Coming Home to School

In her podcast on Culturally Responsive Instruction (CRI), Kathy Au nails it on the head when she introduces the phrase "coming home to school". Children should be excited to come to school and view school as a place where everyone can be a successful learner. With the great diversity in classrooms today, CRI establishes an environment that gives academic access to culturally diverse students as well as mainstream cultural groups. 

There is a great deal of discussion on competition versus cooperation in the classroom. A solid classroom will have both, but when each is introduced is a critical factor in CRI. Some cultures value cooperation as a key component of relationships. To expect children raised in such a culture to have an immediate competitive drive could be quite stressful to a child. To ease students into competition (an unavoidable aspect of adult life), cooperative activities may be used to develop a welcoming classroom that includes all students in discussion and does not allow some to dominate the conversation. Pair sharing allows students to share their ideas with a partner before sharing them with the whole group. This gives students an opportunity to practice what they want to say or make sure they are saying what they mean before sharing their ideas with a larger audience. This may be a supportive activity for ELLs who may be too shy to share with the group or may lack confidence in their use of English and gives them a chance to practice in a low risk environment. Quick sharing allows students to think briefly on a question before each student provides a comment on the topic. Such an activity includes all students and does not allow some to control the conversation or others to avoid participation. CRI is one method that is helping to close the achievement gap between dominant and minority cultures. 

I believe that CRI involves more than just looking at a student's broad cultural upbringing in that, as teachers, we will need to look at the student's culture of literacy. What literacy does the student bring to class? Is the student advanced in his or her reading abilities, or has the student never been read to at home before? Whatever the student brings to school in regard to literacy is what we will have to work with. We must meet our students where they are at. 

Vygotsky refers to teaching at such a level as the zone of proximal development (ZPD), the level at which the student can complete a task with the teacher's help. Why would we try to teach a child any other way? For students to "come home to school," we must consider how to make school the accepting, loving, and encouraging environment that homes should be. When a parent teaches his or her child to tie a shoe, the parent first models tying, then the parent might take the child's hands and tie the shoe with the child. The parent might also teach the child methods such as "bunny ears" and remind the child of the method and he or she practices, and finally the parent will have the child practice tying his or her shoe many times and offer help as needed. This is the same strategy we should be using as teachers.

Parents might say they are just teaching their child how to tie his or her shoes; in academia, we call it gradual release of responsibility. Teaching in such a way provides structure and support for all learners, but also gives students confidence that if they need more help, the teacher is right there alongside them. Having such confidence in their teachers requires that teachers know each student's ZPD and can identify which reading strategies each student uses, are beginning to use, and what they will need to use next. It is a tough job for teachers, coming to know all of their students in such a comprehensive way, but it is critical for the success of students and their ability to "come home to school" and learn to love school as though it were another home.   

Teaching tips I've picked up along the way (I will try to make this a recurring section in future posts):

-When grouping students for small-group instruction, vary the types of grouping. One way is by ability level, another is by specific needs. Can you think of other ways?

-Using letters and sounds when teaching children to read are helpful methods, but always keep meaning at the forefront of learning to read. Reading is more than just being able to recite the words on a page. 

Listen to Kathy Au's podcast here: http://www.bamradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=301:jackstreet54&catid=59:reading-radio&Itemid=110