Culturally Proficient Educational Practices

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Culturally Proficient Educational Practices

• Plenary Session
• District School Board of Niagara
• Randall B. Lindsey
• October 5, 2007

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Session Purposes

• Engage in conversations and activities about the
  impact and influence of race, culture, ethnicity,
  language, sexual orientation, socioeconomics, and
  class on educational practice
• Introduce the tools for cultural proficiency and
  explore the concept as a way of teaching,
  coaching, and leading

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In honor of

• Terry Cross

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We

• Raymond Terrell
• Kikanza Nuri Robins
• Delores B. Lindsey
• Brenda CampbellJones
• Franklin CampbellJones
• Laraine Roberts
• Richard M. Martinez

• Stephanie Graham
• R. Chris Westphal, Jr.
• Cynthia Jew
• Linda Jungwirth
• Jarvis Pahl
• John Krownapple

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Cultural Proficiency

• It is an inside-out approach
• It is about being aware of how we work with
  others
• It is about being aware of how we respond to
  those different from us

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Cultural Perceptions

• Engage in the activity
• Select a partner that you do not know well.
• A and B?
• A shares her perceptions about B (next slide)
• B responds to those perceptions
• B shares his perceptions about A
• A responds to those perceptions

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Share Your Perceptions How do you think your
partner would respond?

• Country of family origin and heritage
• Languages spoken
• Interests or hobbies
• Favorite foods
• Preferred types of movies, television programs
• Preferred types of music
• Pets, if any, or favorite animals

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We have hunches . . .

• The cultural context of schools has an impact
  and/or influence on who learns.
• The teacher/leaders deep understanding of the
  influence of diversity in the context of
  schooling will positively influence student
  achievement.
• Culturally proficient instructors, coaches, and
  leaders have a deep understanding of the
  interdependence between ones culture and ones
  actions.

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Cultural proficiency is

• A mind set to guide educators and to build their
  confidence a paradigm shift for some
• The use of specific tools for effectively
  describing, responding to, and planning for
  issues that emerge in diverse environments
• Policies and practices at the organizational
  level, and values and behaviors of the leader
  that enable effective cross cultural interactions
  among students, teachers, administrators, and
  community
• A way of becoming and growing as a member of this
  community

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The Cultural Proficiency tools

•  The Guiding Principles
• Underlying values of the approach
• The Continuum
• Language for describing both healthy and
  non-productive policies, practices and individual
  behaviors
•  The Essential Elements
• Five behavioral standards for measuring, and
  planning for, growth toward cultural proficiency
•  The Barriers
• Three caveats that assist in responding
  effectively to resistance to change

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The Guiding Principles

• The Guiding Principles are the core values, the
  foundation upon which the approach is built

• Culture is a predominant force
• People are served in varying degrees by the
  dominant culture
• Acknowledge group identities
• Diversity within cultures is important
• Respect unique cultural needs

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The Continuum

• Cultural destructiveness
• Cultural incapacity
• Cultural blindness
• Cultural pre-competence
• Cultural competence
• Cultural proficiency

• There are six points along the cultural
  proficiency continuum that indicate unique ways
  of perceiving and responding to differences.

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Proficiency

• Downward Spiral Conversation

Incapacity
Pre-Competence
Destructiveness
Blindness
Competence
Upward Spiral Conversation
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Essential Elements for Effective Practice

• Assess Culture
• Value Diversity
• Manage the Dynamics of Difference
• Adapt to Diversity
• Institutionalize Cultural Knowledge

• The Essential Elements of cultural proficiency
  provide the standards for individual behavior and
  organizational practices

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Cultural Proficiency helps us to move FROM
TOLERANCE FOR DIVERSITY TO
TRANSFORMATION FOR EQUITY Destructiveness -
Blindness Precompetence
- Proficiency

• Focus on them and their inadequacies
• Tolerate, assimilate, acculturate
• Demographics viewed as challenge
• Prevent, mitigate, avoid cultural dissonance and
  conflict
• Stakeholders expect or help others to assimilate
• Information added to existing policies,
  procedures, practices.

• The focus on us and our practices
• Esteem, respect, adapt
• Demographics inform policy and practice
• Manage, leverage, facilitate conflict
• Stakeholders adapt to meet needs of others
• Information integrated into
• policies, procedures, practices.

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The Barriers

• The presumption of entitlement
• Systems of oppression
• Unawareness of the need to adapt

• The barriers to cultural proficiency are systemic
  privilege, oppression, and resistance to change

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To become a culturally proficient, collaborative
community we . . .

• Affirm our commitment to using cultural
  proficiency as one approach to the issues that
  arise from diversity.
• Use the tools as part of our shared vision and
  understanding about our community.
• Engage others in conversations about the
  relation of diversity to the teaching and
  learning communities which we serve.
• Hold ourselves accountable for our behaviors
  and actions in relation to those we serve.

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Teaching well in difficult times

• Our schools reflect the sociocultural and
  sociopolitical context in which we live. This
  context is unfair to many young people and their
  families and the situations in which they live
  and go to school, but teachers and other
  educators do not simply have to go along with
  this realitymany school policies and practices
  are based on flawed ideas about intelligence and
  difference. If we want to change the situation,
  it means changing the curriculum and pedagogy in
  individual classrooms, as well as the schools
  practices We need to create classrooms..in which
  racism, sexism, social class discrimination, and
  other biases are no longer acceptable. Sonia
  Nieto (2004)

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The Moral Imperative

• . . . , listening . . . requires not only open
  eyes and ears, but open hearts and minds. We do
  not really see through our eyes or hear through
  our ears, but through our beliefs. . . . It is
  not easy, but it is the only way to learn what it
  might feel like to be someone else and the only
  way to start the dialogue.
• - Lisa Delpit

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3.2.1 Reflection

• 3 things I learned/affirmed from todays
  session
• 2 questions I take from todays learning
• 1 action I will take as a result of todays
  learning