Advocates Push for Culturally Based Teaching to Close Achievement Gap
Feature Story by Jon Jackson - 7/11/2008
Culturally based teaching can help bridge the achievement gap between minority and White students, according to education advocates who spoke at a June 25 panel discussion sponsored by the Campaign for High School Equity.
Culturally based teaching is a type of curriculum that incorporates students' cultural values and history into coursework. Many education experts say that when minority students relate to their curriculum it helps them to excel.
"A teacher has to meet a student where they are, that doesn't just mean their skill base, but also means their learning style and their culture," said Dr. Sheryl Denbo, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center, a federally-funded center that provides support services to school districts.
Dr. Denbo said that successful teachers understand that students need to feel included in the curriculum and need to feel that their culture is validated. When this happens, she said, it generates a desire to learn.
Education experts have found that one of the major barriers to minority students' success is their lack of interest in the curriculum. Current courses in history, for example, focus almost exclusively on the experience and history of White males. Minority students are seldom exposed to historical figures they can connect to, which experts say can make them feel alienated and discourage learning.
Luis Vázquez, another panelist at the event, talked about his experience as a minority student who couldn't relate to his curriculum. "When I first started school I only spoke Spanish. They didn't know what to do with me…They gave me these tests in English and I was diagnosed as EMH, educable mentally handicapped."
Vázquez is now the associate dean of the Graduate School at New Mexico State University. He has conducted research into a concept he calls "historical educational academic trauma (HEAT)," which is the academic trauma that occurs to those students who are alienated from their school system based on their race or ethnicity.
"I interviewed about two to 300 hundred parents, both grandparents and great-grandparents, and I asked them, why did you only make it to 7th grade? Educationally, they were not allowed to attend school, and when they were, every time they spoke Spanish they were punished, physically punished…. Academically, nothing in the text books looked like them. Nothing related to them," said Vázquez.
Panelist Rushern Baker III is the executive director of the Community Teachers Institute, an organization that trains teachers on how to implement culturally based learning techniques in their classrooms. Baker said that culturally based learning alone is not enough to help students succeed and that a diverse teaching workforce -- one that includes teachers who understand their students' culture – will result in successful students.
"We all need to make sure our students are successful …and we all need to learn about each other. It's time for us to go forward, to pay it forward," said Vázquez.
