The culturally competent teacher is aware of the diverse cultural groups...

The culturally competent teacher is aware of the diverse cultural groups represented in his/her classroom, investigates the sociocultural factors that influence student learning, and is able to integrate this knowledge into his/her teaching.


Noone enters a classroom without a personal history; thus, noone enters a classroom completely free of bias. My life was completely different than any of the students I am seeing on a weekly basis at this high school. I was raised to go to school no matter what. The only excuse would be if you have a fever. A decent amount of these students do not go to school alot. I have always been respectful to people of authority, and to my peers as well. These students are not respectful to people of authority, nor their own peers. They do not call the teacher in my classroom by his name. They say, "hey, mister! I need a pencil!" I find that very disrespectful. If I ever needed to borrow a pencil from a teacher, I would say, "Excuse me, Mr. S., Im sorry to bother you, but would you happen to have a pencil I could borrow til the end of class?" In the hallways and in the classroom, I hear them talk to each other, and its also very disrespectful. I believe that it is all about how you were raised, and the neighborhood you grew up in. There is no doubt in my mind, I know that I live among the privileged. I was born into a certain social category, and my family is very comfortable. Many of these students, however, are not. Just because of where your family stands in society, does not mean you can't change that for yourself. It is much harder for the unprivileged ones to change this, however.

I feel that alot of this has to do with what Kozol talks about. The name of his article, "Still Separate, Still Unequal" pretty much sums it up. The entire population of the high school I am in is African American and Hispanic. i have not seen one white student since I have been attending. Everyone says their schools are integrated and diverse. Well people would look around and say, "well this school is still segregated". I know it was not on purpose that there are no white kids in the school, it just so happened that none of them lived in the neighborhoods that this school included kids from. Still unequal .. you could say that. Yeah, they can vote. Heck, we even have an African American President. But alot of people of color definite do not live among the privileged.

If I was the teacher of this classroom, I would have a lot of trouble trying to stick with the surriculum, but try to keep all the kids who are absent alot, up to date on what we are learning. Because I am in a math class, I believe the hardest part will be to come up with word problems that incorporates some of their culture and upbringing.