Jennifer Guevara

CBSE 4221
Spring 2023

Culturally Responsive Paper

“ Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn” (Benjamin
Franklin). As a future teacher, this quote is meaningful to me because it guides me to what I want
to do in my future classroom. I want to fit into all the categories of what makes a good teacher
but also have a purpose. My purpose is to create a classroom setting in where my students are
actively involved in their learning experience. Going back to the quote, I interpreted it as we,
teachers can have a quiet and well behaved classroom in where we teach and do all the talking
but what purpose does that serve if it will just go in one ear and out the other. Now, the “involve
me and I learn” is what I want to take on in my own classroom. I want my students to actively
involved and realize that they can learn from each other as well.
I want to courage my future students to learn from one another and aim towards inclusion
in where we embrace our cultural identities. Now, how would I accomplish this in my future
classroom? Whether I have 2nd graders or 5th graders, I would an activity about culture. Our
culture is what makes us unique individuals so why not talk and share about it? For little kids, I
would do an “ All About Me Passport”, in where they can draw themselves, the things they like
and talk about themselves. The students can also mention places or countries that they would like
to visit. The students would then share their passport and see if they have things in common. I
would so put visuals of the students favorite music or food so the students can see for
themselves. I hope this activity also encourages friendships. For my older students, I would make
them do a poster and write facts about their culture. They can share out about their own personal
experiences like if they ever visited their parent’s home country. They can also google and
explore more about their culture. For example, I’m mexican and I didn’t know about el dia de los
muertos when I was younger. My parents never celebrated it so I took the time to learn about the
things us mexicans do to honor departed family members. With this, I learned that there is so
much more to explore within our cultures as well. Overall, the purpose of the poster would be to
motivate them to share about their culture and promote cultural awareness.
Recently, I had the opportunity to teach a social studies lesson with my 5th graders. They
were learning about Western expansion and how the United States expanded. Although many
Americans benefited from the expansion, the Native Americans suffered. I taught the students
about the indian removal act which lead to the trail of tears. I did an activity that gave them an
idea of what they were going to learn and that used their own personal experiences. For the
activity, I gave two question options that they could pick to write and draw about. The first one
being if they know someone (family member, friend) who moved from one country to another?
If so, what was their experience? How did they feel?. If students couldn’t relate to the first
question, they had the second question which was if they ever moved to another neighborhood?
If so, what was their experience? How did they feel?. To give my students an idea of the activity,
I gave them an example of my parents experience to to the United States.
 The purpose of this activity was to incorporate their personal experiences and relate it to
curriculum which was about the experience of Native Americans during the Western expansion.
During the activity, I walked around the classroom to see if any students struggled but I realized
that many of them loved to talk about their experiences. I even had students telling me how their
parents came to the United States. In the end, the students understood that their parents or even
their own experiences were similar to the Native Americans during the Western expansion.

Below are some responses from my students!

This students recently arrived to America and I loved that he drew about his experience.