Delaney Bartlett

Teaching and Learning 301- Section 5

Cultural Event #2
March 12, 2017
Cultural Event #2- Bettina Love

I attended Dr. Bettina Love’s seminar entitled “The Intersections of Race, Gender,

Sexuality, Education, Class, Indigenous Identities, and Social Movements” put on by the

Women’s Resource Center of WSU. Dr. Bettina Love is an award-winning author and Professor

of Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia. She has devoted her career into

creating a Hip Hop curriculum to build a more communal, civically engaging, anti-racist, anti-

homophobic, and equal classroom. Her research on equal educational practices and Hip Hop

civics have been combined to create her very own pedagogy entitled “Real Talk: Hip Hop

Education for Social Justice” which is a program that targets Elementary students and teaching

them the history and elements of Hip Hop and social justice. Her seminar was very eye opening

and gave me many ideas to incorporate into my classroom as a future elementary school

teacher.

This event was culturally responsive as it discussed the ideas of civics, justice, and

intersection of races within educational systems. Dr. Love discussed the origins of different

cultures and how many are still present in today’s educational system, but sometimes our own

views of indigenous practices get in the way, and we fail to recognize the presence of other

cultures that are right in front of us. On this idea of origin, she discussed how many students

have their own versions of creativity, rhythm and improvisation that needs to be brought out

through their education in a way that they can express. In this idea, she discussed ways to

unlock creativity that is inside of children through school subjects such as science, math, and
geography, which are areas of schooling that we do not commonly associate with being

creative. She also elaborated on the idea of cultural collaboration within the classroom and the

process of it. This process includes- students going into the classroom, they begin to learn

about other students, other students begin to learn about them, and then together they begin

to work alongside each other to learn and create new ideas. These ideas are culturally

responsive as they show how a variety of cultural aspects can be used in the classroom for

learning and not swept under the carpet and replaced with common core curriculum and

textbook work. This idea also expresses the ideas of combining multiple cultures so that

students can see personal similarities within their classmates, and allowing them to create new

ideas through cultural collaboration.

I feel this seminar will assist me in becoming a teacher, as it gave me a new outlook on

the ideas of civics, justice, and intersection within the classroom environment. I realized that as

a teacher, I am being called to come from many different cultures and places and sustain the

creativity and traditions of those cultures and replicate their practices within my classroom. The

idea of civics is the idea of creating and inventing ourselves through our environment, and this

seminar showed me how to develop many different civic ideas within my classroom to relate to

a variety of students. Dr. Love discussed how younger students tend to look for themselves in

their learning, whether it be in their teacher, their classmates, or the textbook that they’re

reading. She explained how hard it is for African American students to look for themselves in a

history textbook and see that they were once slaves who worked in poor conditions and were

abused and controlled by Whites. In this situation, I learned as a future teacher to praise all

cultures and show them the wonderful and strong things that their cultures have done to get
them where they are today. Dr. Love also expressed the idea of putting quality information into

student’s hands, that way these students can have real conversations about the world around

them, and have a toolbox of information to change the world. This idea will help me as a future

teacher, as I realized that as a teacher, I will not always be able to avoid major societal issues

and creep around them to avoid conflict within my classroom. Instead, as a future teacher I

learned that if I present my students with quality information, they will be free to run with their

own ideas and change society. This seminar will also assist me in becoming a future teacher, as

it taught me the key concept that- “teachers only teach what they know”. This idea has a

variety of meanings, but I interpreted it as- if I only get to know the basics of a culture, I will

only understand the basics of my students. Therefore, in order to get to know my students and

be able to connect with them on a deeper level, I must expand my knowledge of the world

around me, that way my students feel that I can relate to them, and therefore, they can relate

to me. This idea really stuck out to me, as I do not want to be a teacher who knows only a

surface level amount of different cultures. I feel this seminar really opened my eyes as to what

it truly means to be a culturally responsive teacher, and how this role will affect my students in

the future.

By visiting this event, I learned how important it is to provide students with endless

cultural opportunities and encounters, to familiarize them with the world around them and not

keep them sheltered from different ideas and cultures. I particularly enjoyed this event as it

taught me how being non-responsive to different cultures will directly affect my students and

their outlook on education and on the world. It prepared me for being a culturally responsive

teacher and how to really connect with my students to give them the best education that I can
give them. I also learned how to become a teacher who incorporates many different cultures

into the classroom through cultural collaboration, and not to just teach what is in the textbook

or what is convenient for me to teach. These ideas will help me immensely in my future in

becoming a well-rounded and culturally responsive teacher that my students can learn more

than just the basics from.