Culturally Responsive Teaching

I grew up in a predominantly Caucasian classroom and even in my field experiences at Clemson, I was placed in classrooms that I was familiar with: mostly Caucasian and very few African-Americans and Hispanics.  However, my first teaching job and where I still am, I had to adjust real quickly to a culturally diverse classroom: mostly African-American, some Hispanics, and very few Caucasians.  Now, I have to say I have to agree with the book, "Unfortunately, too few teacher education programs appear to be preparing teachers and other education professionals to work effectively with culturally different students."  So my first year was hard, very had.  Thankfully, my school's main professional development that year was differentiated instruction and this helped with varying teaching styles to accommodate and affirm learning styles.  In my classroom, learning styles dominate the instruction making my instruction be student-centered.  When there's a lecture, there's always a chance for student discussion.  When the class has a grasp on the standard(s) being taught, judging from discussion and activities, they are assessed.  For activities, cooperative learning takes place frequently, as well as graphic organizers, group presentations, projects, games, manipulatives, creative movement, role-plays, peer-tutoring, and sharing/celebrating work.  I've been told when my class is observed by administration or support staff, that my classroom feels inviting and warm and there's a respectful rapport between the students and I.  I try my best, but definitely fall short every now and then, at treating my students exactly like I'd want to be treated and try to be an example of what I expect from them. Whether it's using manners and following procedures or putting my best effort into the work being done that day.
         From Ch. 14, some things did grab my attention that I'm not using to foster my classroom being culturally responsive.  One being that the teaching is bidirectional.  Yes, there is peer-tutoring in cooperative learning groups, but I don't have the students trying to make me learn from them.  To facilitate the communalism characteristics of some culturally diverse students, I need to use teaching strategies that implement service and community involvement.
         Now to make a plan to readjust a couple of my teaching practices.  With the bidirectional teaching, this could be done with my students being required to research a certain topic without me teaching them about it first and then coming up to teach it to me and the rest of the class!  Sounds pretty exciting to me, except there would have to be some major guidelines set up before freeing them to teach themselves. :)  With service and community involvement, we get a lot of help from churches and social services because of being a Title 1 school.  We do make thank you notes and posters, but it just stops there.  We could find ways to help them back!  Also, we could delve a little deeper when we learn about our cultures.  I make sure to somehow incorporate all cultures present in the classroom in the instruction at least once during the school year, for example with African-American and Hispanic students, some things we learn about are Kwanzaa, Cinco de Mayo, El Dia de los Muertos, Black History Month.  I could actually have speakers come in that have experience with our cultural units.