Teaching through Story: Using Narratives in a Graduate Ethnicity Course
By Michele Ebersole, Huihui Kanahel-Mossman, Alice Kawakami
As instructors of a graduate course on ethnicity and education at a small rural university in Hawai'i, we wanted to share meaningful and relevant discussions of diversity with teachers. Our initial goal was for teachers to understand and implement culturally relevant instructional practices. We realized a broad set of teaching strategies are needed for working with diverse children and so one of the major course assignments was a “Culturally Responsive Teaching Plan.” The plan involved teachers collecting information on the ethnicity of their students and teaching strategies that addressed the diversity of students’ cultural experiences.
At the end of the course we were disappointed when we analyzed the course assignments and noticed isolated activities that seemed to merely “add on” to superficial attempts at addressing diversity within the existing curriculum. We noted that teacher perspectives and practices had not changed in thoughtful ways nor did they provide evidence of understanding their responsibility to engage diverse learners. To address our shortcomings as teacher educators, we asked ourselves: How might the course be reframed to support teacher understanding that encourages meaningful implementation of culturally responsive teaching?
This two-part story is our journey of exploration. The first part of the story describes findings based on analysis of teacher perspectives from the first time we taught this course and how we reframed the course. The second part of the story describes what happened when a different group of teachers experienced the course through a narrative lens.
Part I: Problematizing Our Practices
Our intention was to develop culturally responsive practices; however, we were challenged with the knowledge that culturally responsive practice requires teachers to construct a broad base of knowledge that shifts as students, contexts, and subject matters change (Banks, et al., 2005). These practices are further complicated by the fact that students come to the classroom with multiple cultural identities. We realized that rather than provide generic strategies for addressing student diversity, we needed to help teachers find generative ways “to understand the values and practices of families and cultures that are different from their own” (Cochran-Smith, 1995, p. 495).
Our collaborative group included the course instructor, a co-teaching partner and a teacher education colleague who took on the role of “critical observer” offering a perspective with a bit of distance. Both the co-teaching partner and teacher education colleague often helped the primary course instructor thoughtfully problematize practices. We met a total of five times to look at student work, examine questionnaire responses, conduct a focus group interview, and engage in critical self-reflective discussion to identify areas of need and approaches to improving the course.
The first group of teachers included 18 teacher participants with a range of teaching experiences and teaching contexts in a rural island community. As a result of looking at the course products and participating in a focus group interview, teachers seemed to have three different approaches to teaching:
1. Providing culture–based activities – For these teachers, connections to culture seemed to be superficial attempts to include cultural activities in their classes or perhaps, efforts to give the instructors what they wanted for the assignment.
2. Moving toward culturally responsive perspectives – These teachers tried to connect pedagogy to students’ cultural backgrounds and construct knowledge in ways inclusive of all students.
3. Being a culturally responsive teacher – This group of teachers believed they were teaching in culturally responsive ways. They believed they had the necessary cultural content knowledge and were actively promoting a perspective of respect for cultural knowledge and practice.
Although some teacher participants actively promoted culturally responsive teaching practices, they demonstrated a sense of distance or removal for application in their teaching contexts. One teacher stated, “If a class is either very culturally diverse or not very (mostly local kids with local culture) it makes CRT (culturally responsive teaching) either challenging or unnecessary.” We wondered if this misconception was due to the common belief that within the island community there is “a unique blend of ethnic cultures” that coexist harmoniously as one “local culture.” Additionally, they may have felt that they represented the same ethnic diversity as their students or that the large interracial and interethnic population of our community makes culturally responsive teaching unnecessary in their teaching contexts.
At this point, as course instructors, we realized that teachers needed to develop understandings grounded within their own cultural context first. While teachers were able to demonstrate an academic understanding, they did not connect readings to their professional lives. We recognized that we should have explored our own beliefs and assumptions with teachers before emphasizing specific methods to “do culturally responsive activities.”
After much discussion and reflection, we tried to organize our thinking about what we had learned. We developed a framework, highlighting three different categories of knowledge: experiential, academic, and reflective (Figure.1).
Experiential knowledge. This reflects lived knowledge or knowledge teachers gain through personal and professional experiences. It is embedded in practice and builds on “funds of knowledge” (Moll, Amanti, Neff, Gonzales, 1992) or lived cultural experiences, which can legitimize the local knowledge teachers bring to a particular context.
Academic knowledge. This type of knowledge represents the core teacher education content as identified in teacher performance standards and increasingly evaluated through teacher performance assessments. This knowledge-for-practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) includes subject matter, pedagogy, instructional strategies and theoretical framing which is essential for teacher development. It also includes knowledge, interpretative frameworks, beliefs, and attitudes needed to effectively teach diverse populations (Cochran-Smith, Davis & Fries, 2003).
Reflective knowledge. This type of knowledge is gained through critical self-reflection upon one’s teaching practices. It involves “Reflection-on-action” (Schon, 1983) - thinking about the effects one’s action has upon others while taking account of social, political and/or cultural influences (Hatton & Smith, 1995).
We believe all three categories are necessary for transformation in leading to culturally responsive teaching. For the purposes of this discussion, we define transformation as “the continuous evolution of one’s own understanding and perspectives in order to meet more effectively the needs of all students. It is generally marked by a disruption of values or cultural beliefs through critical reflection with the goal of more socially just teaching” (Schulte, 2004; pg. 709).
In this case, critical self-reflection of both experiential knowledge and academic knowledge is an essential part of the transformation which leads to culturally responsive teaching. By having teacher participants explore their personal and cultural identity, they can tap into their experiential knowledge base legitimizing the knowledge they bring to a particular context.
In order for teacher participants to move toward transformation, we needed to provide them with opportunities to critically self-reflect on their cultural beliefs and values within their teaching contexts. Initially, we “did activities” without engaging teacher participants in necessary self-reflection, thus, they may have felt a sense of distance or removal for their teaching contexts. While we also believe the study of academic knowledge, including interpretative frameworks, is important for teacher growth, we now see that exploration of experiential knowledge using critical-self-reflection is necessary for teacher development.
Part II - Using Stories to Guide Us
The second time we taught the course, we wanted to immerse teachers into the course content, instead of distancing themselves; thus we reframed the course around “story.” We believed that if they explored experiential knowledge and connected their prior knowledge and experience with academic works and then engaged in critical reflection they might move toward transformation. Rather than the “Culturally Responsive Teaching Plan” that we assigned the first time we taught the course, the final course assignment was to write a personal narrative, “My Story,” based on each individual’s personal and cultural beliefs and prior experiences.
Twenty teachers enrolled in the course the second time. Again they came with a range of experiences and teaching contexts; however, this time they were immersed in the world of story. We took field trips to different places around the community and told traditional, historic, and ancestral stories about each location. These stories explained geological or physical features. Teachers listened to and discussed podcasts and heard personal stories about race and identity. They engaged in literature discussions, reading stories of children and adolescents with cultural experiences both familiar to them and from other places around the world. We read and discussed Orchards (Thompson, 2011), A Long Walk to Water (Park, 2010), Night of the Howling Dogs (Salisbury, 2007), My Name is Parvana (Ellis, 2012) and Inside Out and Back Again (Lai, 2012). These stories were selected to generate discussions about culture, race, and identity.
Teachers also participated in daily theoretical readings and reflections. These academic readings introduced historical perspectives and were selected for teachers to begin interrogating ideological assumptions about teaching beliefs and practices.
Teachers participated willingly, but a turning point for many of them occurred mid-term after they heard the story of a guest speaker from the Micronesian community. Micronesians are the most recent immigrant group to the island community and as a group they are often stereotyped as low status with high rates of unemployment and low socioeconomic status; however, the power of the speaker’s stories opened teachers’ eyes. Many were experiencing a rapidly growing population of Pacific Islanders in their classrooms, and so reading the stories of these Pacific Island students, who are often marginalized and mistreated, was shocking to them. Some had not previously considered their own biases and stereotypes. One teacher commented,
The guest speaker’s story was more than just informative; it seemed I went through a mental change. My eyes or maybe my heart changed. I had all these misconceptions and prejudice towards the Micronesian culture. It was difficult for me to see otherwise. The YouTube videos and his story helped me to understand what it was probably like for my ancestors being immigrants in their new home. I’ve been so quick to judge and complain about the seemingly irresponsible actions of these families that I generalized many of their actions and decisions as cultural values and beliefs. This gave me an opportunity to not only reflect on my own preconceived notions but also the need for me to educate others.
The power of listening to and hearing the story of the struggles facing the most recent immigrants in the community brought about a sense of empathy in many teachers. It moved some of them to acknowledge how difficult it is for their students who have come from a culture differing from our local culture.
These experiences along with academic readings and discussions helped teachers examine and challenge some of their assumptions. They encouraged a sociocultural consciousness and an interest in learning more about the backgrounds of their students. Teachers began to critically reflect on their experiential knowledge. A middle school teacher shared,
To be completely transparent, when I heard the course title "Ethnicity and Education," I was somewhat dreading the week to come. Every professional development course or class I've taken dealing with ethnicity approached it from a superficial point of view and I often times left with a decreased sense of self or a one-sided perspective of culture. Instead, what I found throughout the course this week is that race can be a somewhat fabricated idea formed by people within a particular area or context. What I am taking away is that culture plays a huge role in my life and my students’ lives. They come in with a multitude of experiences and customs that I may directly or indirectly embrace or overlook. There is no set formula for cultural pedagogy and it would be difficult to define what makes a classroom culturally responsive. The dynamic nature of culture in itself lends to the endless possibilities of addressing and incorporating race and ethnicity in the classroom.
Teachers took on new perspectives as they experienced the cultural stories that were integrated into course through field trips that generated place-based stories and storytelling, interviews with marginalized immigrants in the community, and reading, responding to, and discussing both academic and multiethnic children’s literature. All of these experiences were considered through critical self-reflection. One elementary school teacher commented,
My personal learning process has been one of self-reflection. I began this journey with the concept of myself, “Who am I? What do I value? What do I believe?” Then we learned more about this place and its culture. We also turned to the stories of others and how they’re so valuable to understanding race, ethnicity, and culture. There were also interesting articles, research, and presentations that helped to again mold the concept of identity and culture. My perspective of others and myself has changed through stories, the Micronesian culture, and the bridging cultures framework.
Through the power of story, teachers began to move toward transformation. Another elementary school teacher concluded,
We need to be conscious of how we deliver instruction, the choices we provide, the behavioral expectations we set up, and the systems of accountability that we use with our students, including assessment and evaluation. All students are different and have their own personal stories. It is our job as educators to provide support for individuals as needed and to facilitate their learning process. If we do this, we can bring about change as our students succeed.
As course instructors, we look forward to teaching this course for a third time. We continue to search for ways to critically self-reflect upon cultural identity, the role identity plays in instructional decisions and how those decisions influence teaching diverse learners. We continue to examine and reflect upon our teaching practices. We also realize the urgency of committing to teaching in culturally responsive ways that inspire and motivate teachers to do the same within their classrooms.
References
Banks, J., Cochran-Smith, M., Moll, L., Richert, A., Zeichner, K., LePage, P., Darling-Hammond, L, Duffy, H. with McDonald, M. (2005). Teaching diverse learners. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Brandford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do, (pp. 232-274), San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cochran-Smith, M. (1995). Color blindness and basket making are not the answers: Confronting the dilemmas of race, culture, and language diversity in teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 493-522.
Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249-305.
Cochran-Smith, M., Davis, D., & Fries, K. (2003). Multicultural teacher education, In J.A. Banks & C.A. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research in multicultural education, 2nd, ed. (pp. 931-975). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hatton, N. & Smith, D. (1995). Reflection in teacher education: Towards definition and implementation. Teaching & Teacher Education, 11 (1), 33-49.
Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classroom. Theory into Practice, 31 (2), 132 – 141.
Schon, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
Schulte, A. (2004). Examples of practice: Professional knowledge and self-study in multicultural teacher education. In J. John Loughran et al. (Eds). International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices (pp. 709 – 742). New York: Springer.
Children’s Literature
Ellis, D. (2012). My name is Parvana. Groundwood.
Lai, T. (2012). Inside out and back again. Harpercollins.
Park, L. (2010). A long walk to water. Clarion Books.
Salisbury, G. (2007). Night of the howling dogs. Random House.
Thompson, H. (2011). Orchards, a novel in verse. Delacourte Random House.
Michele Ebersole is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Huihui Kanahele-Mossman is the Associate Director of the Kipuka Native Hawaiian Student Center at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Alice Kawakami is a retired professor from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
WOW Stories, Volume IV, Issue 9 by Worlds of Words is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://wowlit.org/on-line-publications/stories/iv9/.
