Cultural competence training among teachers and leaders and its related pedagogy have arrived with such bombast that one might think the system we now have is outmoded (which it is), uninspiring (which it is) and that there are scads of children tuned out (which they are) because we have somehow failed (which we have) to connect with them in any relevant way. Of course, it is not true that cultural competence has only recently arrived on the scene but it is true that our industry is finally catching up with what the kids have been telling us for years, that learning is about them and their needs, that we have got to meet them where they are before we can expect them to go where we are leading.
As a student of history, I glean a great deal of insight into our current practice by studying how we got here in the first place. I can recall a doctoral course I took that my classmates found terribly boring, especially when considering the books we were asked forced to read. My colleagues had fun at my expense because I found the books fascinating and I must admit that I have re-read a couple of them, though please don’t tell my classmates that. For those who like such things, email me anytime I will send you the titles. Just don’t complain to me if you find them painfully boring.
Student Engagement Requires Skills for Managing Life
Philosopher and prophet John Dewey was one such giant in our history from whom I have learned a great deal. It is easy to look back now and view his writings as old-school wisdoms or obvious truths but let’s keep in mind that he was pushing educational reforms when there was little or no science to back up his claims. In his famous thesis Democracy and Education (1916), Dewey describes for us what he considers one of the key outcomes of any school or system – teaching students “how to” learn. There is where he first introduces us to the concept of “plasticity.”
“This is something quite different from the plasticity of putty or wax. It is not a capacity to take on change of form in accord with external pressure. It lies near the pliable elasticity by which some persons take on the color of their surroundings while retaining their own bent. But it is something deeper than this. It is essentially the ability to learn from experience; the power to retain from one experience something which is of avail in coping with the difficulties of a later situation. This means power to modify actions on the basis of the results of prior experiences, the power to develop dispositions. Without it, the acquisition of habits is impossible.”
It’s one of the reasons that Dewey was not a big fan of vocational education in its original conception, as a way of tracking students into a job. Though Dewey was fine with kids learning a skill that may lead to a job, he did not view skill-building as the heart of schooling. He found it far more valuable to offer a curricula that would have students discovering things about themselves, about the way they learn and about the habits of problem-solving that would carry the day in response to whatever life presented them.
3 Real-Life Outcomes of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
- Adaptability
- It is not just that our teachers should adapt their curricula and lessons to meet the needs and interests of the kids in their classes (though they should), the real challenge is to create classroom opportunities for children to actually “learn” the highly evolved skill of “adapting” to their surroundings, to subject matter they have not yet seen and to problems they have not yet faced. While some would encourage students to learn a craft such as carpentry in school or a subject such as math, Dewey would posit that we use classes like carpentry and math to teach students to be problem-solvers (engineers if you will) because while it is great to learn how to measure twice and cut once, it is even more important to recognize how to use that skill in tackling many of the crises that work and life will present to us across our lifetimes.
- Flexibility
- The children who went to school way back in the 20th century, and certainly the children of the 19th, 18th and 17th centuries, were likely to find work doing one thing. They were doctors or dentists, tradesmen or craftsmen, farmers or factory workers. A subtle few advanced to college and fewer still joined the intellectual high society that we know as professors, politicians, scientists and social entrepreneurs. That world, as we know it, is no more.
- Even if it is true that one can still find work doing one thing (being a teacher for example), it is nearly impossible to advance in any career or change careers unless we find ways to re-define ourselves, to understand and even appreciate those who are not like us and to honestly embrace changes in technology, science and even public policy. Like adaptability, it is not enough for our teachers to be flexible in how they offer up their lessons, it is critical that the lessons themselves be adapted to teach students the art of flexibility.
- Resiliency
- Teaching students through a cultural lens requires us to stand by each student all the way to the end, to be partners in their struggle and facilitate their growth even when the cycle of failure kicks in. The resiliency required by today’s educators may also be the single most important skill that young people need to learn in school, especially for those children who endeavor to rise above their lives of poverty, neglect and discrimination.
- A lot of people are talking about grit these days, as they should. For there is no reason for students to be experts in math and science if they are not graduating as strong, determined and resilient young adults.
In reminding each of us that we were not hired to teach subjects but to teach children, let us return to Dewey. In 1916, he implored his colleagues in education to provide students every challenge and habit that would be required to take on whatever struggle would come their way. He said: “In learning an action, instead of having it given ready-made, one of necessity learns to vary its factors, to make varied combinations of them, according to change of circumstances. A possibility of continuing progress is opened up by the fact that in learning one act, methods are developed good for use in other situations. Still more important is the fact that the human being acquires a habit of learning. He learns to learn.”
