Multiculturalism and Scocioeconomic Status (SES) in the classrooom
I like the insight on individualist versus collectivist backgrounds from my Ed
Psych text (Chapter 5). This cultural difference is huge and yet it is not something I used to be aware of at all.
I have gradually been tuning into this since moving here to the Four Corners area four years ago. One of my first jobs
here in Farmington was with the Farmington Library Program at the Boys and Girls Club. I was working there with a Navajo
woman who had been working for a number of years for tribal family services. When I met her she was going back to school to
get a social services degree and she told me that she took the job at the Boys and Girls club to become acquainted with the
Anglo and Hispanic children and see how their various cultural backgrounds impacted their behavior in a group social setting.
We talked about what we observed and I began for the first time to observe children who come from a collectivist background.
My colleague, with lots of experience with Navajo children, was now experiencing the reverse. It was interesting for us both.
Since then the topic has come up in a number of different classes and settings. Now, it is a given in my mind; the difference
in behavior between people whose cultures are on opposite sides of the individual/collectivist dividing line will have some
specific differences in the ways in which they interact than will two people of different cultures and languages who are both
from cultures on the same side of that line.
The Best Practices insert in our book (p. 146) is very clear about some of those differences.
As a teacher from an individualist culture I need to keep in mind, in order to interact successfully with collectivist students
and their families, to place more emphasis on cooperation than on competition, to criticize carefully and only in private,
and to cultivate friendships for the long-term. I have many times observed that Charlotte Bradshaw operates her classroom
heavy on cooperation with competition almost entirely non-existant. Perhaps this is why. She has been at Apache School
for very many years and is now teaching younger siblings of children she had some years ago. She definitely works hard
on the long-term relationships. Many, many parents know her and she approaches working with parents as membres of a
single team that make up their child's pit crew.
I am very surprised and disappointed when I find myself
in a classroom where the teacher is interacting with a group containing Navajo students, or one-on-one with a Navajo child,
in a way that is bound to be outside the child's comfort zone, based on his culture. I have seen the same thing many
times in the San Juan College SSC writing lab, especially with new writing tutors. It strikes me now rather like a slap
in the face; it is so uncalled for, so anti-social, so misdirected and counter-productive. But the person who is doing
it doesn't have a clue. It is like watching someone from my home culture, John Muir School District, pour the dregs
of her coffee out on her neighbors shoes. And yet, the perpetrator thinks s/he is being perfectly polite and correct!
And if the other person takes offense there must be something wrong with the Other.
I have been in this country only briefly. Why is it that people around me
who have lived here their entire lives don't know these things about the differences within their tri-cultural, tri-lingual
culture? Many teachers at Sacred Heart underestimated the few Navajo students who braved their doors because they were
not used to students who did not wave their hands wildly and call out when they knew an answer. They did not realize
that students were simply being respectful when they took a couple of extra moments to consider the teacher's question.
they din't seem to know that if you push one student to answer a question that was already directed to a peer, that it would
be out of place to show that student up by answering when called upon by the teacher to "help" his friend. It is up
to the adult in any social situation to take the social lead and make others at home. The techer must do that first.
That would be one of Maslow's more basic needs fulfilled. I guess it would be providing that sense of safety and security.
