I believe one’s cultural background plays a great role in applying culturally

responsive teaching in the classroom. When you belong to a cultural group, everyone

does, you are naturally sensitive to issues that others may not be. The experiences I

have of being a woman of color and a former DACA student allow me to pose questions

in a classroom setting that otherwise would not be raised.

I consider being at level two of Summers/Banks’ 4-level continuum for two main

reasons. Reason number one I believe I am in level two is due to fear of backlash from

colleagues or parents. I live in rural Southwest Virginia. I recently moved from O’ahu,

Hawai’i where the culture is vastly different and diversity in ethnicity, language, and

culture is great. Although I expose my students to picture books with characters that

don’t necessarily look like my students, be it a difference in ethnicity or ability, I am

aware of the sensitivities around race in the area I live in. I spent about two weeks

teaching my students the importance of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa

Parks, the Lincoln Memorial, and concepts like slavery and the civil rights movement.

Almost every day I crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t get an angry parent phone call. I

wasn’t teaching the students anything that didn't happen in history, but some days I

wondered if a parent would criticize what I chose to talk about, for example, black

bathrooms and white bathrooms, or slave ownership. This leads me to reason number

two. I don’t want to misjudge, but from what I have seen, I believe my school is still

operating at level one. During my first month in school, I was greeted by two teachers

wearing sombreros and maracas and blaring mariachi music, and handing out nachos to

teachers. Needless to say, this put a terrible taste in my mouth. It doesn’t seem that

there was a conversation surrounding their choice of attire and how that could have

offended someone like me, who is Mexican.

If I could do one thing to move my school up a level on the continuum of cultural

competency, it would be to be brave and have those uncomfortable conversations with

my colleagues. I mentioned earlier that one’s cultural background plays a huge role in

culturally responsive teaching, yet I haven’t made the effort to talk about my background.