By Shane Treadway
In his forward to the textbook Affirming Diversity, Jim Cummins asserts, “teachers have choices” (Nieto and Bode 2012:xv). His assertion challenges teachers to recognize their active role in engaging, understanding, and applying the cultural knowledge of diverse students. In doing so, teachers legitimize the life experiences and prior knowledge of students who come from socio-cultural minority groups. By legitimizing and integrating diverse cultural knowledge, teachers can help create more inclusive, more positive, and more experientially rich learning environments.
Each student’s life connects to a unique world. But the worlds of minority students are even more rare, precious, and valuable because of the uniqueness of their broader socio-historical formation. It is this unique world, or the unique socio-historical position of minority students that makes them minorities. These students grew up, or were formed, in societies that have learned to interpret life and solve problems very differently than the majority of American students and teachers (Matthews 2011). The navigation of these children through unique social environments, daily habits, routines, and culturally motivated interactions builds a specific repertoire of symbolic tools necessary to succeed in those environments (Rogoff et al. 2007).
A change of environment means a change or adaptation of cultural tools. But those tools still come with great value. Nieto and Bode (2012) write, “A recent meta-review of the benefits of bilingualism concluded that bilingualism is reliably associated with increased attention control, working memory, meta-linguist awareness, and abstract reasoning, all of which naturally can contribute positively to academic success (226).” Each individual is so formed by the intricate structures of her or his broader social world that Bourdieu is comfortable saying that “the whole social structure is present in each interaction (Bourdieu 1991:67).” So, for majority students and teachers to connect with minority students is to connect with new worlds of thought and expression. I believe this is why Paulo Freire writes:
As a teacher, I must open myself to the world of these students with whom I share my pedagogical adventure. I must become acquainted with their way of being in the world, if not become intimately acquainted, at least become less of a stranger to it. (122)
But how can teachers accomplish this? What are some practical ways that teachers can learn to value and integrate minority student knowledge and disseminate that knowledge along with best teaching practices across the broader educational spectrum? This article highlights the challenges of English language learners (ELLs), and explores how teachers may be able to create more appropriate and affective learning environments by applying concepts and practices common to community learning.
ELL Challenges
One particular group of students whose challenges warrant culturally sensitive teaching methods and practices are English Language Learners (ELLs) (Iddings and Rose 2012)(Kim 2015)(Horwitz et al. 2009)(Nieto and Bode 2012)(Alford 2014)(Matthews 2011). In the United States, over a quarter of children under the age of six have a parent who speaks a language other that English, and 20% of all children speak a language other than English (Matthews 2011)(Nieto and Bode 2012:211). In spite of these high statistics, significant gaps exist between the learning environments of schools and the life experiences of ELLs (Nieto and Bode 2012). Much of this gap is likely the result of learning environments and educational structures that were built to meet the needs of the majority culture and thus do not connect well with individuals from societies that operate under different economies and cultural practices (Furman 2002)(Rogoff et al. 2007).
It is argued that many of the dominant learning environments in U.S. schools are outdated because they were created under social conditions that have since faded (Furman 2002). Because of this, schools often fail to adequately prepare even majority students for the social demands of contemporary society. How much wider will that gap be for ELLs? One further complication is that many teachers are unaware of these disparities between culturally appropriate learning environments and student needs (Nieto and Bode 2012). Majority culture teachers were themselves educated and formed under these models from childhood and later trained to implement them as educators (Furman 2002). The trickiest thing about culture is the challenge of seeing ones own. Also, once certain educational practices become naturalized, other forms of learning can be viewed as abnormal (Nieto and Bode 2012). As a result, the culturally specific needs of minority language communities remain unnoticed, and methods for meeting those needs undeveloped. Even worse, when English proficiency and fluid social mobility across dominant educational structures are the “normal”, other proficiencies and strengths remain unvalued. The result? ELL students are judged only in light of deficiencies (Alford 2014)(Furman 2002)(Nieto and Bode 2012).
The trickiest thing about culture is the challenge of seeing ones own.
The Structural Challenge of Deficit Discourses
One study by Jennifer H. Alford (2014) demonstrates how deficit discourses form an aspect of the dominant cultural ideology of Australian teachers’ perceptions of minority language students. Deficit discourses are speech habits that socially position ELLs as having an inherent deficiency in their ability to understand, in this case, critical literacy. For example, a common deficit discourse blames the student’s cultural past (apart from any cultural experience by the teacher) for student’s challenges in grasping critical literacy. An excerpt from one teacher states:
“A lot of these kids, maybe because of their cultural backgrounds are not allowed to have opinions. Like cultures where children don’t have opinions and don’t learn how to backup and support an opinion.”
This kind of culture blaming reinforces the hegemonic positioning of dominant educational practices. It also reveals how social structures are fixed in language, and how teachers draw from their cultural repertoire of talk. These pervasive discourses establish and reinforce ethnocentric views of what is normal and they position students in relationship to culturally established norms. Unfortunately, deficit discourses also imply that minority language students lack the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in life. ELLs suffer in theses contexts as their identities are formed in environments where a sense of inferior social positioning is reinforced. Naturally, students internalize the debilitating significance of deficit discourses. On a positive note, counter hegemonic discourses also existed simultaneously and competitively within the talk of the same sample group of teachers. Alford refers to this as “learner difference as a resource” discourses (80). These discourses reveal that teachers recognize many of the positive contributions that ELLs bring to the educational setting. But these positive discourses were less frequent and, in practice, teachers did not draw on the diverse cultural knowledge of ELLs. Furthermore, from my perspective of the examples given, they were just as much based on stereotypes and lack of genuine cultural understanding as the deficit discourses.
Alford emphasized that the “high challenge” that ELLs face needs to be countered by a “high support pedagogy” (85). She also addressed the need to create and disseminate counter discourses. Teachers need to be more aware and careful about how they talk about ELLs. This would demand that teachers develop deeper understandings of the relationship between culture and language. The counter hegemonic discourses at least point to an openness by teachers of more inclusive and culturally accurate pedagogies. Alford also talked about “interrupting” deficit discourses and broadly “mobilizing” new more accurate discourses. Doing so could help educators make the shift from “learner as problem to pedagogy as problem” (74). This also reinforces Nieto and Bode (2012) who state, “More than anything, then, teachers and schools perception of the abilities of English learners may get in the way of student achievement (227).” I was drawn to this example because it unearths a complex structural element of the problem that ELLs face. It also causes me to be skeptical of mere stagnate paper policy solutions that fail to take into consideration diverse and shifting social contexts.
Aspects of Community Learning
Nieto makes note of “the lack of models of multicultural education in our own schooling and experience (Nieto and Bode 2012:384).” Because ideas of culture, language, and education are formed by our own experiences, we are often blind to the cultural needs of others. As much as we may sympathize, we may lack the tools due to our own cultural upbringing (Rogoff et al. 2007). Pinpointing cultural differences is not necessarily natural, so the more collaborative experiences that can be combined for problem solving and mutual understanding the more opportunities for recognizing deficiencies in cultural awareness can occur (Avruch 1998). For this reason, working in a community can help bring more contextualized experiences to the table for reflection and learning (Granados 2015). We need to create new experiences through creating opportunities for shared participation. Nadia Granados ( 2015) writes:
With these questions and critiques in mind, I assume a perspective that focuses on how knowledge construction is the product of shared participation. This participation can happen when two or more persons in the course of regularly shared practice experience and develop views, values, and discourses as a result of both their role in the community of practice, and the role of the community of practice within the larger social order. (47)
School as Community
School as Community, edited by Gail Furman, is a compilation of essays focused on community-based education. My goal was to analyze the three essays that pay special attention to the benefit of community practices for teachers. I discuss those findings in relation to what might be useful to meet the specific needs of ELLs.
Furman begins by addressing the contributions and challenges of community educational models. His three main areas of focus are first, that community elements may help to relieve social alienation, second, that community education may diminish superficiality and increase meaning and purpose, and lastly, that less bureaucratic models should prove more relevant for contemporary society (7). Following a brief history of how education transitioned from community to institution, Furman pleas for a return to community practices. Early schools served as a community center for the broader society. As these smaller societies were often culturally homogeneous, they could more easily maintain cultural values and connect to students felt needs and learning paradigms. Community education was a natural outgrowth of a society that operated upon strong community values. But the formation of cities, increased immigration, and technological advances coupled with industry, capitalism, and the growing push for a unified national identity eventually placed pressure on schools to meet the new demands of a changing more institutionalized society. Schools shifted from preparing children for life in community to preparing them for life in industrialized society.
This shift, and the many years that education has operated under the institution model, has normalized an educational system based on rational, technical, and instrumental discourses. Furman States that education is instrumental in that it “serves national economic interests by preparing students for the workforce (7).” The technical aspect results from the value of measuring outputs. Consequently, student performance is highly competitive as greater individual output is valued. Successes are also determined by rational measurements of student achievement. Some questions that I ask include: Are these educational values and practices that were born out of the industrial age relevant for preparing today’s students for the economies they will engage? Even if they are relevant in certain contexts, do strong capitalistic output values as opposed to collaborative democratic values represent the dominant ethic that we want to propagate as a society? Finally, and more specific to this paper, to what extent do these values connect to 20% or more of our language minority population and to our ever diversifying, global community?
Furman leans toward a definition of community represented in Ferdinand Tonnies concept of Gemeinschaft, which emphasizes the participant’s “social experience, based in natural will and trust, rather than a specific social structure (11).” For Furman, if a participant does not feel a sense of community, then true community does not exist. Feelings of belonging, safety, stability, and participation are essential for community learning models to produce the quality of results desired by educators who wish to implement these models. Cultural diversity, however, poses great challenges to community in that community by definition presupposes common values and sentiments. For this reason, educational communities should shoot for greater intentionality, creativity, and pliability. Commonalities should be sought out, discovered, and fore-fronted. The following three essays, focused on community in relation to teachers, demonstrate these tensions and offer potential solutions.
Contradictions of School Community in Restructuring Elementary Schools: Lessons from a Case Study, by Paul Goldman & Gerald Tindal
In this study, a group of five elementary teachers joined forces in order to co-teach a multi-age elementary class that also included children with special needs. The researchers initially began the study to investigate organizational learning and organizational communication, but they later realized that the concept of community offered “ a more powerful interpretive metaphor” with which to explain their observations (98).
The community aspects of this collaborative teaching group included a common identity around the value of “developmentally appropriate practices.” The internalization of this value among the teachers was demonstrated repeatedly in word and deed. While the essay did not focus on ELLs, it did mention stats of 10% bilingual population and the participation of special needs children within the classroom. The condition of shared identity among collaborative teacher leadership was seen to diminish values of competitiveness that could make ELLs experience feelings of disadvantage and discouragement. At the same time, group unity can increase a sense of stability and security. The study also mentioned that children were encouraged to help each other, motivated by the shared value of engaging students at their level. Children’s success became a community obligation. Citing Murphy and Beck (1995) and Newmann (1996) the authors stated, “collective engagement, not just the accumulation of individual choices and decisions, makes major contributions to ultimate outcomes (99).” The group also communicated regularly and deeply, expressing intimate knowledge of and concern for each student. Communication was both formal and spontaneous.
One of the values expressed in the study that perked my interest was how “mutual reinforcement through practice and direction strengthens evolving beliefs (108).” The emphasis on evolving beliefs or the ability to adapt certain values to shifting social circumstances seems crucial to successful ELL teaching. If culture can be defined in simple terms as “shared understandings based on shared experiences (Quinn et al. 2005:8),” then educators of culturally diverse students must learn skills that help discover the important learning experiences of their students and adapt their choices of teacher engagement to those discoveries. Also, as educators and diverse students create experiences together, new culture is created (Granados 2015)(Sessa and London 2008). The richer and more deeply symbolic or personal those experiences can be for any given community, the greater the sense of identity, belonging, and respect. On the issue of respect, Paulo Freire (2001) writes:
There’s another question that cannot be overlooked either, namely, the question of cultural identity in relation to both individuals and classes among learners and for which (in the context of forward-looking educational practice) respect is absolutely fundamental. (46)
One of the potential downfalls, however, of mini-communities such as the one studied here is that group knowledge and proficiencies that were developed within the community were not easily reproduced and transferred to other teacher groups within the school or to the overarching school community. The self-reinforcing success of the mini-community created tensions with other school structures and staff.
Engines and Struggles in Moving Toward a Democratic School Community: Ulrich C. Reitzug and Mary O’Hair
Reitzug & O’Hair analyzed data from six schools within the ONE (Oklahoma Networks for Excellence in Education) network. The purpose of this network is to instill and highlight democratic community values. Some of the activities that ONE supports include classroom visits, cross-school visits, conference attendance, in-school meeting activities, and professional development opportunities. They apply the acronym IDEALS, which stands for inquiry, discourse, equity, authenticity, leadership, and service. ONE was organized in order to cultivate participatory educational models to replace the bureaucratic organizational models of education where hierarchal structures dominate decision-making and practice.
Non-participatory educational structures can suffocate teacher knowledge and expertise. As a result, teachers may feel a sense of meaningless in their jobs due to the limitations of their expertise and passions. Also, because of teacher disconnect from top decision makers, contextualized learning that takes place in the classroom does not get integrated into policy and curriculum. For the purpose of my paper this means that any cultural knowledge that a teacher might acquire through interaction fails to get disseminated into broader educational structures. As a result, students and teachers suffer from lack of contextualized knowledge. On the flip-side, participatory, democratic models encourage respect for teacher and student knowledge. There is also a proactive effort to connect curriculum to the worlds outside of the school. The Authors write, “Dewey (1916) argues that in order for intellectual stimulation to occur and for the interests of all to be served there must be widespread sharing of experience and perspectives (121).” As I mentioned above, discriminating structures are often embedded within dominant discourses. Inasmuch as education can include a wide range of voices through interactive, democratic learning, the greater the chances that negative discourses can be challenged, and new inclusive discourses introduced.
The article also focused on other important aspects of participatory communities such as the idea of understanding differences as assets instead of barriers. Connecting beliefs and values to practice within the school and outside of the school is also highlighted. Again, educational communities that are more engaged with a wide variety of cultural experiences and who have learned tools to more accurately interpret those experiences and integrate them into the broader life of the overarching school community will increase the chances that a minority student will encounter a representation of him or herself among that collective knowledge. The authors write:
Constructivist forms (Lambert 1995) of leadership resulted in teachers and others in the school community constructing and reconstructing knowledge about their practice. This included acts such as teachers initiating conversations about practice, engaging in and sharing the results of the critical study of issues relevant to themselves and other teachers, and raising critical questions focused on enhancing mutual understanding of practice. (128)
Learning from Educators: Insights into Building Communities of Difference: Carolyn M. Shields
This article explores the development and utility of Communities of Difference and investigates how greater knowledge of educator diversity or difference can help culturally diverse schools become more inclusive. Educators are noticing that the preparation of teachers is trailing far behind contemporary social demographics. The percentage of minority students in many cities outnumbers white students. Yet the ratio of minority teachers to white teachers is still unrepresentative. While initiatives have been made to hire more minority teachers, some educators are realizing that that alone is not enough to adequately address the complexities of educating diverse populations. Along with hiring diversely, educators need to understand how teachers from diverse backgrounds conceptualize difference. In this study, Shields interviewed teachers from diverse backgrounds, asking them questions about how their personal lives had been affected by issues of class, race, gender, and socio-economic status. She also explored their methods of dealing with diversity in the classroom, and inquired about the changes they would like to see.
Shields states that “a community of otherness or of difference would take as its starting point the need for difference to be explored in order for participants to better understand one another (145).” Shields also feels that the diverse lives of teachers and school administrators have been unexplored and that this knowledge can be particularly useful in preparing others to appreciate and responsibly engage diversity. This area of self-knowledge, of what teachers from diverse backgrounds have experienced and how they have interpreted and applied those experiences, fill an important gap in professional knowledge inquiries that normally emphasize professional community, educational policy, and disciplinary knowledge.
The data from the interviews revealed that most teachers from minority backgrounds recognized the need for more inclusive pedagogy. The data also showed that curriculum consideration and human relationships formed the two major categories of interest. Unlike the first two essays, this study directly addressed the needs of ELLs, as some of the teachers had gone through the English learning experience in their childhood. One of the Chinese background teachers shared her experience of segregated classrooms. She mentioned that the class was physically isolated from other students and that all of the students in her class spoke Chinese, making it all the more difficult to learn English. Being segregated from English speakers for two years didn’t make sense to her. One study conducted by Horwitz et al. (2009) mentions that, “the results scream for better integration of English learners into general educational programs (iv).” The same Chinese background teacher also shared the frustration of not being able to demonstrate her abilities. They didn’t even take fieldtrips together.
Shields refers to Corson (1993) who states that “language takes on a critical function in schools because the reproduction of social and cultural function is driven by interpersonal communication (152).” Shields also highlights the deficit approach that many educators advocate, which categorizes ELLs as intrinsically needy and ignorantly justifies placing them in unnatural learning environments. Finally Shields advocates that schools place less emphasis on categories and more on community. She states:
An understanding of multiculturalism as a form of cultural democracy in which all members have the right to belong and to participate fully may help to promote the development of communities of difference in schools–communities in which diversity is celebrated and valued. (160)
Communities of Practice
The last article titled Dual Language Graduates’ Participation in Bilingual and Biliterate Communities of Practice Across Time and Space by Nadia Granados presents a study based on data from 52 former students who, as children, had participated in a dual language (Spanish & English) elementary immersion program. The program was collaboratively created and facilitated by school staff, teachers, administrators and parents. Through this community effort, children developed early bilingual proficiency. This experience set a foundation for the future development of bilingual practices. While this program had been the object of past studies, Granados investigated how these individuals continued the process of language refinement and acquisition in later life. Granados noticed that continued involvement in multiple communities of practice over time “created an enduring foundation for their values and beliefs surrounding bilingualism and biliteracy and opened up increased opportunities to participate in expanded bilingual and bicultural practices (45).”
The social learning theory of communities of practice (CoP), inspired by the social theories of Lave, Bourdieu, Giddens, Foucault, and Vygostsky, was initially developed and popularized by Lave and Wegner in the early 90s (Wenger 2010). According to Wenger & Trayner (http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/) three key elements constitute a CoP: the domain, the community, and the practice. Here, group members participate in the community around a common interest, in this case dual language learning. Communities of practice inspire fresh ideas and respond to ever evolving challenges (Sessa and London 2008).
The structures of CoPs promote mutual, interactive learning. Also, there must be a depth and interdependence of relationship between group participants. Participants regularly engage in open discussion, joint activities, and share information related to issues surrounding the focus of practice (Wenger 1998). Each participant is influenced by the personal experiences, stories, and shared social and physical resources (or tools) of other group members. As a result, a sense of comradely and group identification emanates.
This study demonstrates how the variation of language practices of the participants over time, along with their participation in various communities, significantly influenced their current use of language. One important factor highlighted here is that the proficiencies of participants of a community, whether ELLs or teachers of ELLs, are likely the result of participation in various communities. Accounting for time and space across social fields (Bourdieu) helps those who hope to cultivate community realize that participants have engaged in other communities with which they share levels of identity. Participants will also continue participation in future communities. On the one had, knowledge from the past will influence the current community, and the current community will influence future experiences of participation. Understanding the importance of cultivating healthy community practices for students during childhood may set foundations and presidents for students’ participation in and creation of future healthy communities.
As communities of practice differentiate themselves and also interlock with each other, they constitute a complex social landscape of shared practices, boundaries, peripheries, overlaps, connections, and encounters. (Wenger 1998:118)
The article also highlights how “knowledge production is the product of shared participation (47).” This happens when two or more participants develop or adjust values, views, and discourses due to their interactions within community practice. The collaborative practice that takes place within the immediate context of the community and the cognitive adjustments that occur as a result of the practice form the learning and the teaching. Changes happen in the mind and new meanings with new symbolic relationships take shape (Sessa and London 2008). The result is a continued transformation over time due to cognitive symbolic restructuring that results from relating the new experiential knowledge of collaborative practices to meaning structures formed by prior experiences (Quinn et al. 2005). Consequently, the richness of community knowledge and the reinforcement of that knowledge through practice can result in mutual transformation within the community and shared identity.
Wallerstein (1997; as cited in Compton-Lilly, 2014, p. 4); describes a transformational TimeSpace, which fundamentally alters the way the world is understood, profoundly provoking and influencing future acts and events. (60)
Conclusion
The above literature highlights various ways in which educators have applied community concepts to education in order to more accurately engage contemporary social and educational demands. Two main themes seem to traverse the trajectory of the articles. One is the facility of cross-pollination of diverse knowledge that community environments enable. The creation of positive, encouraging, collaborative environments inspires a depth of interaction capable of developing the collective common language and inclusive discourses that ELLs need to in order to thrive. The second is the strength of identity and belonging. Schools that are experiencing success are investing the time, resources, and complexity of structural changes needed to address the real contemporary demands of diverse populations. Consequently, these noteworthy schools are learning that minority language students are not a problem; far from it, they are a valuable resource.
Shane Treadway is Founder of Signi Consulting. He also teaches religion and social sciences at Rancho Christian High School in Temecula, California and leads their internationalization program. You can learn more about strengthening your intercultural relationships at signi.org and contact Shane at shane@signiconsulting.com
Citations
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