions can contribute to poor literacy within that classroom.

I also believe that by letting students use their own dialect in the classroom this will help them focus more on learning and less on worrying about being corrected by the teacher for not talking correctly. Also, a teacher can show the students the similarities between their dialect and Standard English to increase the use of Standard English.

I do believe that the Where I Am From project supported culturally responsive teaching because it gave a good incite to the lives of our peers and it gave the teachers a better understanding of their students lives and the way they were raised. I think it helps show that even though we are from the Appalachian region, we are all still going to college and making a good life for ourselves and that contradicts the stereotypes we normally hear.

In my future classroom, I will do projects like the Where I Am From one to help me get a better understanding of my students and it will help me know how I need to approach instructing them. I will let my students use their dialect within the classroom but also teach them to code switch in the proper situations. I will use thematic units on things that they are interested in to help with their understanding as well.