Dean Smith

BLE 407

Think, Connect & Write Part B

The number one way that we as educators can ensure that all students, especially

racial/ethnic minority students achieve is to adapt a culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). The

reason why teachers need to adopt a CRP is due to the reason that many minority students

believe that the system of education is stacked against them and in the past, many teachers have

tried to take a “colorblindness” stance where they “don’t see color” in order to support students.

However, by taking this stance, it’s actually harmful to students of color because not only

because “race is very central to how people perceive and relate to the world” (Brown 71). But it

also disregards the experiences that people of color have undergone. When we adopt a CRP we

are committing to spending the time to actually get to know our students and how they

themselves perceive each other, and then how they are perceived in the real world. Therefore,

we’re setting up our students to be racial cognisant to be encouraged to access their funds of

knowledge to best be able to succeed.

Another way that we can ensure that all students, especially our racial/minority students

achieve while also adopting a CRP, besides emphasizing building relationships up with the

students is to hold students to demanding, but achievable standards, while also monitoring the

progress of the class and then making the necessary changes that can lead to a more “culturally

compatible program” (Brown 69). When the content is culturally relevant to students they are

more likely to not only more likely to understand the content better, but they’re also less likely to

drop out. Intersectionality plays a big role in this as well because the cultures of schooling and

the students’ community or home often clash due to their differences. However, if we’re able to
change the culture of the class so it’s relevant to them, we won’t have the clashes that are often

found. Resulting in children just being able to come in and learn.