Should Teachers Become More Culturally Sensitive?

Should Teachers Become More Culturally Sensitive?

Teachers advocating for social justice aim to have classrooms and schools that are anti-racist, multicultural, and grounded in the experiences of their students. The goal is for all children to obtain an academically rigorous education that is caring and critical, and will help students pose their own critical questions about society in which they "talk back" to the world.  Educators teaching for social justice aim not for high standardized test scores, but instead for the success of students in the real world.  One aspect of this teaching method of social justice is for teachers to become more culturally sensitive.  This is because many White teachers are going to enter the work force, and it is highly likely that they will be educating children of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds that are different from their own.  This requires teachers to realize that they do not know everything, and they need to open themselves up to learn information about the students, their backgrounds, and the area where the students live.  Teachers need to take into account not only culture and race, but social class of the students as well.  Talking to the students' parents is a great method for teachers to connect with the family and learn about the student.  Teachers can also get out and be involved in the students community, as well as talk to colleagues that have worked in the school system and dealt with various aspect of diversity successfully.  

Personally since we live in a country with so much diversity, I feel that social justice should be involved and incorporated into all classrooms.  Through my research I found many teachers, organizations, and entire schools that practice teaching social justice, and hopefully this continues to catch on.  I can relate to this because many of the children that I work with daily come from various racial background and social classes.  Through my conversations with parents, we have worked together to stop certain problems the child was having, and many situations were attributed to different factors regarding diversity.  One child would always show up without a lunch so of course we would buy him food, but clearly there was a bigger problem at hand because this happened on multiple occasions.  We set up a meeting with the boys mother, who we found out was a single parent, suffering with a life threatening illness, and lacking sufficient money for caring for herself or her child.  It was definitely eye opening to see what this child had been going through, and the knowledge of that let us help both the mother and the child.  The YMCA has since provided them with lower cost housing and free child care.  Also, the grandmother has since moved in with them, and the household environment is a lot more stable.  Without taking the initiative to find out more about the students background, these poor living conditions would have continued for the child. Through talking to parents and being involved in the children's community I feel we have been more culturally sensitive to these students and these changes are something that I would like to see in all education systems on a large scale.