Comment: Today there are a variety of backgrounds in every classroom; each student comes with their own culture and identity. This cultural experience is a part of their identity and cannot be smothered without negative consequences. It is important to allow for students to embrace both their cultural heritage and their academic identity within the classroom so that they feel they do not need to hide any certain part of themselves. Yet we need to also encourage unity within a classroom and as Americans, and maintain a sense of pride in both areas. I believe it is important that multicultural students are given activities which allow them to embrace both cultures and also improve in their literacy.
Question: How can we maintain a balance between encouraging pride in cultural identity and in embracing American culture within the classroom? As teachers, how can we continue to encourage cultural pride and unity within the classroom, especially as students become older and literacy activities become more complex?
Yeah I totally agree with this! I'm becoming more and more passionate about helping students from different cultures succeed in our traditional schools without losing their sense of identity. I'm still wondering how exactly to do that, though! The chapter talked about dual literacy and I think that was really important. It allows kids to develop literacy while using skills from school and home.
ReplyDeleteI think you've hit an important subject we all need to think about! To completely sacrifice american culture for the sake of students with different cultures would be terrible... but to sacrifice other's cultures for the sake of our own is no better! I think that if you create an environment in your classroom, from the beginning, where all students feel safe talking about and sharing information about their cultures, it would be helpful. Perhaps once during each school year, each student can do a presentation about their own personal culture.
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