MCILRAVY – CULTURAL PROFICIENCY REFLECTION 1 1

I believe that segregation lives on the Cultural Proficiency continuum at intolerance. By

creating a divide, there is a belief that one culture or ideal is superior to the other. Segregation

also creates an inequitable divide of resources and opportunities, this disempowers the other

culture.

I believe that I am working toward competence on the Cultural Proficiency continuum.

Working in Postville, I am part of a system that values diversity and the different experiences of

our students. I feel that I able to assess the culture of students within my system and value their

diversity. Managing the dynamics of difference is an area I feel I have shown growth in

throughout my time in Postville. I also feel like as a system, our school is working to adapt to

diversity through the revisions of policies and practices. An example of this is how our ESL

department supports students. We have moved from a pull-out model to a co-teaching model. We

have also replaced the labeling of our newcomer students to emergent bilinguals. The hope is

that this transition will break our mental models associated with the labels. While I feel like I am

working on several of these elements, I do not feel like I have fully met all 5 essential elements

to be completely competent. The area I feel I need the most growth in is “Institutionalize

Cultural Knowledge”. This is an area I can see room for improvement on in our school, and I can

work on to best support the system.

I feel like within my classroom and school we have dismantled some inequities for our

students. The biggest one is the transition to positive language to discuss our students learning a

second language. By changing our label, I feel like we have changed some of the negative

connotations associated with the term “newcomer”. I have heard the term newcomer used when

talking about students that are not achieving at grade level and that its “ok, because we don’t

expect them to get it”. Or we use those students to explain low test scores. It has become a crutch
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to pass the blame when we aren’t reaching the goals we have for ourselves. Emergent bilingual is

a much more positive way to think about these students and it really highlights the work they are

doing – gaining a second language. From what I have heard and been a part of, this change has

really started to shift our conversations away from blame. There have been a lot more

conversations happening regarding how our expectations should be the same for all students and

how our instruction should be rigorous for all students. Moving forward, I think it is really

important to consider some of those “smaller” things that happen on a day to day bases that can

really change the way we approach things and the attitude of staff and students. I think it is really

important to recognize that the first step to making a change for most people is recognizing that a

change is needed. By questioning these daily things like labels, we are really pushing our staff

and students to consider their own mental models and inequities our students face on a daily

basis.