Schools Focusing on the Dominant Culture

culturePost:cultureAuthor: Ashley Kunkle Posted Date: August 9, 2015 11:59 PMStatus:Published

The real question is how do schools NOT mirror the dominant culture. Schools expect our students to meet
certain standards, some of which are extremely difficult for student who are still learning the English language.
We are set up to teach students exactly what they need to know without thinking about what they want to know
and how it relates to them as an individual and part of a culture. We use standardized assessments, based on
Anglo standards. Even with the broadness of common core, teachers must adapt their teaching styles from test
based teaching (a white focus) to a skills based teaching. They must bring in the student's cultures as stated by
Gay, "an educational system that is grounded in principles of equality, mutual respect, acceptance and
understanding" (pg 2). But through this transition, teacher's need to realize that students will not display the
skills in the exact same manner as was expected before with No Child Left Behind. They will be given the
opportunity to infuse their culture into the assessments. We need to shift the focus from not only will make the
student successful in the world, but what will make the student successful in their own culture? As stated by
Delpit, "students must be taught the codes needed to participate in the mainstream of American life, not by
being forced to attend to hollow, inane, decontextualized subskils, but rather within the contact of meaningful
communicative endeavors" (pg 70).
As for part two of the question, I feel my school has a school culture that is inclusive of many cultures. Not only
do we have bilingual, ELD, ELL, and SEI courses, we also promote individuality through WEB (Where
Everyone Belongs). We try to build a school culture that celebrates he differences. We try to build up the
individual through our classes. We try and celebrate and help students feel like they belong to the culture of the
school. Yet, we are still at the hands of the traditional educational system. We still use Performance Tasks to
assess students learning in English and Math. We use the AR reading program to promote reading... in English,
Spanish, on your own or with someone else. The last way I feel we fall to the dominant culture is through our
technology. The dominant culture has access to technology. We give our students access by providing iPads to
all students but we expect them to know how to use them. We assume they know how an app works or how to
upload a picture, etc. because the dominant culture has these skills. We forget that sometimes, this iPad is the
first piece of technology not only for our students, but for their families as well. We need to teach them proper
usage and use it as a tool to highlight the different skills each student, along with their culture, brings to the
table.
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Thread:AccessPost:RE: AccessAuthor: Ashley Kunkle Posted Date: August 9, 2015 11:42 PMStatus:Published
Corena,
I agree that students having to conform to the "traditional" assessment such as the ACT and SAT are forced to
adapt and conform to the dominant culture. Assessments are where this is seen the most to me. I remember
taking test after test and doing well, but I am of the dominant culture. I could never figure out why some
students struggled so much. It wasn't until later, in my college years, that I started to learn about second
language learners and those of different cultures and the barriers they face when matched with the education I
excelled in. Now, I realize that for many of my students, tests are a multi-level process. They do not only need
to memorize the information as I did, first they need to process and sometimes translate it in order to understand
the concept or even the questions. Once that step is complete, they can try to access the knowledge necessary to
answer the question. It's a much harder world for our culturally diverse students!
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Thread:Dominant CulturePost:RE: Dominant CultureAuthor: Ashley Kunkle Posted Date: August 9, 2015
11:35 PMStatus:Published
I agree that our curriculum is very much centered on the Anglo-European/white culture. In high school, my
senior English class was based on British Literature. I don't remember reading any novels by authors of other
ethnic groups until college. In college I took a course called "The American Dream." In this course, we looked
at different cultures, via literature, and what the American Dream meant to that culture. This was one of my first
experiences with other cultures outside of American and British Literature.

In my own classroom, I love teaching the book Esperanza Rising. I like how it portrays the life of a migrant
worker; and it has a little bit of Spanish intertwined, which relates well with my students. I always connect this
book the Cesar Chavez and the actual boycotts for migrant workers. Many of my students like learning about
this because it relates back to their own culture.
Thread:ImmigrationPost:RE: ImmigrationAuthor: Ashley Kunkle Posted Date: August 11, 2015 11:23
PMStatus:Published
I completely agree that our minority students are not receiving the right support in our educational system. It
wasn't until I started taking these classes that I realized how biased my own learning experience was through
high school and how ignorant I am to my students' cultures. Ideally, it would be amazing if we were given the
time to truly learn about our students even before focusing on the instruction of standards. I have 180+ students
so trying to connect with their cultures and learn their backgrounds can be a challenging task that typically
happens after problems and failure have already occurred. If we could focus more on the student and not so
much on cramming information into their heads as fast as possible so they can complete a state test, our
education system would be incredibly different.
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