Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy 

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What does a school look like, sound like and feel like when we promote reflection, honour the community and support authentic collaboration among staff, students and parents?

The environment of a culturally responsive school depends highly upon the importance that administration places on this valuable concept as well as what teachers and support staff do to ensure this is practiced at the school. Educators are aware of what it means to be culturally responsive and practice it in their daily interactions in the classroom and in the school environment as a whole. Parents and teachers display effective communication with each other that’s based on mutual respect. Administration and staff also display effective communication on both parts that’s based on mutual respect. Individuals are celebrated for their strengths and given assistance with areas they can improve on. With this in place at the top levels, students have a good model to follow in their interactions in the classroom on how to treat their peers. 

What does a classroom look like, sound like and feel like when it is inclusive and when instruction is responsive to the full range of student diversity?

A classroom where this is practiced is an inclusive environment where ALL students are able to share their ideas without fear of ridicule or rejection. Students see themselves in the materials that are being taught and can visualize themselves in their work. 

What further information would be helpful in considering cultural relevance and cultural responsiveness in our school?

All teachers of Six Nations schools need to have a strong understanding of the students and community they are working within. It is only when you truly understand the students you teach, that you are able to really get through to them. This can include the different religious practices some families follow, the different family dynamics that regularly occur on Six Nations, cultural lifestyle changes on reserve compared to off-reserve, how our students see themselves in their education (or not), etc. Speaking with seasoned educators, elders, and parents can help someone get a better understanding of cultural relevance in our schools. 

How do we work with our communities to help everyone appreciate the importance of culturally responsive teaching?

We can help other’s appreciate the importance of culturally responsive teaching only to those who WANT to learn. Unfortunately, there are people in our communities who are close-minded and do not want to learn so to say how to we help “everyone” appreciate the importance is not a fair statement. Everyone has to want to learn in order to learn. Some parents, staff, etc choose to remain ignorant - non-native AND native teachers included. 

But besides that, we can work with those who want to learn by giving some kind of sensitivity training to educators who aren’t as familiar with Six Nations. (In reality, I believe our teachers and T.A.s should already have this knowledge or at least familiarity BEFORE even being hired since it’s a HUGE requirement to be able to effectively teach on reserve, but that’s a story for another day.) 

What is the impact on our students when we do not acknowledge the complexity of culture and difference?

This issue is one I feel very strongly about. When our students do NOT see themselves represented in mainstream media, in their own education, in the teachers that teach them, we are doing a huge disservice to them. This is one of the reasons I choose to teach on reserve, so that our students can have a strong, native teacher to be able to be as culturally sensitive as possible in my teaching of them. 

I purposely use photos of onkwehon:we in my flashcards and Smart Board lessons. I use our hotinonhson:ni stories and games in my activities. I read stories of hotinonhson:ni or at the very least other First Nations when I’m trying to get a point across. I even use onkwehon:we figurines in my lessons on the words for family members versus using your standard “white family.” Lol. I go out of my way to make sure that my students see themselves represented in their learning; see themselves representing in the stories we read; see themselves in positions of power and success through examples I give. 

I go to longhouse and learn about our culture and traditions so I can more effectively speak about them and teach them to my students. I’ve went back as an adult to learn our language so that I can understand the complexities of it and be able to share it with my students. I am in a hotinonhson:ni women’s drum group and learn our songs and protocols about socials so I can teach them to my students. All of these teachings have changed who I am as a person and as an educator. I never had this knowledge growing up as a student on Six Nations and I always felt like something was missing in my life. I was always on honour role, did very well in school and university, got a good job, did everything I set out to do. But it wasn’t until I learned my language and more of my culture that I fully felt complete as onkwehon:we. 

I am so excited to share this knowledge with my students everyday to not only teach them the curriculum (which anyone can do), but to teach them how awesome we are as onkwehon:we people learning the same curriculum. We see things differently than mainstream society. We feel things differently. We process things differently. But we need to celebrate these differences not as being a bad thing, but as being what makes us unique and something to be proud of. 

When students aren’t taught about the complexities of our culture, and how awesome it make us, they suffer unnecessarily. Pride in their differences is what makes them unique and is what is going to make them persevere when things get hard in education or in life in general.  

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What questions might we reflect upon to examine our own biases towards diversity and cultural responsiveness?

In a PLC staff meeting, you could maybe begin by asking if staff even know what diversity and cultural responsiveness is. If you can’t even give a definition of what this means, that’s a good jumping off point to learning more about it. 

For those teachers who know, they can brainstorm and share with their groups examples of each so it’s non-threatening in sharing of ideas. Then the ideas and biasses can collectively be shared with the whole so no one is centred out as having that specific bias themselves. Then you can begin to start fixing those biases that come up in the staff. 

How would we start a staff discussion on moving towards cultural responsiveness in a more intentional way?

We could start a staff discussion by a couple staff members who are willing to demonstrate specific examples of what they do in their classrooms to be more culturally responsive to our students and share the results of these actions. I believe positivity fuels itself and it’s hard to not jump on board when other colleagues are sharing ideas of what’s worked for them and how well the students respond to the changes. It’s infectious and hopefully inspires other teachers to climb on board as well. 

How might we integrate specific life experiences of our students into daily instruction and learning processes?

I love doing this and students love hearing about their teacher’s personal life experiences in learning as well. When I teach about ceremonies, I tell them what I know happened at the Kanyenkeha:ka longhouse and ask the other students who I know go to other longhouses about what happened at their longhouse’s ceremony. For example, I can say that the turtles won the peach pit game at my longhouse for a certain ceremony on the weekend and all the turtles in the class cheer and are so proud and excited. But then, I always have a story to share that maybe at Onondaga longhouse the other clans won. Students really relate to the lessons when they see themselves in the learning. 

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How might we support students in making decisions about their learning that integrate who they are and what they already know with their home and community experiences?

Teachers can give the students one of those tests where students can see which type of learner they are: visual, kinesthetic, auditory, etc. We can invite students to share ideas on how they learn best to give them responsibility and a say in their learning. We can also involve the parents and guardians and even elders to discuss how we as onkwehonwe learn. This will give us background into where the students come from and their community experiences. 

How can we lessen dominant perspectives in our curriculum so that contributions from different backgrounds can be better understood and integrated into learning?

We can have teachers that know the difference between dominant perspectives and our onkwehonwe perspectives. Teachers must be knowledgeable and comfortable with knowing exactly who they students they teach are. This way teachers are able to easily use the Ontario curriculum but teach it using hotinonhnson:ni perspectives and values. When teachers don’t know this or aren't comfortable teaching it, they resort to using Western or dominant perspectives instead. If a teacher doesn’t know the grade 8 math curriculum, they must teach it to themselves or learn it before teaching it. It should work the same with teaching our students. It’s ok not to know. But it’s not ok not to learn.