Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers

"That our differences make us unique and valuable must be a theme running through teacher education programs and into our schools" (p. 239).

How amazing would it be to embrace all of the diversity in our classrooms and be able to accept everyone for who they are. It seems like this would be a common sense statement, but yet it seems that from this article more teachers are turning a blind eye to the differences, acting as if they do not exist. This causes a real problem, not only for the students essentially being ignored, but for the rest of the students in the classroom who never get to learn about the different cultures they are around on a daily basis.

I really think that every teacher should have a copy of the six characteristics of cultreatlurally responsive teachers. Just by reading the characteristics, teachers can see where they stand in the culturally responsive scale.

Simply by educating the teachers on how to be culturally diverse makes a difference in how the teachers view the daily activities in his/her classroom. Even though some topics may be controversial, teachers will have the knowledge and ability to deal with these issues when or even before they arise.

While I greatly agree with this article, I feel that most teachers do care about students and their education. Through learning other cultures and become diverse, teachers will better be equipped to work with all students and teach them using cultural studies perspectives.

The biggest problem I see with a program such as this is the follow through. Once the teachers begin to teach with a new perspective how long will it last? In my opinion there would need to be some type of follow up with the teachers on a periodic basis to assure that they are still understanding the purpose of teaching with a cultural studies perspective.

I feel that it is important to understand all cultures in order to understand how to be an affective teacher to all students. At the same time, it is very interesting to learn about multiple cultures and be able to teach from the perspective of other cultural beliefs and understandings.