Discussion #3: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

For reference, I drew the infographic above. I wanted to show that with Culturally Sustaining
Pedagogy you want to take all of the students' experiences and use them as assets in the
classroom.

This link is for the definition I used in my answer #2.

https://cpet.tc.columbia.edu/news-press/culturally-sustaining-pedagogy-an-introduction#:~:text=I
f%2C%20for%20example%2C%20a%20teacher,parents%20through%20a%20deficit%20lens.

1. One example of culturally sustaining pedagogy that I have experienced as a student has
to do with my funds of knowledge. It wasn’t until this year that I truly understood and
used my funds of knowledge. In my LEE 158 and LEE 160 class this semester, both of
my professors had us fill out a funds of knowledge chart at the beginning of the school
year. From this chart, we then reviewed it individually and began to think about how our
knowledge was acquired through our culture. From this we then had to create a “Teach
Us” project where we took something from our funds of knowledge chart that we
attributed to our culture and then taught the rest of the class about it. For instance, we
had lots of food examples. Food obviously varies from culture to culture, so many
colleagues decided to touch upon food. One of my colleagues taught the class how to
make her family recipe of a seven layer bean dip. This dip was a recipe that was passed
down from generation to generation in her family and had to do with her Spanish
background. By allowing us to tap into our funds of knowledge and teach the class about
something that we find interesting and related to our culture created an environment in
which our cultures were seen as assets to our learning experience.
2. This funds of knowledge project is culturally sustainable because it allows for each and
every student to touch into their cultural background and use it as assets rather than
deficits. Culturally sustaining pedagogy has to do with “allowing, inviting, and
encouraging students to not only use their cultural practices from home in their school,
but to also maintain them. Culturally sustaining pedagogy allows students to exist not
only in the culture of their school, but also in the culture of their home” (Chajed, p. 1). By
allowing students to tap into their funds of knowledge it is allowing them to sustain their
own cultural experiences and use it in the classroom rather than making them conform to
the typical white, English narrative that is pushed in most US classrooms. This allows
teachers to embrace the diversity of their students and welcome them fully for who they
are.