I contacted a friend and colleague, Michelle Bradley, about the distance I am feeling with my Latino students at Abraham Lincoln High School, whose parents are largely non-English speakers. Michelle responded with some great advice that I would like to share here for anyone in a culturally similar situation:
Hi Ben,
Nilva (an observing teacher for the Yoshi classes last week) felt it wasn’t a white thing, it’s just a neighborhood thing, maybe even a socio-economic barrier. I’m not sure, but there are definitely strategies to be found for this.
Here is one initial idea: personalize stories to their culture.
Sample Story: The young man, Mario went into a Mexican Restaurant or Taqueria. He ordered Enchiladas. Oh but there’s a problem! The waitress gave him Chiles Rellenos. ….
Sample Story: The young man, Miguel is getting married to Alejandra. They invite 150 people to the wedding. Oh but there’s a problem! 400 people showed up to the Party. Miguel sends Marcos to go buy more sodas…..
Ideally, they would do this because personalization is not just of students but also of the school, of place. But they don’t. There is a distance and getting them to suggest cute answers is hard. A few do it wonderfully, but most seem shy and I can’t figure it out. And it would be out of line if I were to suggest cute answers, obviously, for more than one reason.
Michelle also put me in touch with Melissa Burnham, who does a lot of inner city cultural consulting here in Denver. I want to come up with some ideas to break through this cultural divide. I hope I get some insights from her. It is interesting, now, as this method unpeels itself layer by layer, that we now must begin to think not just in terms of personalization, but also in terms of culturally appropriate personalization.