“Mr. Smith is looking at the situation through his own value filter. He expects the answer to reflect the mainstream, middle-class culture.”
“Juan does not see his family as revolving around him but as an interconnected overlapping structure. The Anglo students seem to see their family members as separate people.”
“Cultural unawareness on the part of the teacher. There would have not been a ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ response.”
Similarly, in the scenario with Hispanic parents walking their children to their classrooms, one of these culturally aware educators responded:
Staff is still seeing the situation through their own eyes. They still want to attach a sense of “not caring” to the parents. They feel good because they have identified the issues parents deal with, but they still interpret their (parents) behavior as not caring.
In the scenario in which a teacher asks students whether they know how to keep from getting sick and then dismisses responses that represent non- Western views of health care, another culturally aware educator stated, “The teacher is not accepting of answers from all students. In many cultures, the power of herbal remedies, teas, etc. are highly respected for medicinal use. The assumption of financial reasons and setting the answer aside may build barriers.” While these responses reflect this group’s understanding of deeper aspects of culture, such as different sets of values clashing, they were not categorized as culturally responsive for two reasons. First, two of the three educators expressed a deficit belief in responding to one of the scenarios. Secondly, their solutions to the culture clashes in the scenarios appeared to be based more in best practice than in cultural responsiveness. They tended to suggest technical fixes that are generally considered effective for all stu- dents and families without regard to cultural differences. For example, in response to the question, “How would you have responded if you were the teacher?” in the health lesson scenario, one culturally aware educator answered, “Exactly as she [the teacher] had in the earlier examples: accept the answer, thank the child, and write it among the others—not aside.” This best practice of recognizing the child’s contribution is important, but not enough, because it fails to validate the child’s funds of knowledge. In con- trast, solutions offered by the culturally responsive educator were purpo- sively linked to cultural knowledge used in explaining clashes in the scenarios. Similar to the culturally aware educators, the culturally respon- sive educator recognized the child’s contribution in the health lesson. However, instead of just thanking the child and recording the answer on the board, she asked the child to elaborate on the home remedies her family used. This additive practice validated the child’s funds of knowledge and promoted cultural competence for all students.