Week #7

 Article: What to Look for in a Classroom - By Alfie Kohn

Video: Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy - By Learning for Justice

Reflection:

Article:

      This article was one of my favorites that we have read this semester because it really challenged my ideas about what an effective classroom looks like. Kohn’s main argument is that students deserve to learn in environments that help them grow into smarter, more thoughtful, and engaged individuals—not just robots trained to memorize information. He makes a compelling case that genuine learning often happens in a “messy” way, where students are actively questioning, exploring, and collaborating, rather than quietly following directions.     Kohn encourages educators to look beyond surface-level indicators of a “good” classroom, such as silence or strict order, and instead ask deeper questions: Are students engaged? Are they thinking critically? Are they making meaningful choices about their learning? These questions remind us that teaching should be about fostering curiosity and critical thinking, not just compliance. He also emphasizes that the curriculum should be meaningful and connected to students’ real lives, rather than simply a list of skills to be memorized for tests. As future educators, this perspective pushes us to focus on creating dynamic, student-centered classrooms where learning is authentic and empowering.

Video:

    Watching this video helped me better understand how culturally relevant pedagogy is both a mindset and a practice. It made me reflect on how often classrooms expect students to conform to dominant cultural norms, rather than allowing them to bring their full selves into learning. The video emphasizes that culturally relevant teaching is not an add-on or superficial gesture. True implementation means reshaping how teachers think about content, assessment, relationships, and classroom culture so that students feel seen, understood, and empowered.

This is the photo I chose because Kohn makes a point that students need more than just words going in one ear and out another to be successful in their future. This image of a classroom perfectly reflects his point here. Students have more to look at and use as tools to help them learn further while the educator is teaching. 

Week #6

 Other People’s Children 

By Lisa Delpit

 Reflection: 

    My reflection on this reading is something I thought I was going to struggle with when first reading her argument. I may have struggled reading this, but from what I can gather, Delpit's central argument is that cultural misunderstandings between teachers can create serious barriers to learning. Reading her work made me reflect on how easily well-intentioned educators can misinterpret behaviors, communication styles, or learning needs when they view everything through their own cultural lens. Delpit’s discussion of the “culture of power” stood out to me most. Teachers may interpret students’ behaviors, language, or ways of participating through their own cultural lens, leading to misjudgments about ability, attitude, or discipline. Something we have been taught as future educators is to fully block out our biases, no matter what we were taught growing up.

  

 Delpit argues that teachers must both respect students’ home cultures and explicitly teach the “rules of power”, such as language forms or behavior expected in schools, so that students can navigate both their home communities and academic settings successfully. She also points out that when teachers avoid correcting or instructing students out of a desire to be “non-imposing,” they may unintentionally withhold crucial knowledge that helps students succeed. Real equity, she says, comes from acknowledging differences, addressing power directly, and valuing students’ cultural backgrounds.

    From personal experience, teachers in my school have always favored students from the first day of class. This proved to me that there was no winning them over because there's something about those specific students that they are biased towards for a reason.

I chose this photo because I thought it had a good representation of what to pay attention to when teaching. Sometimes we don't understand we have certain biases til we are constructively criticized.

To share with the class:

Sharing these ideas can help future educators reflect critically on their own practices and biases. It challenges us to think beyond surface-level “diversity” and really examine the structures and expectations we uphold in our classrooms. Delpit’s work is a call to action for teachers to be both culturally responsive and academically rigorous. It reminds us that equity is not achieved by pretending differences don’t exist, but by recognizing and addressing them directly, with care and respect.