Blog Post #4

    When it comes to my cultural experiences in literacy classrooms, I never had a personal negative experience. However, I remember watching some of my friends face negative affects while reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I remember them being uncomfortable with the racial slurs being read aloud. I also wish that there were more culturally advanced literature and lessons within my classes. Other than this, I cannot recall many issues I saw within my past literacy classrooms. 

    Being a culturally responsive educator does not mean to just implement cultural books every now and then. Rather, it is a teacher who implements cultural diversity into daily lessons. It is someone who embraces and promotes cultural diversity. There is a lot of things that we, as educators, can improve to make our classrooms more culturally responsive. A few ways to do this is by allowing the students to relate to the literature, by creating an environment where students can feel comfortable, and by involving the community in the classroom. 

    For the past few years, I have worked on building my classroom library. From region trainings to books I found online, I have collected a variety of books to include in my future classroom. I have made sure to include a wide variety of books that include various cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. Beyond this, I plan on incorporating different lessons that focus on different areas around the world. One example on how I can do this by having the students focus on different areas per unit.