The relationship between literacy, language and power is one that is extremely important. Those who possess language and literacy skills are often the ones who are put in power. Often those who do not speak like the people who are in power are criticized for the way that they speak. The quote from the article I choose is "First, and most obvious teachers and schools must accept, believe, and act upon the belief that children of poverty are learners." I choose this quote because it shows that children from poor families are sometimes considered non learners. I cant help but think that the fact that they don't have the language and literacy skills of those in power plays a role in this. The article is based on the fact that those who don't speak like those in power are considered dumb or below everyone else. The article points out that the school did nothing to help the mother because they did not even take her seriously.
Teachers can overcome the cultural deficit perspective by taking time to get to know their students as individuals rather than lumping them into groups. In the article "A Look at Luis Moll's Research Into Hidden Family Resources" once the teacher learns about them as individuals, and loses her cultural deficit perspective, she then teaches off of what the students have learned and she gets overwhelming success. The teacher realizes that each student possess cultural capital and uses this to her and the students advantage. The teacher in the article can attribute some of her success to the funds of knowledge held within the community. When you take the time to learn about your students or do projects such as the Where I'm From activity, you get a much better sense of where the students are and it gives a great starting place to make their education apply to everyday life and become more important to them. One strategy that really seems to work for non-standard English speaking students is relating the English words back to their language. When you provide the association between the two words it becomes much easier for them to grasp. We often learn by association and being able to associate an English word with a word I already makes it easier to learn. Teaching from many perspectives is also very important as not everyone views the world the same. So being open to many different points of view and many ideas is extremely important as a teacher.
The Where I'm From project supported culturally responsive teaching by giving the instructor a chance to see where each of us come from and we got to use what we know to make a project for a formal classroom. The assignment blurred the line between me as a student and me as a person, which allowed a more personal connection to the assignment. It also covered many of the ways in which we learn, the writing of the poem and the making of the video are aimed toward different kinds of learners as we got to read, see pictures, and the making of the video was hands on. The project also gave me a sense of pride in my personal life and you could see the pride in all the projects. As I watched them I couldn't help but to think about how everyone's project was so well done and everyone truly cared about they were represented by their project. We also got to learn about all those in the class, I found myself watching everyone's just to find out more about them. I feel closer to everyone in the class just from watching their video and knowing a little about them. The project overall did a great job of celebrating who we are and bringing a diverse class together. In my future classroom being culturally responsible will be very important. I will probably use a this project or one similar to this early on the course because bringing students together will certainly make for a much better learning environment for all.
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