The+Complexity+of+Culturally+Relevant+Pedagogy


 * When Tupac Meets Langston ** [[image:Identity.jpg width="522" height="607"]]

** Overview: Meaning and Landscape of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy **  No child is the same, so no classroom is the same. They are composed of different cultures, perspectives, and backgrounds. Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) is when educators teach students required content, according to the prescribed curriculum, in a way that supports genuine student engagement with specific content by making the content relatable and relevant. It supports students' ability to connect to the content by allowing the student to view it through the lens of his or her own culture. It allows students opportunities to grasp and conceptualize content through a familiar cultural framework. Content may seem distant and irrelevant to students because they are unable to relate to it; however, content will be relevant if an educator commits to creating a culturally diverse environment that focuses on student learning and meaning-making.

 CRP can seem a vague concept. One reason for this is because many educators have not been explicitly trained in how to make pedagogy culturally relevant or what that type of pedagogy would and could look like. Another factor for its complexity arises from the number and diversity of the students a teacher has in their classroom. Scholar Geneva Gay states that CRP uses “the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning more relevant and effective… It teaches to and through strengths of these students. It is culturally validating and affirming” (2000). Because every student is different and classrooms are becoming increasingly culturally diverse, for a teacher to be proficient in CRP they must get to know all their students (for a secondary teacher—150-200 individuals) and understand each one’s particular culture. After which, the teacher is tasked with developing curriculum that is relevant to each of those backgrounds. The final feature contributing to CRP’s complexity lies within the term itself. Culturally relevant pedagogy is a broad term. It is and must be—due to the enormity and complexity of what it attempts to convey—defined abstractly. There are hundreds of cultures, degrees of relevancy, and endless pedagogical pursuits. Therefore, many misconceptions arise.

 One misconception applies to the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. If, as most scholars and educators say, CRP is worthwhile and essential to the classroom, it should be in every classroom—regardless of subject. However, ELA, with the diversity of culture in literature that a teacher may choose to incorporate, seems to lend itself more readily to content that may be made culturally relevant. For example, a teacher may draw from Tupac Shakur to teach the poetry of Langston Hughes or teach Toni Morrison’s //The Bluest Eye// alongside Kendrick Lamar’s album //To Pimp a Butterfly// as Brian Mooney did. Mooney, a New York City English teacher, writes:

If I pedagogically ignored Kendrick’s album release at a time when my students were reading Toni Morrison alongside articles about Mike Brown, Ferguson, [|#BlackLivesMatter]– and considering the disposability of black bodies in an America that constructs a standard of beauty based solely on whiteness – I would have missed an opportunity to engage them in a pivotal conversation about race, hope, and justice. I would have missed an opportunity to speak to their hip-hop sensibilities – their hip-hop ways of being and knowing. I would have missed a chance to develop a set of profound connections to a popular culture text that is part of their lives. (Mooney, 2015).

Mooney's words and actions in the classroom drip with culturally relevant pedagogy. Yet, a usual misconception about CRP is that the only way English Language Arts educators can make the content relevant is by binding the appropriate aspect of the student’s culture to a text. This approach brings the content to the student. Educators tap into prior knowledge and personal interests to teach material that may have been otherwise distant and unreachable. According to proponents of CRP, this act of bringing the content to the student is a sound approach, an excellent step in the right direction. Yet, for the English Language Arts classroom, this means that cultural relevancy remains in the reading domain. It seems writing is nudged to the side as an isolated endeavor.

media type="youtube" key="dZTKOBElkyg" width="560" height="315" align="center"

However, CRP scholars Maisha T. Winn and Latrise Johnson—professors and authors of //Writing Instruction in the Culturally Relevant Classroom//—advocate for writing having a principle role in CRP. One example of culturally relevant writing is a multi-genre paper. A multi-genre paper “is composed of many genres and subgenres, each piece self-contained, making a point of its own, yet connected to other pieces by theme and content” (Tony Romano, 2013). Therefore, if a multi-genre assignment requires a student to focus on an assigned text, the student still has the freedom to choose how they present information—thereby, making it (to some degree) culturally relevant. And in the cases where students have the freedom to choose their topics, the assignment would be tremendously culturally relevant. What and how a student writes will always be, by almost default, culturally relevant—as it is from them and their imagination and interest. Writing, rather than being separate from any cultural relevancy, should be a tool for students to engage with their own culture. Furthermore, it should be a means of bridging the gap between reading and writing in such a way that a learning environment is created in which students may, as they discover themselves, their own culture, and their own identities, elevate their ability to engage with and discover other cultures, other ways of thinking. This breakthrough leads naturally to students growing in their ability to move towards previously distant literature. That is, instead of educators using only materials from the student’s culture to help students view literature (a premier pedagogical pursuit), students can begin to connect with literature through their own individual perspectives and viewpoints (connected to, but distinct from their overall culture).

** How Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is Both a Positive Trend and Real Issue **

 There has been a targeted and sustained move or trend towards educators placing an emphasis on bringing culturally relevant pedagogy to classrooms for around two decades, since Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billing’s research and advocacy for the way of teaching. Perhaps, however, the seeds for a shift to CRP were planted by John Dewey when he stressed the importance of experience in education, suggesting the commanding influence that a person’s background has on their learning. Nevertheless, it was Dr. Ladson-Billings, with her influential work (particularly The //Dreamkeepers//), who was the first to make significant advances in defining and popularizing CRP. After Ladson-Billings, Geneva Gay, with her 2000 book, Culturally Responsive Teaching, was the next greatest push for the utilization of CRP. Despite this trend of increasing dialogue and research in education circles about CRP, the conversations in the classrooms and in teacher preparation courses is often superficial, so vague and withdrawn from having actionable tenets that the word and classroom practice that the word denotes has become something with little value, an issue in itself.

 There are two major reasons that the very idea of CRP has become an issue. The first reason pertains to complexity. The term is complex; the concept is enormous. The teaching practice deals with culture—one of humanity’s most convoluted masterpieces. Culture is complicated. There are innumerable cultures and they are all unique. For teaching to be relevant—to authentically mean something—to any one culture, the teacher must be immersed in an understanding of that culture. For any one scholar, researcher, university professor, or thinker to define and prescribe perfectly how a teacher might make their teaching culturally relevant would be impossible. Culture is too beautifully unpredictable and nuanced.

 The second reason CRP has become an issue connects to the last. Because there can be no precise prescription for how every teacher can create culturally relevant teaching, it is hard to train pre-service candidates. Recent research has proven this. One group of researchers created a course aimed at training pre-service candidates to become fluent in administering CRP. Some challenges they encountered were: helping the candidates recognize their own cultural identities (which the researchers noted as being a pre-requisite for understanding other cultures), helping the candidates comprehend much of the vast and nuanced slices of cultures and students, and restraining the candidates from accidentally minimizing cultures to fit into a trivial box, which came from superficial cultural immersions (Ebersole, Kanahele-Mossman, Kawakami, 2016). These are major problems for a single teacher preparation course, and they arise from, again, the complexity of culture.

 However, a few key proponents of CRP write about the topic in such a way that would suggest a simple approach. Both Ladson-Billings and Gay, two champions of the pedagogy, go into elaborate detail on different ways to make pedagogy culturally relevant; yet, they are also astonishingly encouraging. Rather than overwhelm their readers, they focus on the heart of CRP—as if once an educator has reached that point, the rest will follow. They each have a primary philosophy for their readers. It is a message of care and empowerment. This seems the starting place for every educator, every individual hoping to make a legitimate difference through CRP. However, the problem remains—what does CRP look like, and how is it implemented? New voices in the conversation are addressing this issue.

 Maisha T. Winn and Latrise Johnson are authors of //Writing Instruction in the Culturally Relevant Classroom//. They, combined with Gay and Ladson-Billings, describe a seemingly full and coherent starting place for all teachers to begin to incorporate CRP. Gay and Ladson-Billings argue for care and student empowerment. Winn and Johnson suggest that writing is the fulfillment of care and empowerment, which leads to culturally relevant pedagogy. When students are granted the opportunity to write personally and sincerely (inevitably tapping into their own culture), recent research suggests they are engaging in real, in-depth cultural relevancy—not the forced, superficial attempts. Students can have a voice, the embodiment of empowerment. Writing leads to the student’s own, individual self-discovery and contributes to the student’s ability to move towards perspectives and viewpoints distinct from themselves. One English teach in New York, Lauren Leigh Kelly, developed a class where students were able to write about hip-hop and create their own albums in connection to literature they were studying. When students were allowed the freedom to express themselves through writing in Kelly’s class, it “not only helped shape students’ writing, but it also helped them become more socially aware and engaged in the classroom” (McNeil, 2016).

 The issue exists. CRP is complicated. The trend to more and more CRP has in most, but not all, cases been limited to university scholarship. Some k-12 classroom teachers excel, but many do not know that the term even exists or, especially, how to implement it. Certainly, CRP is not an authentic reality in all classrooms. Perhaps, writing is the way to move past the issue—to give the trend a jumpstart. A way to make the complex simple.

**My Opinion** Culturally relevant pedagogy is as much a moral discussion as an educational one. The alternative to CRP is non-CRP. That is, the alternative is either a deliberate or inadvertent dismissal of a child’s identity.



Culture is like a kaleidoscope. Complex, yet patterned. Wild, yet beautiful. Nuanced and dynamic. Culture, true culture and not the fabricated, commercialized versions, is a mirror of the identities comprising the culture. Therefore, to reject one’s culture is to reject one’s identity. To suggest that one culture is inferior is to suggest that certain groups of people are inferior. Therefore, by teaching through the lens of a single culture—that is, by making pedagogy relevant for only one or less cultures in the classroom—an educator sends a coherent message to his or her students. The message is as follows: “This culture being emphasized is the superior culture.” Because culture is a reflection of identity, the teacher may as well be saying: “You are inferior.”

CRP is a morally and philosophically sound approach. It says to students: “You are a human. You have inherent and intrinsic value. So, your culture does too. In this classroom we recognize you and your culture. We see you. You are someone.” If that were not enough motivation for the inclusion of CRP—which it is—research proves that CRP increases student achievement.

CRP is such a topic of morality that it should be handled with severe seriousness. An educator that deliberately neglects a child’s identity should be immediately removed from his or her position. An educator that inadvertently disregards a child’s identity should be immediately alerted to their mistake and provided with tools for changing their pedagogy. If the educator refuses or cannot change, he or she should be immediately removed from their position.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">James, Jesus’ brother, wrote in his epistle, “Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards” (James 3:1, MSG). James is right. There are more than test scores at stake in any classroom on any day. There is a battle for lives—the only true battle worth having.

To read a proposal focused on this wiki's topic, please download this document:

** Annotated Bibliography **

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">[175]untitled Oil On Canvas 53.2 X 45.6 Cm 201. (n.d.). Retrieved June 01, 2017, from http://shinkwangho.deviantart.com/art/175-untitled-Oil-On-Canvas-53-2-X-45-6-Cm-201-399743980 <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">-Photo used. Photo is an untitled piece of art depicting a figure that, instead of a face, has a multi-colored, chaotic arrangement of paint.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Dewey, J. (2015). Experience and education. New York: Free Press. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">-Book detailing Dewey’s theories on education. Provides insight into the way Dewey believed experience is inexorably linked to learning.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Ebersole, M., Kanahele-Mossman, H., & Kawakami, A. (2015, 11). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Examining Teachers’ Understandings and Perspectives. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 4(2). doi:10.11114/jets.v4i2.1136 <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">-Article describing a course aimed at teaching pre-service teachers how to bring cultural relevancy into the classroom. It highlights the difficulties of training pre-service teachers to practice culturally relevant pedagogy.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">-Influential book describing what culturally responsive teaching is and how to bring it into the classroom. Furthermore, it describes why culturally responsive teaching is needed in today’s classroom.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465. doi:10.2307/1163320 <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">-Article describing cultural relevant pedagogy, why it is needed in the classroom, and the philosophy of the approach.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">McNeil, E. (2016, June 20). English Teacher's Hip-Hop Curriculum Gets Students Writing [Web log post]. Retrieved May 29, 2017, from [] <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">- Blog post describing the successes of Lauren Leigh Kelly who uses hip-hop to teach writing.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Mooney, B. (2015, March 27). WHY I DROPPED EVERYTHING AND STARTED TEACHING KENDRICK LAMAR’S NEW ALBUM [Web log post]. Retrieved May 29, 2017, from [] <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">-Blog post describing the importance of using culturally relevant material to teach literature. Mooney describes how Lamar’s album To Pimp a Butterfly ties into Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">S., Says, A., Says, S., Says, S. B., & Says, D. (2017, February 02). Kaleidoscope Rubbings. Retrieved June 01, 2017, from http://cedarcanyontextiles.com/kaleidoscope-rubbings-in-the-round/ -Photo used. The photo shows a kaleidoscope.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Winn, M. T., & Johnson, L. P. (2011). Writing instruction in the culturally relevant classroom. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">-Book addressing the need for culturally relevant pedagogy that emphasizes writing as a means to obtain cultural relevancy in the classroom.