How social and culture context influence upon teaching profession

 

Q. 3 How social and culture context influence upon teaching profession. Comment  keeping your own context in mind.

 

Course:  Professionalism in Teaching

Course Code 8612

Topics 

social and culture context influence upon teaching profession.

• Culture and Cultural Anthropology,Impact on Education
• Impact of Culture on Worldview

AIOU Solved Assignment |Semester: Autumn/Spring | B.Ed/Bacherlors in Education /Masters in Education / PHD in Education | BEd / MEd / M Phil Education | ASSIGNMENT Course Code 8612| course:Professionalism in teaching

Answer:

 

Many years ago, a cold-hearted scientist placed 100 babies on an uninhabited but fertile island, half of them boys, half girls.  He provided only the minimum requirements to keep them alive. He left them food and water, being careful not to be seen. He kept them from harm, when possible. For years, the children received none of the trappings of a normal upbringing: no language, no education, and no culture. Later, he slowly began feeding and watering them less and less, until eventually he gave them nothing at all.

 

After 20 years on the island, who are these people? Have they retained the thinking and sentient qualities that make them undeniably human or are they merely hairless apes? Myriad possible scenarios unfold — war, camaraderie, invention and language. Within a few hundred years, the islanders might have even cultivated traditions and cultures.

 

Most likely, however, within those 20 years the only proof of the experiment would be the finding of a few small bones on the now deserted coastline. The islanders would be dead. — Excerpt from New Scientist “Island of wild children: Would they learn to be human?” by Christopher Kemp.

CULTURE AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

 

When humans grow up without culture, do they ultimately invent it? What role does culture play in defining the individual? How does culture impact learning? Paleoanthropologist Ian Tatters all says “You cannot think of human beings as independent of culture and their society. This goes back a long, long way before we were human. It goes back millions and millions of years, back into our primate and mammal past.

 

Even the most basic aspects of our cognitive development depend on being raised by linguistic, articulate parents, embedded within a rich and historical culture.”According to her article, “Reflections on the Impact of Culture in the Classroom,” Giselle Mora-Bourgeois says culture refers to the ways in which different groups of people organize their daily lives within national or ethnic groups, urban neighborhoods, companies and professions, and other settings.

 

Culture includes what people actually do and what they believe. Culture influences greatly how we see the world, how we try to understand it and how we communicate with each other. Therefore, culture determines, to a great extent, learning and teaching styles.

IMPACT OF CULTURE ON WORLDVIEW

 

In his Huff Post Education article “Examining the Impact of Culture on Academic Performance,” Matthew Lynch. EdD says a person’s culture and upbringing has a profound effect on how they see the world and how they process information

“The Geography of Thought:

How Asians and Westerners Think Differently,” by Richard Nisbett, showed how  the Asian holistic view of the world differed from their American counterparts, who tended to view the world in parts or distinct classes of objects defined by a set of rules.

 

In other words, the Asian children see the world in terms of the relationship between things, whereas the American children see the world in terms of the objects as distinct entities. This information is helpful when we consider how cultural background might influence approach to learning and school performance. Theories exist to help explain differences in school performance among different racial and ethnic groups.

 

CULTURE: PARENTS AND EDUCATORS

 

Parents and educators are aware of the disparities that exist under their own school house roofs. Disparities exist in achievement, funding and readiness. But we cannot be expected to sufficiently address any of these gaps without acknowledging the cultural gaps that continue to exist between students and teachers.

 

Culture is often perceived as celebrated holidays and recipes, or religious traditions. But at the root of it, culture is a unique experience. Cultural tendencies impact the way children participate in education. To engage students effectively in the learning process, teachers must know their students and their academic abilities individually, rather than relying on racial or ethnic stereotypes or prior experience with other students of similar backgrounds.

 

The definition of normal school behavior can be based upon individualist and collectivist cultures. Teachers who lack knowledge about a culture might misinterpret the behavior of a child and inaccurately judge students as poorly behaved or disrespectful. M.S. Rosenberg, D.L. Westling and J. McLeskey in “Special Education for Today’s Teachers: An Introduction,” say that the influence of culture on the importance of education and participation styles cannot be overestimated. Many Asian students, for example, tend to be quiet in class, and making eye contact with teachers is considered inappropriate.

 

 In contrast, most European American children are taught to value active classroom discussion and to look teachers directly in the eye to show respect, while their teachers view students’ participation as a sign of engagement and competence.

 

 Parents from some Hispanic cultures tend to regard teachers as experts and will often defer educational decision making to them, whereas European American parents are often more actively involved in their children’s classrooms, are visible in the classrooms, or volunteer and assist teachers These cultural differences in value and belief may cause educators to make inaccurate judgments regarding the value that non –European American families place on education.

 

IMPACT ON EDUCATION

 

Educators understand that learners are not all the same. Pat Guild of the Johns Hopkins School of Education says that too often, educators continue to treat all learners alike despite the obvious cultural diversity within.  Mora-Bourgeois adds that addressing cultural differences in the teaching-learning process is both important and controversial.

 

 It is important because we are confronted with an increasingly diverse population of students and the wide achievement gap between minority and non-minority students. It is controversial because we may fall into the trap of cultural stereotyping and making naive attempts to explain achievement differences among our students.

Teachers remain the ultimate advocates for learning, yet many are not necessarily aware of what their students deal with once the dismissal bell has rung. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance says that many teachers are white, middle class English speaking individuals. While teachers typically are color blind — they teach with equity and without discrimination — this practice does not always address cultural diversity.

 

  Teachers cannot escape the fact that their communication “styles” reflect their cultural background. Much of what they say, the way they say it, and their relationship with students, parents and colleagues are deeply influenced by the way they have been socialized.  Race and ethnicity often play integral roles in children’s identities, and contribute to their behavior and their beliefs. Recognizing this can help students succeed in a school culture where expectations and communication are unfamiliar.