My Essay on Culturally Responsive Teaching

by Akiel Taylor

Introduction

Public schools play an important role in our everyday lives. They educate and mold our youngest citizens to become important people as they reach adulthood. As an educator, my goal is to assist in the molding of our future leaders. But I can do it alone. I need the help of parents to create those strong leaders. That is why I feel educators need to focus on building partnerships with parents to help create better classrooms. In this essay I will discuss how we can build those partnerships with parents and how using culturally responsive teaching will create the bonds we need to help students.

The neighborhood I teach in

I have been fortunate to be able to teach in the neighborhood that I grew up in, which is Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. This neighborhood has a wonderful history of people coming together to fight to make the area better. In my school, there are so many parents who are willing to work with me to be able to help their children become more culturally astute people.

Building partnerships with parents

One of the ways that I would use culturally relevant teaching to build partnerships is by working with the PTA of my school. That is my first opportunity to work with parents outside of the classroom because the PTA is on the front lines to build relationships with parents and teachers. There have been many instances where parents of the PTA created strong bonds with neighborhood leaders, stores, and local politicians to be able to get the things that they needed for their schools. I feel that working together with them will help me as I look to utilize the teaching of Gloria Ladson-Billings to create a culturally responsive pedagogy and the partnership that my students need. Another way that I would build partnerships with parents is by willing to protest to my administration or to local politicians on the needs of my students and their parents. History has shown that when parents and teachers come together, magic can happen. This type of partnership was shown in New York City in 1968 when teachers struck to keep community-run schools in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn. The strike lasted 7 weeks, and it showed that parents and teachers want to have a school where the leaders and the teachers look like them. This shocked the system as it helps students understand that their parents are willing to fight for them and the teachers are willing to sacrifice their livelihoods to make sure that they have a great education. The last way I would create parent partnerships with culturally responsive teaching is by helping to present a school that respects all people's cultures so that they can be proud to send their children to that school. As I was doing my research for this essay, I was presented with a miniseries called Nice White Parents by The New York Times. The miniseries explains how in 1963, they were a group of white parents in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, who lobbied to have a public school built near the predominantly white neighborhood instead of near the projects where predominantly Black and brown people lived. These white parents said that building the school near that neighborhood will cause integration, and they will send their children there after it is built. But that did not happen, as none of the white families sent their children to the school. Instead, they looked for alternative ways to school their kids, such as private schools and specialized programs. If educators really want to create partnerships, we have to show all people living in the surrounding neighborhoods of public schools will give their child an opportunity to showcase themselves as well as an education that will allow them to be creative as well as educated.

In conclusion, creating partnerships with parents with culturally responsive teaching will give them and educators the opportunity to become stronger than ever while giving each student the opportunity to succeed and to become educated in the area that they grew up in.