Standard 9 Meta-Reflection: Cultural Sensitivity
Standard 9 Cultural sensitivity: Establishes a culturally inclusive learning climate that facilitates academic engagement and success for all students.
Integration and Action
I created this artifact as the culminating project for the Culturally Responsive Teaching class. For this Integration and Action paper I had to synthesize articles on Multicultural Education by Banks, our class lectures dealing specifically with action steps for our classrooms, and “The Disuniting of America” by Arthur Schlesinger. My paper discusses my need to include Multicultural Education in my classroom along with other best teaching practices (questioning strategies, cooperative learning, etc) to increase student engagement so that more students learn to their highest potential. I discussed my goals to continue to encourage staff members to learn about Multicultural Education with me. We are already studying teaching styles that better match the learning, cultural, and motivational styles of our students and are concentrating on assessments strategies that are culturally sensitive. Multicultural Education needs to become a priority at our school. It is the only way we can help our diverse students graduate and be prepared for life outside of school. We need to push students of color to take challenging classes and support them in ways to maximize their learning. This project helped me to see how the work we are already doing as a school and the work I try to do in my classroom fits in the bigger picture. It is crucial that all students feel included in my classroom, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or disability. As a science teacher who is also a Christian I can live out my belief that all students can learn by helping all students to learn to a high standard.
