Culture Mismatch

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Culture Mismatch

• Teachers perceptions and assumptions of urban
  children
• Antoinette Miranda, Ph.D.
• Associate Professor
• The Ohio State University

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• The future of American society will be
  determined in large measure by the quality of its
  urban schools.
• Pedro Noguera, 2003

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Cultural Mismatch Home-school incompatibility

• Many researchers have argued that teacher
  preparation programs fail to adequately prepare
  teachers for urban schools
• Teachers backgrounds are often vastly different
  from their students

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Culture Shock

• How do I work with these kids?

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Pedagogy of Poverty

• Instructional style that maintains the status quo

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We Cant Teach What We Dont Know

• Socially isolated from our students lives
  outside the classroom

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Other peoples children are my children

• Would you want your child or a family member to
  have you as a teacher?

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Understand the sociopolitical nature of Urban
Schools

• Urban school reform

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How we fail urban children

• Students from low SES, A-A, and Latino/a are
  already 2 years behind other students by fourth
  grade
• By 12th grade poor and minority students are
  nearly 4 years behind (Robelen, 2002)
• National Center for Education Statistics (2001)
  reported that in 1999, only one in 100 A-A
  students at the end of high school could read and
  comprehend specialized text

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Lack connectedness

• Perceive education has failed them
• No relationship

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Lack of Rigor

• Little is demanded
• Low expectations

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Students dont believe they control their destiny

• What happens to a dream deferred?
• Langston Hughes

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Educators rarely see themselves as contributing
to the problems

• The problems are generally viewed as outside of
  their control

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• No Excuses, SOLUTIONS

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Leave No Teacher Behind

• Know your students and the communities they
  reside in

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Recommit to the mission

• Honesty question our assumptions
• Empathy connecting with the experience of
  others. Listen to others stories

• Advocacy opening the circle of power to those
  who have historically been marginalized by it
• Action recognition that each choice we make has
  implications for equity and social justice

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Change your assumptions about urban children

• Children of Promise

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Be open and appreciative of cultural differences
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High expectations?

• Absolutely!

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Use Cultural Mediators
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Become cross-culturally competent

• Awareness
• Knowledge
• Skills

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Examine your socialization

• Understand your own culture before you attempt to
  understand another

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• Even the smallest victory is never to be taken
  for granted. Each victory must be applauded,
  because it is so easy not to battle at all, to
  just accept and call that acceptance inevitable.
• Audre Lorde
• American poet and writer

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Resources

• Campus and Classroom Making schooling
  multiculturalCarl A. Grant Mary Louise Gomez
• Thriving in the Multicultural Classroom
  Principles and practices for effective
  teachingMary Dilg
• Turning on Learning Five approaches for
  multicultural teaching plans for race, class,
  gender, and disabilityCarl A. Grant Christine
  E. Sleeter

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Resources cont

• Reclaiming Democracy Multicultural educators
  journeys toward transformative teachingJaime J.
  Romo, Paula Bradfield, Ramon Serrano
• Affirming DiversitySonia Nieto
• Why do all the black kids sit together in the
  cafeteriaBeverly Daniel Tatum
• Crossing over CanaanGloria Ladson-Billings

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Resources cont

• Framework for understanding povertyRuby Payne
• Getting around BrownGregory Jacobs
• Social Class and School Knowledge1982 Harvard
  Review, Jean Anyon
• Unpacking the invisible knapsack, white
  privilegePeggy McIntosh
• The Dreamkeepers successful teachers of
  African-American childrenGloria Ladson-Billings
• We Cant Teach What We Dont Know White
  teachers, multiracial schoolsGary R. Howard
• Transforming Urban EducationJoseph Kretovics and
  Edward J. Nussel

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Take the attitude of a student never be too
big to ask questions, never know too much to
learn something new.by Og Mandino
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• A teacher affects eternity he can never tell,
  where his influence stops.
• Henry B. Adams

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You can access this presentation at

• http//p12.osu.edu