Educators should recognize how culture (including their own) influences work values, beliefs and communication. Cultural competence goes beyond meeting back-to-school professional learning requirements; it provides a strategic way to decrease misunderstandings, assumptions, biases and discrimination.
Culture competence begins by taking an honest assessment of yourself and learning more about others. Here are a few steps that can help get the process started:
Cultural Awareness
Educators must recognize that each of their students come from diverse cultural backgrounds, which requires learning as much about their home countries and what makes each unique. Showing students that teachers care about them and their culture will allow them to open up to educators and engage in classroom discussions more comfortably.
Schools should promote asset-based pedagogies as teaching methods that embrace students' cultures and identities while simultaneously cultivating academic and social success. This helps dismantle a deficit mentality that has historically plagued schools of color while supporting the belief that students are assets to their communities.
Culturally competent classrooms can achieve this objective by encouraging open dialogue and respectful discussion about culture; celebrating cultural holidays and traditions; and inviting students from various countries to join Empatico exchanges - giving students an invaluable opportunity to build valuable intercultural skills while forging enduring connections that may last a lifetime.
Empathy
Empathy is at the heart of cultural competence. Empathizing with another individual means placing yourself in their shoes and seeing things from their point of view; even if this doesn't mean agreeing with their perceptions or conclusions about experiences, but instead shows you can understand their perspective and empathize.
Teachers can foster more empathetic interactions in the classroom through literature, such as fractured fairy tales that present familiar stories from varying viewpoints. This allows students to see how situations may be perceived differently by someone else and can provide useful lessons when facing conflict among themselves or with classmates and friends.
No longer can school leaders shirk conversations about culture while solely focusing on student achievement. Administrators must provide space for staff to address cultural issues and reestablish norms based on cultural competency. It's also crucial for educators to become aware of any biases and stereotypes they might hold before addressing them so that they may become more adept at working with students from varying cultures.
Effective Engagement
An important step toward cultural competence is developing awareness of one's own culture and how it influences attitudes and beliefs. To successfully navigate this journey, awareness must start within.
Educators should welcome dialogue between themselves and students from diverse backgrounds, especially concerning religion and sexuality. But they must avoid making values-laden statements that target specific individuals within a classroom setting. Listening for complete meaning is key to developing cultural competency; doing so means minimizing mental distractions such as planning the response or engaging in mindless chitchat.
Administrators and staff cannot continue to avoid discussions about social identities and their effects on educational outcomes, nor reestablish norms that reflect cultural competency. They must take the initiative in implementing measures which enhance them both individually and as an organization.
Active Listening
To build cultural competency, educators must learn how to engage effectively with students from various cultures. This involves listening with purpose and acknowledging that not everyone communicates the same way. Active listening involves paying close attention without interrupting or making judgments and understanding why something was said by its speaker.
Culture-competent teaching environments allow teachers to create classrooms that are inclusive and celebratory of differences. Dialogue around differences isn't limited to certain times or months - rather, differences become part of daily dialogue about what makes people unique and the significance of those differences.
Research on cultural competence has demonstrated that students who receive education about diversity experience greater knowledge levels and are more satisfied in their interactions than those who don't receive such instruction. School systems must take measures to incorporate developing cultural competence into their curricula despite tight schedules or pandemic-related preparations.
