Blog 9: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Place-Based Learning

As I hope to be a secondary English teacher the article “Culturally relevant pedagogy and critical literacy in diverse English classrooms: A case study of a Secondary English teacher’s activism and agency” by Anne Lopez was very useful to me. Culturally relevant pedagogy in my future classroom will look like diversity because I Plan to incorporate diverse texts so students are given the opportunity to understand and learn different perspectives. In my classroom it will feel like acceptance and exploration because the students will learn to explore different topics that are not necessarily often well understood. As well as they will be able to explore their own identities to see how their beliefs are represented. It will sound like students sharing their understandings and then myself helping to deconstruct and then reconstruct their knowledge so they have the proper knowledge without being emotionally wounded. My classroom will be a place for students to feel safe to explore new ideas and form an understanding from them. I believe a sense of place is also very important for students so as a future teacher I plan to incorporate place-based learning as much as possible. I plan to do this by taking them out into the community and bringing the community into the classroom/school. I plan to emerge them into life outside of the classroom as much as possible while also bringing it into the classroom through the materials we will read.  I believe it is important that students form a connection to the land and the community that they grow up and learn in because it is a part of who they are.

Reference

Lopez, A. (2011). Culturally relevant pedagogy and critical literacy in diverse English classrooms: A case study of a secondary English teacher’s activism and agency. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 10(4), 75-93.