Culturally Responsive Instruction

Jones, Shelly J. "Culturally Responsive Instruction." Leadership (2007): 14-18. Print.

The article proposes that celebrating diverse cultures while simaultaneusly staying true to a standards-based curriculum is the best way to go about closing the achievement gap. In lower-income schools that have students from various cultural backgrounds it is important to create an environment where these differences are celebrating, however the school can not lose focus on the fact that its overall direction as a school should towards the mastering of standards.

The article then goes on to outline the five different guidelines to creating a culturally aware standards based instruction. The components are caring, communication, curriculum, instruction and standsards-based instruction. If teachers are able to encorporate these criteria into their daily lessons they will be able to create a hybrid of standards based instruction and a culturally responsive classroom.

When reading this article I found it to be less helpful than some of the other articles assigned to the ’09 cohort. I found that the article spoke in generals and clitches about teachings that were no more than common sense. For example, the article preached about importance teaching caring to creative a cullturallyl responsive classroom. This seemed common sense to me, for it obvious to see the difference having a caring teacher in a school environment can create. One thing I agreed with the author on is that having a multicultural environment is not enough to close the achievment gap. If all students in America are expected to follow standard based curriculum than it is imperative that minority students be held to the same standard. Having a structured curriculum is important in catching up these often times behind schools.