As a student of history, I have always been fascinated by culture. With my specialization in Social Studies in my Education degree, I am privileged with being able to learn about past and present societies and cultures as well, which has added knowledge and ways of thinking to my daily life. Since starting my Education degree, I have thought of different ways to make my classroom more open, accessible, and relevant for any student who could come through its door.
I believe that all people should dig deeper into different worldviews to broaden their own understandings. This would be a priority in my classroom, especially since high school social studies and history courses revolve around cultures and oppression of culture. By imploring students to understand the cultures they are learning about, they can be more culturally aware and realize how relevant other perspectives outside the majority truly are.
Broadening understandings is a good start, but ultimately what I would like to achieve in my classroom is the challenging of preconceived beliefs and going beyond superficial cultural knowledge. By starting off with a basic understanding, students can begin to challenge themselves and others in a respectful and healthy way, which promotes a community of openness and continual learning, which I believe is conducive to a student’s personal growth. From this point, a student can begin the process of critiquing and analyzing the world and its systems, which would hopefully encourage them to enact social change.
In all honesty, I do not know what my classroom will look like with my implementation of cultural relevance and encouragement of challenged ideals and preconceptions. There is lots I would like to do, but it is difficult to put into words. What I do see my classroom as in the future though is this: a place for students from all walks of life and lived experiences to share, discuss, and learn from each other, and this starts with students making meaning out of learning about and from other cultures and cultural histories.
Community and land connections are hugely important for students. For myself in high school, I was apart of the Outdoor Education program, which worked with local groups such as Kiwanis Club and the Salvation Army. We would also promote land and environment protection and maintenance, which we would promote through trip updates and our community involvement (use of recycled materials containers, pack in pack out, sustainable recycling, etc.). For myself, I’d like to be apart of a group similar to this as a teacher, as promoting this type of environmental and community connection is huge for all students.
Connecting to the land and where you live also helps a student grow and can help with learning. For a history class, especially history 12 in Saskatchewan, I would want to discuss with students the past of Treaty 4 land around Swift Current (if I end up teaching in Swift Current). By understanding the past and what happened, as well as learning about the people who lived in the area before us, I believe students could be able to understand their place in the world around them and be more observant and respectful to the land we live on.
Hello Jonathan it was very interesting to read your views on culturally relevant pedagogy. I can see how important an issue this is to you and it is interesting to see how you don’t know what your classroom will look like. It is also wonderful to see how you want to go beyond the superficial understanding of different cultures and really get your students to think about those cultures.
Hi Kirsten!
I’m glad that my passion for this topic comes through in my post! To answer why I stated I don’t know what my classroom will look like, I don’t overly want to set anything in stone and apply topics and concepts in areas where the context, demographic, and culture is different than what it is in Saskatchewan or even some townships and municipalities. As we’ve learned, nothing works everywhere and would like to keep an open mind for wherever I end up teaching!