Lisa Espinosa, a seventh grade science and language arts teacher, is tasked with teaching something a teacher should be able to approach with every student in most grades: cultural relevance and social justice Overall, I felt that she did a phenomenal job teaching this topic to this age group She broke down the topic in ways they could understand, and used different teaching methods that allowed each student to absorb the information she was discussing Lisa also used many different activities, such as projects, discussions, readings, watching films, and many other mediums to help the students fully grasp the concepts of cultural relevance and social justice.
Some activities were more effective than others in teaching the material, but they all made an impact nonetheless. One way she presented the material was through three books the students read.
The books were presented through different perspectives, and the authors of the books all came from different backgrounds The books showed social justice throughout the Latino, African American, and Native American communities.
After reading the books and discussing the different cultures, Lisa had the students compare the cultural hardships between the three groups, which I think made a big impact on the students’ understanding of the relevance of culture in teaching social justice The use of teaching different cultures reminded me of Nieto’s view of multilingualism being an asset rather than a hindrance to students, People only see the fact that the student did not originally speak English as something that isn’t good, but in some cases, student’s who‘s learn English later on tend to have better grammar than English only students, They also have the benefit of being able to communicate with different people speaking different languages, which I think ties into teaching about different cultures so that students have a grasp on more than just their own culture.
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It would allow them to better understand and empathize with people of different backgrounds. Lisa also used an activity where the students collected different quotes from the books and discussed the quotes they found and the thoughts they had on what each quote was saying. Some of the students also made connections to themselves through the selections from the books, which helped them personally identify with the issues they were learning about in class, This activity also helped them realize the similar problems surrounding many different cultures in our country, Another way Lisa taught the information of social justice to her class was through videos and recordings She showed them a video on Latino work conditions of a few decades ago, and a recording that was also used for writing one of the books she assigned to the students. Lisa had the students watch and listen to the information presented and then discussed the information with the students.
Her discussions with them really helped them understand what the main points of the stories and helped the students personally connect with it too, Lisa also had a photography project for the students to complete, the purpose of which was to present their community and show their individual stories. Many of the students are Latino, and it seems that the images‘ purposes are to show the culture within their community. They also are supposed to write and essay to describe the message their photograph is showing One of the main reasons for using this particular project, is to show the danger of presenting a single story. Earlier in the semester, we watched a Ted Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which also explained the dangers of presenting the single story. I think this really connects to the photo project the children are doing.
The camera can only show so much in the image, which is why they also describe their intended message within an essay. Before the students took these pictures and wrote their essays, Lisa had an activity where they looked at two images within small groups. One image, presented a stereotypical image of the Native American culture, while the second showed average examples of Native American communities. This exercise was to show the danger of a single story and stereotypes of a culture, and how it is important to look at different points of view, In the final photography project, I think the students really understood how detrimental it is to these cultures to only examine a portion of information and the different stereotypes taught to us, and how cultural relevance is a huge part of socialjusticest.
Overall, I think Lisa’s teaching technique was effective because of the way she had the students connect with the different cultures taught. She got them to see themselves in the stories presented, even though the stories were from different culture and placed in different time periods I think this personal connection really made the kids eager to learn about the topic of culturally relevant social jusLice and helped them think critically about the information being presented to them, Also, the different mediums Lisa taught through allowed students to learn in a way easiest to them. The diverse amount of activities she had them complete through each unit helped them absorb the information as well Lisa did a fantastic job teaching these kids, and overall I think she positively impacted the ability of their critical thinking, and their grasp of culturally relevant social justice.
Lisa Espinosa: Teaching Cultural Relevance & Social Justice. (2022, Oct 18). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/the-effective-teaching-techniques-of-lisa-espinosa-in-providing-information-on-the-topic-of-cultural-relevance-and-social-justice/
