Lesson #6: Teach Literacy as a Social and Cultural Practice
Experiences
Each dyad effectively grounded their work in an understanding of literacy as a social and cultural practice of meaning making and by valuing and forefronting the languages and cultural practices of the children, families, and communities. Children and adults working with all the dyads read and wrote texts that reflected their thoughts and lives. In preschool and primary classrooms across the project, children engaged in dramatic play and acted in plays. Children in Chinyere’s classroom wrote and performed scripts, while others wrote songs and raps that reflected in their content and style the historically valued performances they experienced in their lives. With Chinyere, students shared information about their home and heritage languages in presentations to other classes and family audiences. Similarly, Patricia’s preschoolers made books that reflected their communities and highlighted and honored their names. In Alicia’s classroom children studied an African American poet and listened to her recorded poetry and also studied the lives and music of famous Latinx musicians. In Alicia’s and others’ classrooms, children wrote questions and interviewed parents and community members. Overall, the children read a range of texts and used a range of artifacts and digital media; some took photographs and reflected on them, as did the mothers’ group. Working with Julia and Mar}' Jade, Latinx mothers read children’s books, not as part of instruction in the “correct” way to read to children but as part of discussions about the languages and content. In every PDCRT classroom, the children wrote in their home languages—including African American Language, Spanish, and languages indigenous to Latin America—often while trans-languaging or code-meshing with forms of English.
Perspectives and Action Steps
In the process of implementing culturally relevant activities, teachers can pay attention to children and families and voices from their communities as well as their historically valued and contemporary cultures, then curricularize what they are learning. That means using children and families’ interests, expertise, and languages as the foundation of curriculum. Following children’s questions, providing for multiple forms of literacy as ways for children to learn and express their knowledge authentically and actively, and using multiple means of communication are possible strategies. Teachers can prepare children to succeed on standardized measures through experiences of reading, writing, listening to, and speaking about topics compelling for children while also using more authentic, potentially less biased, and culturally relevant means of assessment.
Lesson #7: Learn from Families
Experiences
Foundational to our work was a belief in families informing curriculum and coming into the classroom not just to help teachers but to teach children and for teachers to learn from them. This commitment to learning from and with families took different forms in different settings. Patricia and Kindel reflected on deeply rooted community practices of translanguaging (using all of a child’s languages as resources), warm demanding (a style combining high expectations and strong support), and coiisejos (traditional sayings; family lessons) in their classroom interactions. In Alicia’s and Chinyere’s classrooms, translanguaging was also used as a powerful tool for communicating. In both classrooms, family members were interviewed by their children about their childhoods and school experiences as well as their experiences as immigrants. And Chinyere also conducted home visits to chat over coffee and learn about parents’ concerns and questions. In all four settings, the families were positioned as experts, teachers at home and in the classroom too.
In Man Jade and Julia’s work with Latinx mothers, the dyad neither critiqued nor dictated what they thought the mothers should do. Meeting three times a month to discuss Latinx children’s books, go on field trips, and talk about issues important to them, the group provided a space where the mothers felt comfortable talking while Mary' Jade and Julia listened and responded, following the mothers’ lead and learning from them. In the process, the mothers learned that their perspectives and questions were valued and that they had a significant place in the life of the school. As Julia remarked in our interview with her, “Hopefully as the student goes through the system [the parent] can go on with confidence of ‘I have a question.’ ‘I have a right to say this is not good for my child. And it’s ok for me to say that that’s not right for my child.’”
Perspectives and Action Steps
The PDCRT dyads demonstrated that it is critical for teachers and teacher educators to discuss innovative ways to work with families that value their contributions in creating culturally relevant classrooms. This means getting to know them, establishing trust, and understanding that work with families begins with their goals for their children, not ours. This work may include speaking their language(s), taking a learner’s stance, learning about their expertise, sharing goals, seeking their input formally and informally, making home visits, providing them with tools for advocating for their children such as helping them understand how certain school procedures work and sharing ways to approach and speak to school personnel. Parents can be integrated into “triads” instead of “dyads,” creating more formal relationships. Such collaborative groups would include family members, teachers, and teacher educators. Equally important is the long-term job of hiring teachers like Julia from the same cultural/ language group who can bring an insider’s knowledge and advocacy to a project. The importance of taking time and thought to cultivate relationships with families to help them understand our work as we work with them cannot be overstated.
