Kelsey Barrett

Professor Hanson
October 23h 2018
Intro to SPED

The United States is a country that has a highly multicultural population. There are many
varying components to a person such as their race, gender, ethnicity that contribute to diversity
that is seen in our country. Another driving force of ones identification is their culture. As a
future educator to the upcoming generations, I will see an abundance of cultural variations within
the classrooms. Culture is an extremely relevant piece to a students existence, so both general
and special education teachers, along with the program must be mindful of all diverse factors
present within their class or caseload.
In Creating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive Classrooms, Montgomery tasked educators
to conduct a self-assessment of their diversity in their classrooms. Not only does this exercise
show what a teacher is aware of in the classroom, this type of introspection really can help an
educator distinguish the cultural factors that are most relevant to them. I think that this was one
of the most interesting things that I learned in the readings from this week, because it is an
exercise that I will help catalyze the change of my mindset surrounding culture. It is extremely
important for an educator or professional at the school to be mindful of their own and other
culture and diverse factors. The perception that a teacher or official has upon diversity can have a
tremendous impact on the response to academic struggle, the evaluation process and overall how
a teacher interacts with the student and their legal guardians. The majority of employees at
schools are white females, so the stereotypical and expected mindset surrounding culture and
diversity most not likely align with many of the students who do have culturally and linguistic
differences. These factors have led to an evident overrepresentation of those of color and males
who are identified and qualified for special education, as well as the underrepresentation of
females. “The overrepresentation of students with racial, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity
(RCELD) in special education has been well documented for over 30 years” (Fielder 52). I am
surprised that this diverse overrepresentation was documented for so long, but only in 2015 the
IDEA created mandates to help tackle the issue. Because of this statistically noticeable
difference, the IDEA “noted the continuing and growing problem of disproportionality in special
education and made several new statutory provisions to address this issue” (Fielder 52). The
created provisions was one of the most relevant pieces of information that I learned in this
reading as it brought attention to how common this problem is on a national level, as well as how
persistent our system is with overcoming the overrepresentation.
Educating with culturally relevant pedagogy is the key to overcoming the
overrepresentation problem. By bringing awareness to the relevant factor, teachers are able to
address diversity within their classes to help make all students academic experience successful.
This can be done by a teacher and school striving to create culturally responsive classrooms. The
first step is to become aware and acknowledge what makes your classroom diverse. Common to
any other support that you would give a student, Montgomery advises to recognize the different
learning styles, and respond to them by accommodating the learner (4). There are many common
teaching strategies that are also included that can help assist with integrating the culture into the
classrooms and also help these culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Methods such as
explicit instruction and scaffolding may help the learner understand the knowledge better, which
leads to higher academic gain.. One teaching strategy to achieve this is called interdisciplinary
units when a cross-circular methods is used, students are able to understand material at a much
higher level. This achieves culturally relevant curriculum by exposing students in a multitude of
academic areas. One of the best ways that a teacher can integrate their classrooms culture into
the classroom is getting the students to express their selves and relevant parts of their identity.
This was one of the most helpful pieces of information that I will apply to my lessons to assure
that students feel as their values are included and recognized. There are many ways that teachers
can integrate different culture into the lessons to cater to diversity, one of the best ways that
Montgomery suggested students do this is through journaling and open ended questions.
Students are able to present their own relevance into the classroom when asked to perform these
tasks.
As a teacher, I am going to come in contact with students who are different from me
every single day. It is of the utmost importance that I not only reflect on my own culture and
diversity, but am constantly acknowledging the diverse nature around me as well. This culture
and diversity usually does not stem from the student alone, it usually comes from the home.
After reading this article, the most important part of how my behavior will change in the future is
how I will interact with the parents. The parents are really the best advocate for the child. I was
quite surprised at many of the different cultural explanations for disabilities around the world,
and those may be ideologies that I run into with a parent. “Understanding and building on a
families cultural interpretations of disabilities is essential in creating partnerships with parents of
children reviving special education services” (Lamory 680). The parents are often the first
teacher, as well as the best rescore for the teachers. Overall, I will put a lot of metacognition into
my own identity to help shape my classroom into the most accepting environment as possible.
Fiedler, C. Chiang, B., Van Haren, B., Jorgensen, J. Halberg, S. & Boreson, L. (2008). Teaching
Exceptional Children, 40(5), 52-59.
Lamorey, S. (2002). The effects of culture on special education services evil eyes, prayer
meetings, and ieps. Teaching Exceptional Children, 34(5), 67-71
.Manwaring, J. (2008). Wendy or Tinkerbell? Teaching Exceptional Children, 40(5), 60-65.
Montgomery, W. (2001). Creating culturally responsive, inclusive classrooms. Teaching
Exceptional Children, 33(4), 4-9.