RUNNING HEAD: UNDERCOVER HEROES 1

Undercover Heroes
Fabian Flores
California State University Dominguez Hills
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Undercover Heroes
Teachers are often over looked in our society. Teachers are undervalued. People often ask

me what am I going to school for; and when I respond to them that I would like to become a

teacher, they often say something in the line of, “why would you want to do that?” In truth the

teaching profession is a very honorable job where an educator has the opportunity to help

develop the minds of the next generations of leaders. Before great minds become known, those

minds were someone’s students. Teachers are responsible for educating the next generation of

leaders, and they can achieve this by teaching culturally relevant material regardless of their

district mandated curriculum.

Imagine that there is a student sitting in a classroom, and is almost falling asleep. It is not

that the teacher did not prepare the lesson, but the teacher did not take into account who the

lesson was prepared for. Due to the culturally neutral lesson plan that the teacher prepared the

student subconsciously disconnects from the teacher, and the student’s experience is negatively

affected. You see sometimes we have great teachers who fail to develop a relationship with their

students and consequently fail to reach their students because they do not understand the

students’ culture. In failing do develop this relationship with their students the teacher misses out

on key information that could make the lesson more relevant to future students. This common

occurrence was illustrated in the article by Jana Echevarria, who is an expert in effective

instruction, and the author discusses the importance of having a teacher who has a relationship

with the students. Jane stated, “Culturally diverse students who are chronically disengaged report

that they lack positive relationships with teachers and are aware of disrespect toward their culture

or ethnicity (Suarez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2008). From this information we can conclude that all

teachers should develop positive relationships with their students that are based on mutual
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respect for their culture. The teacher and the student need to have mutual respect for their culture

and themselves because understanding one another is crucial for the education process.

It might be difficult to teach a culturally relevant curriculum when teachers are often

given a curriculum developed by those who have little to no experience with cultures of todays

students. However the teacher has to understand that those curriculum developers had already

received their education many years ago when society was in a very different place. In the past,

curriculums were either culturally neutral or created to advance the knowledge-base of the

students who come from more affluent upbringings. Today, the teacher is more culturally similar

to the students and knows the students culture and interests better than those from many years

past. Research has shown that curriculums that directly focus on relating the material to the

students’ culture (or language) has a better chance to improve retention and understanding better

than culturally-neutral curriculums. Geneva Gay, who is an expert on culturally responsive

teaching states from her book Culturally Responsive Teaching, “Culturally responsive teachers

create an environment that values diversity and builds on students’ different ways of learning,

behaving, and using language (2010). Their lessons incorporate students’ values, beliefs, and

experiences, as well as their home language (Echevarria et al., 2015). Educators should do

everything and anything for the sake of improving the children’s education regardless if they

have to teach some things that are not listed on the curriculum. The teacher does have a

responsibility to the school and the school district which is to abide to their contract and to

present the curriculum to the students, but the teacher has a greater responsibility to their

students as well.

Furthermore a teacher, even if they are teaching a culturally-focused curriculum should

always strive to make their education equitable to their students. Give each student what he or
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she needs as we discussed in class. Before learning about equality and equity in the classroom I

thought I am going to give each student the same and be fair. Then I learned that if I give each

student the exact same lesson plan then I am actually being unfair with the students who may

need more help. Equity means giving each student what he or she needs, but that may be difficult

when a teacher has to design a lesson plan for a classroom that features a multitudes of different

cultures. For some students this might mean providing a visual to accompany the lesson, or

having a student who is having trouble concentrating sit closer to the front of the classroom, but

these days teachers have to provide culturally intensive lessons to classrooms with dozens of

students from different cultures. One of the ways that teachers overcome this challenge is by

catering their lesson plan to each student’s different culture as the academic year goes on, while

others have solved this issue through supplemental instruction. In Laurie Wasserman’s article,

“A Marriage Made in Math Class”, Wasserman and her collogue Craig employ the equity in a

classroom concept without actually discussing equity. The article discusses how Wasserman and

Craig were having trouble teaching some of their students they came up with a genius idea to

combine a regular classroom and a special education classroom. They made this fusion of the

two classrooms to be better able to give each student what he or she needs. For as one teacher

was teaching the other was going around helping the students that needs extra help. And

Wasserman allowed her students to take tests and quizzes in their regular classrooms.

All teachers should be committed to the academic success of all children regardless of the

student diversity. Why would someone become a teacher if he or she is not going to teach all the

children in the classroom? In the book, The Teacher Wars: a history of American’s most

embattled profession by Dana Goldstein she states, “Several surveys of southern teachers during

desegregation revealed that whites often expected little of their black students” (Goldstein,
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2014). These individuals who did not believe in all their students should not have been teachers

in the first place because they disrespected their students and disrespected themselves and their

profession by thinking they could not educate all students because of their ethnicity or race. It is

crucial for an educator to believe in their students in order for them to rise to expectations. As

stated in Goldstein book, The Teacher Wars: A History of Most Embattled Profession, students

who have higher expectations for themselves perform better in the classroom. Goldstein

researched this idea and stated his results saying, “Twenty percent of students, of varying IQ

scores and races, were selected at random to belong to this “high expectations” group. At the end

of the school year, those students demonstrated bigger gains on both IQ and achievement tests

than did their peers in the same classrooms.” (Goldstein, 2014). This quote provides evidence as

to why a teacher should always believe in their students and makes sure that the students are

aware of such. Incorporating culturally focused curriculums and lesson plans into student

education can help foster those beliefs in students by better relating material to students.

In spite of the research-backed idea that culturally relevant curriculums are a more

effective teaching method, culturally neutral curriculum still work to some degree. The students

are still presented with a curriculum that students can still learn from. Those types of curriculums

are standardized thus easier to teach across all cultures. However culturally neutral curriculums

are less effective with todays children. Students who are not taught a culturally relevant

curriculum often feel lost or that their culture is not respected, which makes them feel less

involved in the classroom. I remember when I was in grade school I would think why are we

always being taught everyone else’s history but our own? I remember standing up to one of my

teachers in middle school because I was tired of hearing all the things that I thought were
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irrelevant to me. The teacher hardly knew anything about my culture so I often disconnected

from the lesson plan.

As an educator I will always believe in all my students regardless of my student’s

background. My goal as an educator is to help the student gets as close as possible to mastering

grade level standard if the student is very far behind. And to meet and exceed grade level

standards if the student is close to grade level at the beginning of the year. My goal is for all my

students to have significant gains in all course work tested on the state tests and including

monumental improvement in reading and writing. I want to teach third grade because that grade

seems to be the all-important grade where students should be as close as possible to meeting

grade level standards. Also I want to teach third grade because I repeated third grade because of

my challenges with the English language. I did not feel I had the support to help me succeed and

I felt that my teacher did not understand my challenges as a student learning a new language at

school and also maintaining my Latino identity. Often times I felt that I did not belong. I want to

make sure all my student know that they are important and help them along the way even if they

have no support at home.

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References
Echevarria, Jana, et al. “What It Takes for English Learner to Succeed.” Educational Leadership,

Mar. 2015, pp. 22–26.

GAY, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. S.l.: Teachers

college press.

Goldstein, D. (2014). The teacher wars: A history of Americas most embattled profession. New

York: Doubleday.

Wasserman, L. A Marriage Made in Math Class. (2008, September 10). Education World, 02,

17-19. Retrieved April, 2018.