What Life as a Military Brat Taught Me About Cultural Competence and Empathy in the Classroom
When Challenging the Status Quo Almost Got Me Kicked Off a Mission Trip By: Ruth Jefferson The mission center was one of those places that seemed like a blend between older architecture and internal design that was a bit more modern, but fit the space. In the entrance area, larger booths lined either side with a front desk where one could go to get more information. A session had just ended, and students met in different areas across the center. At one of the booths, a group of college students sat talking about classroom management. They were enrolled in the education department at the university and were listening to another student who was working at a school with younger students while she was attending classes. The conversation had gotten so loud that, from the next room, I heard clearly, “Sometimes, you have to just tell them to sit down and shut up.” That was the day I almost got kicked off of a mission trip. The reason? Challenging this advice. It was one of those situations where a student doesn’t have any knowledge of cultural competence because their learning environment doesn’t foster it. They hadn’t received that training from their learning experience. And, as far as their community (including their leadership) outside of that direct experience with teacher training, those with influence had similar backgrounds and also lacked that training. Because they didn’t have it, they didn’t recognize its importance. As a result, any challenge to that worldview was seen as a threat and a challenge. The only reaction they could think of to this perceived attack was to remove the threat to this comfort zone. Why Educators Who Lack Cultural Competence Can’t See What They’re Missing Seeing your own blind spots is a difficult task. This is why it’s important to have both community and accountability. Other educators with experiences different from your own will be able to see areas of opportunity and growth that you might not. Networking and professional organizations can be good opportunities to make these connections. What matters most isn’t how you express love and care.It’s about the way the person you’re sharing these with experiences them. What Moving Around Taught Me About Learning Environments and Student Experience My own perspective and approach to educational environments have definitely been shaped by my experiences with others and the different settings I’ve entered. The settings and people I’ve had the opportunity to interact with are broader, in part, because I grew up as a military brat and a pastor’s kid and moved around quite a bit because of these things. Here are some things I’ve learned through these experiences: Experiences from one educational environment carry into the next. I’ve definitely had some positive experiences as a result of continuous change. For example, as a younger student, I remember a teacher who wasn’t my own taking time with me to teach me music. I remember learning a handful of musical notes and the sound of the piano. It was one of those memories that sticks with me to this day. I remember a teacher who cared about me even though he wasn’t formally my teacher. I also remember learning something about the benefits of gamification in the learning process. I wouldn’t have used these words as a young, grade-school student because I didn’t know them. What I did know was that it was pretty sweet to be able to get an ice cream cone every week during 6-week periods when I made the A-honor roll. But just as there were these positive experiences, there were also challenging ones. For example, I remember during one move, I entered an educational environment where I was bullied. On occasion, my bullies chased me across the schoolyard. I stopped to get help from a teacher. The teacher didn’t take me seriously, and I began to run again. That experience was one I carried with me as I entered other educational environments as a student. Sure, the teacher could’ve probably told those students to sit down and shut up. But it wouldn’t have really been instructional because they would have had an understanding of the why. And context and understanding are just as important as the rules they’re used to enforce. As a stranger to the educational environment where you have formal influence, new students carry with them their own context. Your ability to engage with them there, in helpful ways, makes a big difference. Educators Who Lack Cultural Competence Sometimes Can’t See What They’re Missing Seeing your own blind spots is a difficult task. This is why it’s important to have both community and accountability. Other educators with experiences different from your own will be able to see areas of opportunity and growth that you might not. Networking and professional organizations can be good opportunities to make these connections. Every New Classroom Has a Learning Curve—For Students and Educators It might seem like there’s not much of a learning curve when it comes to sitting in a class and learning. But the changing variables mean that there is with every situation, even if they’re difficult to see. For example, a teacher who focuses more on lecture-style instruction brings a different experience to the educational environment than does a class project-heavy instructional load. Teachers who adopt a more hybrid instructional model might not be as easy to adapt to as it might seem. Additionally, with every new class, there are different personalities from other learners, staff and their expectations, even to you as the educator. These are only the variables inside the classroom. When what’s happening outside of the classroom is also a changing environment, that can also produce challenges for the learning environment. This brings us to the ideas of the grounding and the familiar. What the Search for the Familiar Teaches Educators About Belonging in the Classroom For the longest time, whenever we moved somewhere, I was on the lookout for libraries and Waffle Houses.
