The children in America's classrooms are changing in complexion and complexity, making teaching students with diverse backgrounds one of the greatest challenges school districts now face. Administrators are also under pressure to "close the achievement gap" between white and Asian students and their racial and ethnically diverse counterparts.
The challenges educators face prompted Bonnie M. Davis to write How to Teach Students Who Don't Look Like You. Davis says she wrote the book to offer "culturally relevant teaching strategies."
According to the author, nearly 40% of U.S. citizens represent racial or ethnic groups, families who may "see" the world through a completely different cultural "lens" than the "average" American.
So who are diverse learners? Davis offers a comprehensive answer.
"They are the homeless children, the migrant children, the immigrant children learning English, children dealing with gender issues, children with learning disabilities, special needs children, and children from diverse cultures - students perhaps not previously included or successful in our classrooms."
This workbook is designed for educators seeking to reach and teach students of varied backgrounds. The publication offers successful strategies for all subjects and grade levels.
Davis shares a number of practical tips:
- How to first recognize one's own culture to understand needs of diverse learners
- How to examine racism and its impact
- Strategies for establishing a school climate for teaching diverse learners
- Research-based instructional strategies to implement across the disciplines
Davis writes, "To provide diverse learners with culturally responsive instruction, we must build relationships and hold high expectations, provide rigorous content knowledge while making explicit the hidden rules of learning, and teach students how to learn as well as what to learn."
The author, a veteran teacher of 37 years, is passionate about education. She has taught in middle schools, high schools, universities, homeless shelters, and a men's prison. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including Teacher of the Year, the Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Anti-Defamation League's World of Difference Community Service Award.
How to Teach Students Who Don't Look Like You is published by Corwin Press. To read a chapter from the book, click here for the PDF document. To learn more about Bonnie Davis, visit her website.
(Read more from Deb Sistrunk at http://mediabysistrunk.blogspot.com)
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Comments: 3
The idea behind Dr. Davis' book is that often teachers unknowingly bring their own biases and prejudices into the classroom. This is not an indictment of teachers. It is simply fact. We are all the product of our environments.
If biases and prejudices go unaddressed, this impacts the quality of teaching, student achievement, student engagement and relationship building. Davis' book is supported by decades of research and data.
I kindly request that you do two things before I reply futher to your comment:
1. re-read this article closely
2. read the book's preface and first chapter by clicking on the link provided in the article
By the way, another good source of information on the importance of cultural competency is The Education Trust, located online at http://www2.edtrust.org/edtrust. The National Education Association (NEA) also provides links to several articles on closing achievment gaps. Click on the following link for details: http://www.nea.org/mco/issues.html#closing.
All of us want to produce young adults who are proficient in English, math and science. I'd like to think that we also see the value in producing young people who understand other cultures, especially in this global economy. If we do this, we produce good citizens who will serve our country well as future leaders.
I welcome additional comments from you.