Making Culture Part of Everyday Learning

by Sunny Yoo

In an elementary classroom, every book, assignment, discussion, and activity sends a message about whose experiences are valued. The students do not leave their languages, cultures, families, or identities behind when they enter school because these parts of their lives shape how they learn and how they connect with others. Although heritage months can be meaningful opportunities to celebrate different cultures, they should not be the only time students see themselves represented in the classroom. Culturally responsive teaching encourages teachers to make the students’ backgrounds a regular part of learning, rather than treating culture as a separate topic or occasional celebration. For multilingual and culturally diverse students, this can create a stronger sense of belonging and help them participate more confidently in academic work. Elementary teachers can support this by choosing inclusive classroom materials, connecting lessons to the students’ home and community knowledge, and valuing the students’ home languages. Culturally responsive teaching should be used throughout the school year as a daily approach that supports students academically, socially, and culturally.

One way elementary teachers can make culturally responsive teaching a part of the whole school year is by paying close attention to the materials and assignments they use. In “Teachers’ Texts in Culturally Responsive Teaching”, Ted Kesler explains that “culturally responsive teaching is based on the premise that students learn best when academic skills and content are situated within the students’ frames of reference and lived experiences” (Kesler 419). This means that teachers should not be treating the students’ cultures and identities as separate from academic learning. Instead, they should think about how everyday classroom texts, such as worksheets, projects, books, field trips, and writing assignments, either include or exclude students. Kesler writes, “So for this article, I define teacher’s texts as any texts that teachers actively use in the service of their curriculum, whether self-generated or ready-made” (Kesler 420). His examples show that even common assignments, like a family tree project or an immigration unit, can leave out students whose families or histories do not fit in the expected pattern. However, when teachers allow the students to reshape those assignments, the curriculum becomes more inclusive. Kesler explains, “By opening up the space for Natasha to reformulate a key text in our study, our class community was able to integrate her story and enrich our curriculum” (Kesler 423). This supports the idea that culturally responsive teaching should not only happen during heritage months. It should be a part of the way teachers choose, question, and adapt classroom materials throughout the year so that all the students can see their lives and experiences as valuable parts of learning.

Another way teachers can make culturally responsive teaching a year-round practice is by using the students’ home and community knowledge as part of daily instruction. While Kesler focuses on the classroom materials teachers choose, McLaughlin and Barton show that the students themselves also bring important resources into the classroom. In “Preservice Teachers’ Uptake and Understanding of Funds of Knowledge in Elementary Science”, they explain, “Funds of knowledge are posited as repositories of valuable resources that can be strategically tapped in validating home and local community knowledge, engaging learners with knowledge that is familiar to them, and as a foundation for more sophisticated content-based learning” (McLaughlin and Barton 16). This means that the students’ family experiences, community activities, interests, and everyday knowledge should not be treated as separate from academics. Instead, teachers can use these experiences to help the students connect with new ideas. The article also explains that “teachers must be prepared to take primary responsibility for eliciting and acknowledging students’ varied ultralight resources for learning” (McLaughlin and Barton 16). This is important because the students may not always know what their home lives and personal experiences are useful in school. Teachers have to create opportunities for the students to share their knowledge through discussions, open-ended questions, projects, and classroom conversations. By doing this throughout the year, the teachers move beyond surface-level cultural celebration and make the students’ real lives a part of the learning process. This helps the students feel valued while also making academic content more meaningful and easier to connect to.

Culturally responsive teaching should also include the languages multilingual students use at home and in their communities. If teachers only value English in the classroom, students may feel that an important part of their identity does not belong in school. Hornberger and Link explain, “As school populations become increasingly linguistically diverse, refusing to acknowledge the language resources of students and their families limits the possibilities for their educational achievement" (Hornberger and Link 240). This connects to culturally responsive teaching because language is not separate from culture because it is one of the main ways the students communicate, think, and connect with their families. Hornberger and Link describe translanguaging as the way bilingual students “communicate and make meaning by drawing on and intermingling linguistic features from different languages” (Hornberger and Link 240). This means that multilingual students may use more than one language to understand ideas, explain their thinking, and participate in learning. Instead of viewing this as a problem, teachers can use it as a strength by allowing students to discuss ideas in their home language, use bilingual resources, or connect English lessons to the languages they already know. Hornberger and Link also argue, “Thus, translanguaging can be seen not only as a language practice of multilinguals, but as a pedagogical strategy to foster language and literacy development” (Hornberger and Link 242). This shows that supporting home languages is not just about making the students feel included. It can also help them grow academically. When the teachers value multilingual students’ full language abilities throughout the school year, they create a classroom where the students’ cultures and languages are treated as resources for learning.

Culturally responsive teaching should be a part of everyday classroom practice, not something that only happens during heritage months. Elementary teachers can support multilingual and culturally diverse students by thinking carefully about the materials they use, connecting lessons to the students’ home and community knowledge, and valuing the languages the students bring into the classroom. These practices help the students see that their families, cultures, and experiences are meaningful parts of learning. When the teachers adapt assignments, invite the students to share their funds of knowledge, and allow multilingual students to use their full language abilities, the classroom can become more inclusive and academically supportive. Heritage months can still be important, but they should be one part of a larger year-round commitment to making all of the students feel seen, respected, and capable of success.

References

• Kesler, Ted. “Teachers’ Texts in Culturally Responsive Teaching.” Language Arts, vol. 88, no. 6, 2011, pp. 419–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org.brooklyn.ezproxy.cuny.edu/stable/41804301. Accessed 21 May 2026.
• Hornberger, Nancy H., and Holly Link. “Translanguaging in Today’s Classrooms: A Biliteracy Lens.” Theory into Practice, vol. 51, no. 4, 2012, pp. 239–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23362829. Accessed 21 May 2026.
• McLaughlin, David S., and Angela Calabrese Barton. “Preservice Teachers’ Uptake and Understanding of Funds of Knowledge in Elementary Science.” Journal of Science Teacher Education, vol. 24, no. 1, 2013, pp. 13–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org.brooklyn.ezproxy.cuny.edu/stable/43670555. Accessed 21 May 2026.