Represent!
What Diversity Do You Bring, Part2?
In my last post I asked the questions, "What culture/persons do you represent? What diversity do we bring?" And today I am wondering how many of us teach in the area in which we live?
At a recent event: The Texas Tribune: A Symposium on Urban Public Education, one of the panelist asked the audience to think of the most disadvantage neighborhood in their district. He then asked how many educators actually live in that district. The point sunk in as very few audience members were able to say that they did in fact live in the same area of their students with greatest need. I understand the reasons for this, so this is not a criticism, but it reminds me that there are different sub cultures that influence our students actions and that we need to be aware and in tune with the language and customs of these cultures. Can we truly reach our students if we don't? Can we truly understand our students if we live outside of this culture?
In the TODOS Mathematics for All Spring 2013 publication Volume 9, Number 1, Carlos A. lopezLeiva and Craig Willey discuss the influences of these cultures on teaching, and they are committed to making Math relevant to all these cultures. They call these languacultures and describe how they are impacted (either positively or negatively) when someone from outside that group moves in. There is a learning curve of sorts to learning the new "clique", or in their words comunidad. Because I currently live and teach in a small rural town, I see this relationship--mostly because I have not always lived in a rural area and I had to learn the culture.
I grew up in a suburb of Houston thinking I knew what rural was because I visited my grandparents on a farm once a year and then there was the Rodeo. When my parents dropped me off at Texas A&M my freshman year, I breathed in deeply the smell of fresh fields, and the sweet smell of manure—I loved it. There were students who put boots on to go dancing, and then there were students who wore boots. Everything in the rural culture facinated me and I wanted in. The "kickers" as we called "them" were polite, but no one quite let me in, and I craved to authentic acceptance. Looking back, the fact that I could label them "kickers" (named so after the country station KIKK in Houston) is pretty telling. If you see someone as different, maybe it is off to a wrong start from the beginning.
Years later, determined to rear my own kids in the country, we bumbled through our own little version of Green Acres, and now I get it. So much of my perspective has changed. I am polite when people ask curious questions, but I don’t go into detail because I am protective of the life I enjoy—it is not just a dress-up-in-boots-for-the-rodeo kind of thing. Living in the community where my students live does make a difference when I am connecting with my students. The quiet country kid beomes loquacious once they know I live on acreage with chickens and cows. Is this important? If that student previously felt misunderstood, then yes. And they are misunderstood. Many times I have heard a teacher complain about the days and full weeks that the students miss for livestock shows. For the student, it is not optional. Thousands of dollars are invested, and that week off is their chance to make it big (or break even) with a good show. It is a business. Is that learning any less valuable? Are we over looking these gifted business persons because their grades are not quite exemplary? How many of them are GT and we miss it because we didn't understand their world?
Maybe it does help to be "one of" the persons from your student's culture. But what happens when you aren't? Are we able to reach the students heart by listening? And if we don't understand, can we accept?
What if there are not enough people willing to teach in an area they grew up in or live in? Can we bridge this gap?
