Author’s Reflection: Recognizing the Need for Cultural Responsiveness
Luis (pseudonym) was one of Mr. Cressey’s 3rd grade students in an urban elementary school, in a substantially separate classroom for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Luis identified as Latinx (Puerto Rican) and spoke both Spanish and English at home. Mr. Cressey, a white special education teacher, began the school year by trying to set a positive tone and build supportive relationships with his students. Having taught in a rural special education school for children with similar disabilities, Mr. Cressey was confident in his approach, which merged positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) and social-emotional learning (SEL). However, Mr. Cressey soon realized that his students were not responding in the way that he expected. Mr. Cressey’s approach lacked an important third dimension: culturally responsive teaching (CRT). In this urban classroom, most of Mr. Cressey’s students were Black and Latinx, coming from families who immigrated from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Mr. Cressey was inadvertently taking a “color-blind” approach by trying to implement his existing repertoire of SEL and PBIS practices in this new context, without making adaptations based on his individual student’s strengths, cultural values, and family and community systems. He also soon realized that he was taking a deficit view of his students’ families because of their parenting approaches which differed from his own teaching style. Mr. Cressey needed to reflect and adapt his mindset as well as his practices.
Luis, in particular, was not responding well to Mr. Cressey’s approach. Luis seemed uninterested and unmotivated by the classroom positive reinforcement systems. Mr. Cressey reached out to Luis’s mother and shared his observations. Luis’s mother told Mr. Cressey that she does not use rewards or incentives with Luis at home. She does not believe in that approach, instead valuing strictness and punishment more highly. She takes away privileges, rather than using positive reinforcement with Luis. Upon learning this, Mr. Cressey first viewed her response as evidence of a deficit in Luis’s family system and wanted to educate his mother about the benefits of positive reinforcement. “If she only knew how much better praise is than punishment,” he thought, “She could help Luis to be successful at home and at school.” Mr. Cressey asked if she would like to create a plan in which Luis could earn rewards at home for his positive behaviors at school. Luis’s mother was not interested in this, as she had previously explained in regards to her parenting style. She also shared that her income did not allow her to purchase rewards for her children like toys or restaurant meals on a weekly basis, and that she did not appreciate the school using these kinds of incentives either. It set her up for more conflicts with Luis when the teachers used tangible rewards with him at school. When she wanted Luis to do homework or chores at home, he had started to ask questions like “What will you give me for doing that?” because the school had essentially gotten him hooked on these costly rewards. At the same time, Luis’s mother appreciated her son’s spirit and strength. She did not want the school to simply train him in obedience. She wanted him to learn how to make safe choices with his words and actions, but also to know how to resist authority when it was called for, in the face of injustice or unfair treatment.
This was a turning point for Mr. Cressey in understanding how his use of evidence-based practices could become ineffective and counter-productive. He had not considered the fact that his students’ families may have valid reasons for not using PBIS and positive reinforcement in their parenting. He started to realize that his thinking was clouded by a deficit lens, probably linked to implicit biases that he held unknowingly as a while male with a postgraduate education and socioeconomic privilege. By starting with the view that his approach was best, as a trained special educator, Mr. Cressey had not fully assessed the familial and cultural values of his students’ family systems. Mr. Cressey sat down with his colleagues to debrief this process and work towards a new approach. After reflecting more on his discussions with Luis’s mother, Mr. Cressey felt ready to make a change.
In their next conversation, Mr. Cressey and Luis’s mother determined that the teachers could keep using frequent positive reinforcement, as this was not a concern for her, but they would remove the use of tangible prizes. Luis’s mother also wanted Mr. Cressey to use a stricter approach and remind Luis of the consequences of his actions. While in the past, Mr. Cressey had avoided this because he viewed such statements as threats of punishment, he now began to use more reminders with Luis in an effective manner that reflected what Luis was used to hearing at home, while still emphasizing positive relationships, SEL, and PBIS practices.
Luis’s mother brought many strengths to her parenting, and Mr. Cressey needed a shift in mindset to see them and realize their value. By holding Luis to high standards, and keeping him accountable through consequences, Luis’s mother was working to keep him safe and reinforce the importance of hard work. Mr. Cressey realized that he needed to repair his relationship with Luis’s mother by reflecting this view back to her, and by validating her parenting. While this took time over the course of the school year, Mr. Cressey found that his efforts to be more affirming towards Luis’s family system were beneficial. He became a better teacher for Luis, and for the rest of his class, through this reflective learning process.