The culturally competent teacher involves and works with families and community resources , understanding the differences in families, and the important influence of family participation in the students' learning.
Building a wider school community is helpful for the students. Trying to get this altogether can benefit the students future, but it must be condoned to all parents. Being this culturally competent teacher I must reach out to all different backgrounds that the parents of these students may have and try to convince them to participate. I could address these problems by maybe getting a translator or a teacher assistant to translate what I say so that the parents can understand so they may ponder whether or not to participate.
The first little bit of education that I child receives is from their parents, whether it is intentional or not. A human being is a product of their surroundings, so before a child steps foot in a classroom they have learned some form of information from their parents or family members. I would want to have an interactive and open relationship with the parents of the students, because learning is a two way road and there is always room for input. A teacher always needs to enter each day with an open mind, open ears, and open eyes. The first step to being a good teacher is allowing room for change and input from those around you.
If I was the teacher of this class this classroom there are some challenges that I could forsee in collaborating with the parents of my students. About fifty percent of the students in the class are Hispanic. If these parents wanted to meet with me it would be difficult to properly communicate the very important information concerning their child. The fact that I am a white American who is teaching a one hundred percent Hispanic and African American class might give these parents the impression that I might not be able to properly teach these children due to my sociopolitical views or due to the culture gap between my students and I. Many parents do not think that it is important to speek to the teacher possibly because there was never an effort made in the past by a teacher to try to get the parents involved in the education of their child. The theorist that I could relate this prompt to is Lisa Delpit. Delpit was all about participation in the classroom and outside of it.
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Ira Shor also relates heavily to this post, especially for his focus on participation. Although he speaks only of participation within the classroom, the principles of empowerment and mutual dialogue created through participation can be extrapolated to apply to teachers working with the greater community and parents of students. As long as the parents feel as though they have some control over their children's educations, their possible misgivings about the teacher's sociocultural background are lessened.
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