Literacy Journal Week 10

"In multicultural classrooms, teachers may find that students arrive at what appear to be unusual interpretations of a particular text. These varying interpretations may results, not from careless reading, but from differences in the background knowledge or cultural schemata students bring to the reading text." (Au, p. 22)

I have no doubt that most teachers, or teacher candidates, today deeply believe in the value of multiculturalism, in its broadest, most progressive sense. We want to honor the diversity of cultural backgrounds that our students bring with them into our classrooms. We want to move beyond a token representation of multiculturalism in a simplistic, let's celebrate MLK Day, mode. Many of us, including our teacher ed cohort, have been well-educated in a more sophisticated view of multiculturalism.

However, I suspect that I am not alone in feeling uncertain about whether I will really recognize students' expressions of their cultures for what they are. We know, for example, that in some cultures, it is not considered appropriate for students to make eye contact with their elders/teachers. But will we be able to distinguish between a lack of eye contact that signals respect, versus that which merely signals shyness and represents an opportunity to help a student gain social confidence?

Similarly, in the example quoted from the Au article above, how will we recognize differences in comprehension for what they are? Some might argue that it doesn't matter, that American students should be able to interpret a text the way deemed correct by an American school, but I fear that such an approach might further distance the student from feelings of success and the promise held by such experiences.

I must return to my original concern. In a perfect world, with lots of time for conversations with individual students, I would expect to uncover reasons for differences in text interpretations. Once uncovered, teacher and student could explore cultural differences and their implications such that each would come to better understand the world of the other. In the real world, I suspect that this will be hard to pull off. However, while I may be unable to converse with each student about each potential difference in interpretation, I should be able to take note of patterns of differences and other clues that indicate that a personal conversation is needed. Once such a dialogue is begun, one would hope that both teacher and student would choose to continue to share insights gleaned from their cultural orientations.