[Download] "Chapter 16: Walking and Talking in Student Communities: Teachers Explore Their Internal Landscapes (Volume 11 Part I) (Report)" by Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Chapter 16: Walking and Talking in Student Communities: Teachers Explore Their Internal Landscapes (Volume 11 Part I) (Report)
- Author : Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 74 KB
Description
An enormous linguistic and cultural gap exists between public school teachers and the students they teach (Cochran-Smith, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 1999, 2005; Zeichner, 1992). While the majority of teachers in the public schools remain today middle class Caucasian women, an increasing proportion of students are lower and middle class people of color Noguera & Akom, 2000). One main goal for many teacher professional development programs is to help teachers start to understand the linguistic and cultural background of their students. Because many teachers lack an awareness and understanding of cultures other than their own, schools of education offer language and culture courses to increase cultural awareness and help teachers examine stereotypes and unconscious biases that may exist towards people unlike themselves. In efforts to help teachers understand and take into account students' linguistic and cultural differences, the Initiatives in Educational Transformation Program (IET) faculty at George Mason University designed two experiential activities known as the "community walk" and a follow up walk a year later called the "new view walk." Asking teachers to leave the classroom to have a learning experience was approached as a form of transformative pedagogy. According to Wink (2005), this approach helps learners to "gain realistic pictures to visualize and to experience (p. 179).