SPF 301
Ever since I was a little girl I have had the same dream, the same answer to the
very poplar question; what do you want to be when your older?. A teacher is what I am
meant to be. Professionally I see myself starting off as a high school history teacher. I
plan to stay at that position for at least 5 years. I eventually would like to progress and
become apart of a school administration team. I do not have a specific job in mind yet but
at that career field, my end goal for my professional career is to be on the board of
education for the state of Arizona. I do know that these goals are aimed high but I do
believe they are achievable. Because of where I see myself professionally, it is very
important for me to enter my career with a clear vision of cultural awareness. I say this
way for me to improve the school. I think where culture will play the most important role
is when I am teaching in the classroom. Involving the culture of the community and the
students within my classroom will be the reason why my students will succeed. Having
the cultural awareness that this course has given me will make sure that no student gets
miss treaded or ever feels uncomfortable in my room. There is nothing more important
for a school environment then to understand culture and being able to incorporate the
am a culturally responsive educational leader. Although there are over 15 concepts that I
will be applying to my future classroom, there are 3 very important ones. The first and
most important slide of my vision statement is concept 1. This slide states that students
deserve a learning environment where there will be no judgment, they have equal
the ideas that I found most important while reading the course material thus far. In the
beginning of this course I always knew that I would do my best to make sure no child
feels different and throughout the course it has only developed. As a future teacher
having an understanding of the concept that every students is different, is vital in order to
give each child is getting the proper education in order to be successful. In my classroom,
not one student will be judged because of their differences instead they will be valued.
The variety of cultures and learning styles in my classroom will all be acknowledged and
used to better the students education. Not any child's needs will be ignored when it
Students will have access to technology and primary materials in order to discover
sources necessary to understand history. While gaining knowledge of not only content
standards, the students will be obtaining a hidden curriculum of norms, values, and
perspectives. In this slide of my vision, I stated the idea of my students having access to
technology materials as well as primary. What I meant by this was that I want my
students to be able to use technology as well as text books in order to discovery history
on their own. With these materials it shows that the culture of the classroom give students
the chance to develop their own knowledge and opinions of the standards. It is very
important that in my future classroom the students are gaining a hidden curriculum as
well. In the book when I read the section learning through activism, it told me that it
develops a sense of justice and fairness. By connecting historical events to the students
current lives I can start to access the Hidden Curriculum. I want my students to feel
comfortable in my classroom so that they can develop their own opinions. It is important
for students to start having their own perspective and thoughts on how things make them
feel. In my classroom the students will be having a large amount of discussions, creating
a culture where they will learn to respect their peers different opinions. With all of that
being said, I cam to the conclusion that the culture in my classroom will maintain
respectful through the hidden curriculum and students based from the materials available.
Before entering this class my professors talked a lot about the concept of Hidden
Curriculum but it wasnt until just recently when I realized that it is apart of my
classroom culture. This course has taught me that Hidden Curriculum is one of the most
important aspects a teacher can portray in their room. Teaching isnt only about content;
it is mainly about inspiring the minds of the future. This course showed me that it is a
The third concept that is important to my vision statement is slide 6. This slide
stated that the students would have the ability to make connections between Pop Cultures
and Social Rituals to the content learned in their classrooms. With this statement, I am
saying that as a future teacher I want to create rituals in my classroom that connect to the
students pop culture. It is important for these connections to occur in the classroom in
order for students to remember the content presented to them. Doing something as small
as changing words of a popular song to content facts can do wonders for their memory.
This is kind of shown in the YouTube video in our lectures this week. The teacher used a
song in order for the students to memorize their times tables. He probable makes his
students recite the song in the beginning of every class helping his student with
memorization. Rituals that a class does every day are very beneficial for students of any
ages. I want to become a high school teacher so having knowledge of my students pop
culture and social rituals can have the students respect me and I can create a bond with
them that other teachers may not. I want my students to love coming to my classroom and
I strongly think that with my strategy of incorporation their rituals into the lessons. I can
concur my goal. Connections between students everyday lives and lesson plans can
make huge educational improvements. Before this section of the course, I only thought
about connecting the content to their personal lives. I never had the idea of connecting the
content to the students pop culture. In high school this is a very important age to do this
because pop culture is a HUGE part of their life. Over the course of this class my ideas
developed more and more on this topic. The video we watched with the teacher using a
rap song to do math is what really made it stick into my head. I will make it an important
vision statement. This would be found in the very last slide; I will recognize the
In my classroom I will make do my best to make sure my students cultures are used in a
positive way. I will base my teachings off the idea that culture is central to a students
learning. From the readings, I have learned that when making connections between the
content and each students personal culture, the student is more likely to obtain the
backgrounds we provide them the ability to access more then just content. The most
important and interesting research that I came across was the website by Brown
centered instruction, culturally mediated instruction, reshaping the curriculum and last
but not least teacher as a facilitator. When the teacher is acting more like a facilitator the
students have more capability to learn from their own perspective, meaning within their
own culture. When the students get to discover the knowledge it creates more of a
connection and is more important to them. I really enjoyed this section of the semester
because I never thought about the cultural differences that will occur in my class. I have
always took into consideration the differences in abilities of my students such as ELL,
IEP and so on but cultural differences never came to mind. That is why this course was
very important to me. This concept showed me that culture is important and it will be my
job to incorporate each childs culture into their learning in order for their success.
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differently in the primary grades. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse .
Childress, Herb. A Subtractive Education. The Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 88, no.
2, 2006, pp. 104109., www.jstor.org/stable/20442193.
Sleeter, C. (2011). The academic and social value of ethnic studies: A research
review. National Education Association
"Trends and Tides of Modern Education." Dewey outlines Utopian schools. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2017.