A Response to Gay’s preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching

Reading Response

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A Response to Gay’s preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching

In this article, the author uses the research findings from examining and evaluating the five essential elements of culturally responsive teaching to develop a model for guiding teachers to teach ethnically-diverse students. To prepare for culturally responsive teaching, educators should develop a culturally-diverse knowledge base where “educators understand cultural characteristics and contributions of different groups” (Gay, 2002). Teachers have a problem of developing a multi-cultural education because of their principles, premises, and principles that have a basis on “superficial or distorted information conveyed through popular culture, mass media, and critics” (Gay, 2002). Educators convert their knowledge to design a culturally relevant design through instructional plans such as formal plans, symbolic and societal curriculum. To create a learning and culturally responsive community, educators should build a community among diverse learners helping them understand “knowledge has moral and political elements and consequences, which obligate them to take social action to promote freedom, equality, and justice for everyone” (Gay, 2002). Creating a cross-cultural communication makes learning easy because “it meets meeting and community in a classroom” (Gay, 2002).

This article had me thinking a lot about how educators teach students of different ethnicities in one classroom to ensure better performance. To teach and ensure better learning, in a teaching career, I could analyze different cultures to have adequate knowledge about these students to ensure the information is appropriate for them. During teaching, I could employ formal plans like books, symbolic curriculum depicting various images that students will observe in their societies, and societal curriculum depicting the media presentation of various societies. It will be a fundamental instrumental, ensuring better performance of students from different ethnicities.

Reference

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of teacher education, 53(2), 106-116.