Article review - "But that's just good teaching!"

Sticking with the topic of Gloria Ladson-Billings and her writings, one of her more notable articles has examined good teaching as the key to cultural competency in the classroom. I particularly like the quote from Pewewardy noting that the problem in the classroom is educators inserting culture into education, instead of the other way around.

Last night, for Leadership and Cultural Competency class, we presented our cultural memoir to the group. I may post mine next week, but worry that it has been highlighted on this forum several times in the past. A glance through older posts should help to make the determination.

Gloria Ladson-Billings bases the title of this article on the response that she gives many school administrators and teacher educators when evaluating a classroom situation that successfully shows cultural competence. As opposed to a “magic bullet,” the author theorizes that the success found in classrooms with African-American students is mainly focused on the teacher’s ability to meet the students where they are. In other words, by successfully bringing the topic to them, as she notes by citing a Native American educator, Cornel Pewewardy (1993), who points out the problem as “educators attempting to insert culture into the education, instead of inserting education into the culture.”

She identifies the pedagogy as “culturally relevant” (Ladson-Billings, 1992a) and the purpose of this article is to identify examples which the author found during the course of a three-year study.

The key is in the linking between culture and schooling and the initial literature review gives some quality examples which include an examination of micro-ethnographic studies (Villegas, 1988) and the macro-level social context in which these take place. Irvine (1990) wrote of the mid-level struggle of achieving “cultural synchronization” between teachers and African-American students.

While I agree with the definitions presented by the other educators, my favorite description of “cultural relevancy” comes from Ladson-Billings herself. She views cultural relevancy as the opportunity to gain collective, not just individual, empowerment (p. 160). She gives three criteria: a) the student must achieve academic success, b) students must achieve and maintain cultural competence, and c) students must develop a critical consciousness (p. 160).

Her examples of each are relevant, which make this a useful article. For academic Ann Lewis, who used the social power of the African-American males in her class to have them lead the discussion on issues and ideas which were meaningful. By drawing them into the conversation, the students felt their opinions were valued and they appreciated having a leadership role in the class. This also kept the students from channeling their energy toward non-productive activities.

For cultural competency, Ladson-Billings opens with a concern of the phenomenon behind “acting White,” which creates a burden in classrooms with predominantly African-American students. Her prime example of competence in this section deals with English teacher Patricia Hilliard’s tie-in between classic poetry and today’s rap music, which she uses to help explain rhyme scheme, alliteration and other literary elements to her students.

Finally, the professor examines her third topic of cultural relevancy, which is critical consciousness, or viewing what is learned and developing a broader consciousness of the society around them. After applying the Frierian model to this thought, she gives the example of students who used their classroom situation of working with out-of-date textbooks to work as advocates, writing to the local newspaper editor-in-chief to inform the community of their situation. (p. 161)

References

Irvine, J. J. (1990). Black students and school failure. Westport, CT: Greenwich Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1992a). Culturally relevant teaching: The key to making multicultural

            education work. In C.A. Grant (Ed.), Research and multicultural education, 106-121.

            London: Falmer Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant

            pedagogy. Theory into practice, 34, 3, 159-165.

Pewewardy, C. (1993). Culturally responsible pedagogy in action: An American Indian magnet

            school. In E. Hollins, J. King & W. Hayman (Eds.) Teaching diverse populations:

            Formulating a knowledge base, 77-92. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Villegas, A. (1988). School failure and cultural mismatch: Another view. The Urban Review, 20,

           253-265.