Kerry Phillips

Culture & Inclusion

Week 1
Committing to be Critical
As a recent graduate from a teaching credential program, I can confidently say that I have learned the

importance of differentiating assignments and making sure that I create an inclusive classroom where all

students can thrive. I work hard to provide meaningful experiences for my students that range in ability levels,

and I allow students to share their voice and celebrate their individuality. However, all of these experiences and

opportunities for my students to learn are built from the framework of the required curriculum, preferred

pedagogies, and state content standards. When a district adopts a curriculum or preaches a particular pedagogy

to their faculty, they are essential prescribing one educational experience for all students; So, how do I ensure

my practice is free from bias or prejudice? As educators, we must commit to be critical of curriculum and

evaluate our approach, to constantly ensure that the cultural, linguistic, and demographics of our students are

understood and accounted for, and to create classrooms that allow all students to thrive.

As a new teacher, I admit it doesnt feel safe to criticize or look for biases in curriculum or teaching

philosophies at my school or in the district. However, it is my responsibility to do this, so that no child is left

behind. It is more comfortable to simply assume that the people adopting these curriculums and making choices

that impact numerous classrooms have done the work to ensure they are a good fit for the needs of the students,

but this is not a safe assumption. Lisa Delpit, the author of Other Peoples Children, thoughtfully explains her

journey to understand the disparities between white and black students education in the essay Skills and Other

Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Teacher. Delpit explains how the whole language approach is covered in

controversy and she begins to dissect why. To make it more complicated, Delpit is conflicted by what shes

learned in school and what educators she respects say is a racist system. I could not believe that all the people

from whom I had learned could possibly have sinister intentions toward black children. On the other hand, all

of those black teachers could not be completely wrong. What is going on?(Delpit, pp.17) Though, in this essay,

Delpit may not have discovered groundbreaking ideas about the perfect way to educate black or white children,
she has empowered me, and likely other educators, to become critical of our practice and be considerate of the

needs of every child, and that is how we begin to create classrooms that allow students of any color to thrive.

Considering our students needs is in itself incredibly complicated. We must consider a childs cultural,

linguistic, demographic, and socioeconomic status, in addition to their personal, medical, and educational needs.

In the article K-12 Education Unsustainable California: The Top 10 Issues Facing the Golden State, California

students rank poorly on performance measures. Furthermore, Tatum states, Among the states diverse student

population, there is a clear educational achievement gap among students with different ethnic and

socioeconomic backgrounds (Tatum, 2014). It is apparent from this research, and others, we are failing

minority students, but they are not to blame for our low performances on state and country-wide measures. It

would be easy to make the correlation that test scores are low because of our high number of minority students,

this is inaccurate. The RAND Corporation published an article about The National Assessment of Educational

Progress (NAEP) scores saying, Californias low NAEP scores cannot be accounted for by the states high

percentage of minority students. When students family backgrounds are controlled for, Californias scores are

the lowest in the nation (0.18 standard deviations below the mean). This suggests that Californias low scores

must be in some part a result of the schools, rather than simply a result of family characteristics in the

state(Carroll, Krop, Arkes, Morrison, & Flanagan, 2005). If the schools are to blame for the achievement gap,

and not the students, we must consider what the schools could be doing differently. Perhaps, Delpit was correct

in evaluating the approach to literacy and if it was designed with all students in mind. We must also ask

ourselves, what other considerations must we make to ensure the linguistic and cultural needs are being

accounted for.

As teachers, the big questions can seem daunting when faced with 30 children everyday. It is more

comfortable to start in the locust of our control- our classroom. Delpit discusses her excitement to design and

implement an open classroom after graduation, something she learned about in school and was eager to

provide for her students. Knowing that an open classroom would provide space for flexible seating, and

opportunities for hands on learning experiences, Delpit was eager to get rid of her student desks and shake
things up a bit. I was doing what I learned, and it worked. Well, at least it worked for some of the children

(Delpit, pp.13). After evaluating her new and improved open classroom, Delpit realizes that her black

students behaved very differently than the others, were not engaged in learning, or making educational gains

and wondered, I was doing the same thing for all my kids -- was that the problem?(Delpit, pp.13). In this

moment, she begins to wonder why her systems werent working for every child. Most teachers, as I did, have

a vision for their classroom. However, it is not the classroom we are there for- it is the students. We must be

relentless with our flexibility and constantly adapt to serve our students. Again, we see that Delpit didnt

magically have an answer that solved all of the problems she was facing in serving a diverse class of students,

but by becoming critical and evaluative of her approach, and by changing her open classroom, she became

closer to figuring out how to support her diverse learners. Simply by being reflective and observant, we allow

ourselves to truly think about what works for students.

It is unlikely that there will be a quick solution to the problem of finding ways to support learners or

minority students when their language and culture are often excluded from the discussion. The majority is

making decisions that have impacted the minorities ability to be successful in this system. It is important,

however, that we examine our own approaches, become critical, and question ourselves and others. We must

push our colleagues to engage in a bigger dialogue about the impact of students cultural, linguistic,

demographic, and socioeconomic needs, and it all starts in our own classrooms.
WORKS CITED

Carroll, S. J., Krop, C., Arkes, J., Morrison, P. A., & Flanagan, A. (2005). Californias K12 Public Schools
How Are They Doing? Retrieved 2005, from
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG186.pdf

Delpit, L. (2006). Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator. In Other People's Children -
Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (pp. 1-21). New York, NY: The New Press.

Tatum, A. (2014, June 11). K-12 Education - Unsustainable California. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from
http://uscommonsense.org/research/unsustainable-california-the-top-10-issues-facing-the-golden-state-educatio
n/