How can we teach and how can we learn? How can we include, how can we enrich?

Blanket statements such as this as how we start many of our school years. We have started to ask
how the community around us can make us stronger. How can learning from the cultures that
enhance our schools teach us to be great? What can the community show us that will make us
stronger and wiser? As a state how are we doing? How are all the others doing? We sit in our
staff meetings and we make sub committess and other comittess to make it better. We look at the
statistics and we compare ourselves. Then we test and test. We evaluate and test some more. We
make expectations and expect all students to adhere to our rules. Then we take a step back and
look and someone says, What the heck are we doing?
So we start off by where we are as a state and compare ourselves to the other big states,
Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois. As stated by Rand Education California ranks 48th out
of 50 states when the average NAEP score across all tests is used. Californias fourth and eighth
grade students consistently scored well below the national average, and California was the lowest
scoring of the five most populous states in the nation. California ranks 47th out of 47 states
when we compare scores for students from similar familiesa better measure for comparing the
education systems across states. Gulp, we are scoring poorly and as far as minorities our state
has many different cultures being represented in our schools. We look at the numbers and how
many minorities are in our schools.
Ethnic distribution of public school students: 201415
Ethnicity

African American not

Hispanic
American Indian or

Number of
students

Percentage

373,280

6.16%

36,755

0.62%

Alaska Native
Asian

545,720

8.70%

Filipino

158,224

2.43%

3,344,431

53.25%

31,513

0.53%

1,531,088

25.00%

175,700

2.68%

38,809

0.63%

6,235,520

100.00%

Hispanic or Latino
Pacific Islander
White not Hispanic
Two or More Races Not
Hispanic
None Reported
Total

53.25 % of our population is Hispanic or Latino, not white. With an array of other cultures
teaching us that we need to improve.
One suggestion might be teachers working to learn more about the communities around
them. This could include attending functions and showing respect to the cultures that are
represented in the school where they teach. A child will look to their family for advice and
guidance. Schools should be going beyond celebrating holidays and look into the richness
cultures can offer. Barbara T Bowman said Children learn to establish and verify perceptions
and beliefs about the world through direct teaching by the older people in their community and
through identification with those people who care for them and are emotionally important to
them. Emotional/social ties bind children first to their primary caregivers and then to others in
their group, providing the impetus to think, feel, and behave like them. Knowing this as teachers,
knowing what is going on in the home is imperative. Students should also be empowered to
look at the community they live in, and present that community to their fellow students.

It is vitally important that non-minority educators realize that there is another voice,
another reality; that many of the teachers whom they seek to reach have been able to conquer the
educational system because they received the kind of instruction that their white progressive
colleagues are denouncing. (Delpit p.19) Other peoples children culture conflict what we often
teach in the classroom. So, we work to change, and how we change varies from school to school
and place to place. In a state as large as California it is difficult to make blanket laws for all the
schools to follow. Areas in my opinion, should be encouraged and challenged to find a solution
for the community they represent. These communities can then go back and learn from each
other and grow. In order to grow however, these groups can not only contain educators they must
also contain community members and organizations that support the area. Another challenge for
the schools is to look at text that is being taught. The blanket educational common core standard
might not fit what is going on in a community. Perhaps states should be allotting time for each
area to learn from the members it is representing. Because this would provide some flexibility
from the state, it is dangerous in the minds of those who create the laws.
As a Special Education teacher, I feel lucky that I not only teach to so many different
cultures, but my class sizes are smaller and I truly know my students. I also have a vast history
on them because I am in the high school. I notice how the students adapt to us. They are
knowledgeable in our cultural norms and learning English. I often worry that we dont show that
same respect by learning some words and phrases from their language. I encourage kids to speak
about their culture, but often that makes them the center of a conversation which is not always a
place they wish to be. I then attempt to speak about their culture in my teaching and find that
they are more comfortable speaking once we open the door for them a bit.
Bowman also states Confusing development with specific cultural accomplishments has

led to a misunderstanding of children's abilities, resulting in poorly designed educational

programs and practices. By equating a child's developmental competence with a particular form
of behavior, teachers misread the meaning of the child's behavior and are led toward practices
that compromise the child's potential for learning. This leads to the conversation of teachers
listening and hearing instead of going through the motions and simply teaching. We as a system
create these elaborate programs to cover the needs for our minorities and we leave out huge
chunks of the information because we forgot to listen. Knowledge is power, soon enough we
might to be able to stop all of our questions and find some solutions.

References

Bowman Barbara T. (1994) Cultural Diversity Academic Achievement

North Central Regional Educational Lab., Oak Brook, IL.
California Department of Education. Fingertip Facts on Education in California CalEdFacts
Sept. 2015. Web. 14 Jan. 2016. <http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/cb/ceffingertipfacts.asp>.
Carroll, Stephen J, Krop Cathy, Jeremy Akes, Peter A. Morrison, Ann Flanagan. (2005)
Californias K12 public schools : how are they doing? The RAND Corporation Pittsburgh, PA.
Deplit Laura. (1995) Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (2nd Edition).
New York. New York Press.