Cultural Sensitivity...

[Blotan Hunka]

Bah! Do your assignments and pass your tests. This whole topic is a way of avoiding responsibility..on the teachers side as well as the students.

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=5152

UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute researchers find high school graduates from immigrant families succeed in college at similar rates as American-born peers with similar economic and ethnic backgrounds. Students from immigrant families also are more likely to support their families while in school.

 

[Makalakumu]

Bah! Do your assignments and pass your tests.

This is an oversimplication of the process of learning. If it were as simple as that, people could just take internet classes and learn just as much as with a live teacher. It's not that simple. Teaching and learning is a complex and interconnected web.

This whole topic is a way of avoiding responsibility..on the teachers side as well as the students.

I see many of my colleagues taking similar positions as our population becomes more heterogeneous. Usually, they are the old ones...set in their ways. I see this position as avoiding responsability...the responsability of a teacher to seek the best practice for their students. Cultural differences matter when it comes to success.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8312(199523)32%3A3%3C465%3ATATOCR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4

In the midst of discussions about improving education, teacher education, equity, and diversity, little has been done to make pedagogy a central area of investigation. This article attempts to challenge notions about the intersection of culture and teaching that rely solely on microanalytic or macroanalytic perspectives. Rather, the article attempts to build on the work done in both of these areas and proposes a culturally relevant theory of education. By raising questions about the location of the researcher in pedagogical research, the article attempts to explicate the theoretical framework of the author in the nexus of collaborative and reflexive research. The pedagogical practices of eight exemplary teachers of African-American students serve as the investigative "site." Their practices and reflections on those practices provide a way to define and recognize culturally relevant pedagogy.

Here is some more taken from your article...

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=5152

In addition, high school graduates from immigrant families with higher incomes and higher levels of parent education achieved the highest success in college. This finding helps to explain lower levels of success seen among Latin American children compared with East Asian children.

East Asian students are coming to this country with more economic support from parents because they are of a higher SES AND they have values that more closely match the cultural expectations in schools.

 

[Carol]

East Asian students are coming to this country with more economic support from parents because they are of a higher SES AND they have values that more closely match the cultural expectations in schools.

East Asian culture is a lot more aggressive towards success. Go to an Indian portal like Yahoo India and you are likely to be bombarded with ads for schools with the outline of the 50 states in the background. The message is clear: an education could be your ticket west to a pay scale that is up to 25 times highter than that of your home country.

Pick up a local social magazine such as the Improper Bostonian, and you will see articles about bands and bars.

Pick up a local social magazine such as India Times New England and you will see articles about bands and bars...well, traditional music and Indian restaurants, but it's the same idea.

You will also see essay contests. Networking ideas. Young proessionals workshops. Brainstorming for corporate challenges.

Many Asian familes are very regimented and very structured. It is not the Indochinese fammilies that are insisting that students be taught in their own language.

I don't know the whole answer...but there is more than just socioeconomic strata. If SES were all that mattered, spoiled rich kids would be at the top of their class.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

All this concern about "cultural sensitivity" and where do our school age kids sit compared to the rest of the world? From what I understand, the "White" kids arent doing stellar themselves.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

East Asian culture is a lot more aggressive towards success. Go to an Indian portal like Yahoo India and you are likely to be bombarded with ads for schools with the outline of the 50 states in the background. The message is clear: an education could be your ticket west to a pay scale that is up to 25 times highter than that of your home country.

Pick up a local social magazine such as the Improper Bostonian, and you will see articles about bands and bars.

Pick up a local social magazine such as India Times New England and you will see articles about bands and bars...well, traditional music and Indian restaurants, but it's the same idea.

You will also see essay contests. Networking ideas. Young proessionals workshops. Brainstorming for corporate challenges.

Many Asian familes are very regimented and very structured. It is not the Indochinese fammilies that are insisting that students be taught in their own language.

I don't know the whole answer...but there is more than just socioeconomic strata. If SES were all that mattered, spoiled rich kids would be at the top of their class.

Exactly, and they aint screaming to be treated any differently from anybody else. They know what the requirements of "success" are and they work to attain them. Our country is spiraling down the drain of "lack of personal accountability" and our education system is pulling the drain plug IMO.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Will the "real wold" take the students cultural values into account?

Will the corporate world take an applicants "different cultural values" into account?

This nanny-state worry wont do anybody any favors in being a success outside the classroom door.

 

[Andrew Green]

Will the "real wold" take the students cultural values into account?

to an extent, yes. People grow up in a community, tend to work in that type of community and live in that type of community. That is not the issue here though.

Will the corporate world take an applicants "different cultural values" into account?

School is not the corporate world, and shouldn't be. School is mandatory, going into the corporate world is not.

I'm just going to take a shot in the dark here and guess multi-culturalism is not one of your beliefs, nor are you an aspirring cultural anthropologist?

There is not one culture that works, there are many. Even within the same country. This is a question of someone comming into a classroom from a different culture then the students and trying to push their own cultures expectations in terms of respect and learning methods onto the class. It does not work. (See Residential Schools for a rather large example)

Cultural insensitivity is one of the big things that the rest of the world has aginst the US. The American way is not the only way, nor is it better then all the others. It is just one way.

 

[Hand Sword]

It seems though, every where else, in schools it's students quiet and listening to the teacher. Questions? Hands get raised. Teacher cultural ways? I don't know, but, it always seemed to me Math was Math, and there was only one way to teach it. Same was true of all the other subjects. Schools have their own culture. Students behave and Teachers teach in the class room. It's basic stuff, differing cultures or not.

 

[Makalakumu]

I don't know the whole answer...but there is more than just socioeconomic strata. If SES were all that mattered, spoiled rich kids would be at the top of their class.

Statistics show that most often kids of high SES are at the top of their class.

 

[Makalakumu]

Will the "real wold" take the students cultural values into account?

Will the corporate world take an applicants "different cultural values" into account?

This nanny-state worry wont do anybody any favors in being a success outside the classroom door.

Both of these are very valid questions. The answer is NO. Whether or not I, or anyone thinks is right or not, the answer is still NO. Yet, I think it is possible to take some of the cultural differences into account and adjust without deviating too far from the "culture of success". The bottom line is that schools need to teach students and they need to find the best ways to do this. Cultural differences complicate things and it is far easier to marginalize kids...rather then actually teach them.

 

[Kensai]

Discipline is a necessary component of success. Whether you are an athlete, a business person, a dog trainer, a chef, or whatever there are routines and conventions to any particular skill or vocation that provide a framework.

Cultural sensitivity is necessary, but not at the expense of basic rules that govern societies from kindergarten, through adult life. Things like waiting your turn to speak, taking hats off in public places (for men) etc (I mean ball caps/cowboy hats, not religious garb). are not cultural issues. They are manners issues.

We are so quick to worry about offending people's cultural sensibilities rather than demand the type of basic conduct that leads to excellence for someone's future.

Yep. Good answer.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Both of these are very valid questions. The answer is NO. Whether or not I, or anyone thinks is right or not, the answer is still NO. Yet, I think it is possible to take some of the cultural differences into account and adjust without deviating too far from the "culture of success". The bottom line is that schools need to teach students and they need to find the best ways to do this. Cultural differences complicate things and it is far easier to marginalize kids...rather then actually teach them.

Admitting that, I tend to take your idea with a little more "open mindedness". :asian:

 

[Phoenix44]

I really don't see the expectation that children raise their hands in class as a cultural issue. Certainly not a black or white issue.