Culturally relevant pedagogy will look very interactive. As a future teacher I understand my role to teach, but learning from my students is just as important if I am going to teach through a culturally relevant pedagogy. I want to learn alongside my students so I can best accommodate them. “Culturally relevant pedagogy builds on the understanding of “how people are expected to go about learning may differ across cultures, and in order to maximise learning opportunities, teachers must gain knowledge of the cultures represented in their classrooms, then translate this knowledge into instructional practice”. It will sound critical, allowing students to take a critical gaze to societal constructs and curriculum. It states in Ann Lopez’s article, “Critical literacy should engage students in developing a critical consciousness that interrogates the discursive structures they come to understand the world by. Developing critical consciousness is also an underlying principle of culturally relevant pedagogy”. My classroom will feel relevant by exploring and using new socio-cultural theories and keeping up with demographic shifts. It will feel inclusive to everyone and as much as possible will be catered toward individual experiences and interests for each student. The example of speaking poetry is strong in promoting the individuality of students along with adjusting the curriculum set activity of poetry to become culturally relevant. 

As a teacher, I will contribute to the sense of place for my future students by centring learning in lived experiences. Music is super powerful in terms of linking these lived experiences with a place. I have memories of family trips, days at the lake, soccer tournaments, etc. that all have specific songs linked to them whether we listened to them in the car, on the beach or in the dressing room. In Julia Brooks article Placing elementary music education: a case study of a Canadian rural music program really showed how music and place intertwine and can be used in a classroom.  Brooks states, “Many of the music-making experiences were group-based, thereby offering a place for each student to participate”. Music allowing each student to get involved and feel a sense of place is a beneficial and effective way to promote a positive place for students. Also, Brooks states, “Place-based education research suggests that our society consists primarily of relationships between and among people and places, and that our educational system should facilitate the development of positive relationships with the land as well as with others”. To facilitate this positive relationship starting with an exploration of land would be my first instinct. Land is not something I paid any attention to as a student and I think if I had I would have been more understanding of why society’s relationship with the land is so important and necessary I would have had a stronger sense of place. 

Lopez, A. (2011). Culturally relevant pedagogy and critical literacy in diverse English classrooms: A case study of a secondary English teacher’s activism and agency. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 10(4), 75-93. 

Brook, J. (2013). Placing elementary music education: a case study of a Canadian rural music program. Music Education Research, 15(3), 290-303.