During the course of EDUC 606: Education and Culture, I learned that there are so many issues going on in schools today that have a lot of impact from a cultural point of view. For example, culture can have an impact on the way that students learn. Therefore, teachers need to take their students’ cultural background into account. Since I am a second language teacher, I learned that, in order to introduce a new language into a student’s life, I need to research his or her cultural environment and bring his/her culture into my lesson plans:

“If we are to add another language for to the repertoire, we must embrace the children, their interests, their mothers, and their language. We must make them feel welcomed and invited by allowing their interests, culture and history into the classroom. We must reconnect them to their own brilliance and gain their trust so that they will learn from us. Then, and only then, might they be willing to adopt our language for as one to be added to their own.” (Delpit, 2002)

Furthermore, by listening to my colleagues’ Cultural Inquiry Study (CIP) puzzlements, I learned that I am not the only teacher out there wondering about so many issues that have to do with culture in the school environment. For example, one of my peers’ CIP had to do with her being a minority at her school and her puzzlement was about her workplace treating her differently from the others. I absolutely related to this puzzlement, and it was an eye opening to hear about her study and conclusions.

From the Eight ASTL Learning Outcomes, these are some of the points I believe were addressed during EDUC 606:

• Student learning: Teachers are committed to students and their learning. We teachers need to research our students’ cultural background and take their cultural environment into account and plan our lessons around it. Thus, at the beginning of the school year, it is a good idea to send home a survey in order to find out as much about each student’s culture as possible.

• Content knowledge & effective pedagogy: Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students. In order to teach our lessons, we teachers need to somehow incorporate our students’ cultural background, so that they can be familiarized within the learning environment.

• Systematic inquiry of practice: Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience. Not only our students learn from us, but also we teachers must learn from our students. It is important to learn from our past experiences as cultural educators and bring our students’ cultural background as we learn from it.

• Learning community: Teachers are members of learning communities. We live in a diverse community were everyone counts; therefore, we need to be respectful of each and everyone in our community and their cultural      background and take it into account at our school.

• Diversity: Teachers attend the needs of culturally, linguistically, and cognitively diverse learners. Again, we teachers need to take every students’ cultural background into account and teach our lesson plans depending on each of our student’s cultural needs.

In conclusion, in today’s very diverse world, teachers must research, not only their students’ cultural background, but also the different cultures that surround their school’s cultural environment, so that they can learn as much about how to teach their students in a culturally accessible environment. Hence, I am looking forward to keep reading articles and do individual research on how to better help my students to learn my language and ease the learning process for them by taking their cultural background into account. EDUC 606 Cultural Study