Teachers can build cultural harmony

My Work Towards Building Cultural Harmony 

“The architect first asks the client whom the building is to serve and what the building's function will be. Then the forms emerge. In a similar way, our Curriculum 21 teams should always begin thinking about new versions of school by asking whom are we serving ultimately, and how can we best meet the needs of our specific learners?" (Jacobs, 2010).

Here I am serving the students in order to develop global mind-set. The way I would use is ‘experiential learning’ in order that the form required, inter-cultural understanding, emerges out of the experience. The experiences that I organize outwardly are all around settings such as (a) whole group discussion, (b) small group work and (c) individual work. I would, however, start with self-awareness.

Self-Work

“As community builders, understanding culture is our business. No matter where you live, you are working with and establishing relationships with people--people who all have cultures”, (Axner)

I would first think carefully about where I am and what is the culture of the place I am working in. some questions that will guide me are:

1. What is the level of diversity in this place?
2. Who am I working with?
3. Which culture do they belong to?
4. What are the do’s and don’ts of the cultures?
5. What is the constellation of my students?
6. What is the diversity of cultures and learning levels?

I would do my research and be prepared before I meet the students for the year. I would explore my own biases to the various cultures and the belief system that I carry. I am extremely reflective and that helps me to move forward after assimilating lessons from my mistakes.

School Environment

As a school we are very aware and proud of the diversity of students. We cherish it and also protect it. For example, we had a student from Pakistan in our classes. India and Pakistan have been at war ever since I remember. Indian students would at times bully him.

So, as a school, we organised a photography event, something that student was great in. We kept the theme ‘street life with empathy’ and everyone brought in their work that was shot around the capital. His work was greatly appreciated and we felt a sense of bonding beginning between him and the others.

We celebrate multiple cultural events from different countries and cultures from India itself. We eat and dance at Mardi Gras and also serve simple meals to support staff, barefoot, at Gandhi’s birthday and clean up the campus.

We have language teaching for several languages such as French, Spanish and German. For English we have first language as well as second language students.

Classroom Work

“In addition, global competence is also not a content area unto itself. It is instead rooted in disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge that cuts across all disciplines”. No matter how much we discuss global competence, unless we can integrate it in the nitty-gritties of the classroom existence, it would stay an abstract topic.

This integration is at two levels, (a) learning environment and (b) teaching maths.

Learning Environment 

1. For me, empathy in classroom environment is non-negotiable and I watch like a hawk to ensure that we all have it, including me.
2. I don’t believe that maths is a representation of intelligence. Hence I respect all students and their level of skills in the subject.
3. I don’t have gender bias. Girls or boys, everyone has the math gene!
4. I work towards accepting all students unconditionally, hence setting the environment for it.
5. During group work, I make students who are good leaders as head of the group, even if they are not good in maths.
6. I involve students in admin roles in class so that their skills are visible to all.
7. I ensure that every student shines in some way or the other in the class, thereby improving the self-esteem and acceptance in the group.

Teaching Maths 

I use multiple settings in the class to expose students to the skills of working with others and working alone. This gives me “…a comprehensive approach that addresses students' cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral development”, (Wagner, Parkhouse, & Glazier).

“Language is a major barrier when bringing together English-only speakers and people who have limited or no proficiency in English”. Having multiple settings helps. For example, in a class with students who spoke Korean only, Korean and English, I grouped them as ‘Korean only and Korean and English’. Then I would teach in English, wait for the peers to translate and then move on. Syllabus ran slow but everyone was contented.

Whole Group Discussion

We watch a film on ‘maths in nature’ and discuss the way geometrical patterns rule the natural world. we learn to listen attentively and respond with respect. If the language diversity is a lot, then we create groups to accommodate all types of learners and a representative from each group communicates with the rest of the class.

Small Group Work
“As people from different cultural groups work together, values sometimes conflict. When we don't understand each other we sometimes react in ways that make a partnership ineffective. Often we're not aware that cultural differences are the root of miscommunication”, (Brownlee, n.d, para. 4).

Organizing tasks in a diverse group is by far my favourite of all! This is almost always followed by a group or individual reflection to understand why things went well or not so well.

Groups work to inquire into:

• Access to higher education in 3 countries and prepare a presentation that uses graphs as means of communication. They create a presentation with suggestions for different countries.
• Method of solving problems for the topic at hand. They discuss the different possibilities and come to an agreement about the best ones. These are shared with other groups.
• Levels of stress as students move into middle school from primary school. They do a survey and collect data. Communication of data is through percentages and graphs. They meet the principal with their findings and suggestions for change.
• Role of mathematicians in the past decade from different countries. What are the new ideas emerging and from which countries? What can we learn from the set ups of the countries from where maximum ideas are emerging? This is an interdisciplinary research work.
• Reflection post group work is focused on, (a) quality of tasks, (b) tem work and (c) suggestions for improvement.

Individual Work 

I believe that just as we need to learn to work with others, we also need to work with ourselves. To face a situation on our own and find our own way forward. I would add that we are a better team player when we are self-sufficient. Individual work that is web based also helps to cover language barrier and students can use online translators to understand better.

Individual work is organised as:

• Problem solving in maths for a specific time to ensure development of habit of self-work.
• Individual investigation into ‘origins of pi in maths’ using open source web based material.
• Flipping the class to learn any concept in maths using books or open source material. For example, www.aaamath.com being used for learning percentages.
• Individual self-reflective projects that integrate maths with arts and language such as “Designing a logo with symmetry”, (Kochar, 2011).

Conclusion

As individual in our school we are doing a lot. Our issue is not having appropriate curricula. "The lack of familiarity with their students' cultures, learning styles, and communication patterns translates into teachers holding negative expectations for students, while inappropriate curricula, assessments, and instructional materials are used with these students, compounding the problem", (Brisk, Barnhardt, Herrera, & Rochon, 2002, p.4). 

While we can work on the cultural knowledge, curricula are something we have no control on. Having all books and examinations in English makes it hard to bridge the gap of language. I see not the necessity for “Literacy Pedagogy”, (Huddart, 2004) as an essential part of pre-service and in-service training for teachers. As one of my school directors would say, ‘Every teacher is first a language teacher and then the subject teacher’.

I feel that the level of diversity is increasing too fast across the world and the task of the teacher is getting more and more difficult. The world is changing too fast but education has yet to catch on.

Yet we go on…plod on!