Leadership magazine Nov/Dec 2014 V 44 No 2 | Page 35

the same effort to visit every community. This information may be
crucial in understanding the group dynamics of your students. The
qualitative data you collect during these learning visits can provide
precious information on what your community values and what assets your students bring to your campus.
In addition to understanding your community’s present status,
research the history and traditions of your families. You may discover that you have a group of students who have special dietary
needs, or are forbidden to salute the flag due to religious practices.
Knowing this information can direct your intervention efforts to
support your students and be proactive in identifying individuals
who will help you communicate with your students’ families.
It is important to comprehend that we are all biased and naturally
make assumptions about others. What is not
OK is to stereotype our students and enclose
them in perceptual predeterminations (Muhammad & Hollie, 2011). When we make those
stereotypes about our students, we normally
pass the same judgment to their families and
community.
A litmus test you can try on yourself is the
following: If the student who you consider to
be the least likely to succeed told you that his
aunt is a doctor, would you think or correct him
with the following: “Oh, you must mean that
your aunt is a medical assistant. She works in
a clinic helping doctors, right?” This should be
a red flag because a person who reacts in this
manner is blind to the student’s assets or community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005). In order
to be culturally competent teachers, we must
see the assets that students bring to school and incorporate them
throughout the day in school.
One important aspect that teachers can capitalize on is the fact
that many students who are limited in English bring a wealth of
knowledge in their first language. The challenge for the teacher is
to connect to that knowledge with what is being taught in the classroom.

Bridging the cultures through linguistic connections
In the case of Spanish and all the other Romance languages,
teachers can connect to Latin based English words because all Romance languages are derived from Latin and share a great number
of cognates with English. The same can be said about Arabic and its
influence on English and the Romance languages.
What is important to note is that a teacher can bridge the various cultures represented in a classroom through this linguistic and
historical connection. This connection can be applied to Filipino
students who speak Tagalog, Chabacano or any of the other Filipino
languages that employ a large number of Spanish nouns.
We need to understand that students not only have a home culture
but a generational and local subculture as well. Besides understanding their community and home situation, we need to know what

music our kids are listening to, what television shows they watch,
what video games they play and what trends appeal to them. This
information is crucial to the building of background knowledge and
hooking new material to their life experiences.
Students have to see themselves represented in the stories they
read and in the historical figures they learn about. Teachers become
champions of their students’ cultures when they seek these role