Imagine Culturally Aware School Counselors

Rhonda Williams Ed.D., LPC., NCC.Marlon Funez

Erica RiggsDana Albers

AgendaWhy should we talk about culture?

What does the national data say?

What does the Colorado data tell us?

What is Biased Language?

What do we do about it?

Examples

Let's Play

Does Culture Matter?

Importance of Becoming Culturally Aware School Counselors

�Allows students to feel safe in the school environment

Demonstrates� they are on equal ground with other students

Helps� students achieve higher academically

Encourages� students to try more rigorous coursework

Helps � students feel less stigmatized and marginalized

Builds� meaningful bridges between home and school experiences as well as between academic abstractions and reality.

�Cited From: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/culturally-sensitive-educator/#ixzz3Gt1f4NMf

Cultural Awareness• Helps � students become familiar with their

own and others’ cultural heritages.

• Recognizes � the whole child inclusive of academic achievement as well as cultural identity and heritage.

• Approaches� individual growth as an active, cooperative, and social process intended to develop strong skills, academic knowledge, habits of inquiry, and critical curiosity about society, power, inequality, and change.

• Guides � students in understanding that no single version of “truth” is total and permanent by making authentic knowledge about different ethnic groups accessible to all.

• �Cited From: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/culturally-sensitive-educator/#ixzz3Gt1yFhvQHelps

Supporting Data

National

Under represented Educators

Minorities & Men –Less than 2% black male teachers

–Less than 2% Latino male teachers

African-Americans, Hispanics, & Native Americans:

–2.9 % points more likely to pass classes with instructors of similar background

–2.8 % points more likely to pass classes with underrepresented instructors

(Torres, 2013)

Message to under represented students.

•Awareness of differences

•Internalizing negative stereotypes perceived from teachers

•Feeling of low expectations/low self-worth

“… some teachers avoid talking about race mistakenly thinking it drives a wedge between them and their students.” – Amy Berberich

(Brundin, 2014)

Supporting DataColorado

Colorado Rankings Nationally

Per pupil spending

• 43rd

Technology

• 41st

Poverty Gap

• 49

State Funding for Higher Ed

• 49

Teacher's Salary

• 44th

Educators Impact

�

�Distancing Language

Those kids

They don't value

education

They can't afford it

They will never get it

Reflective Educator's Questions

Ask

1.Do I call on you?

2.Do I have physical proximity to you?

3.How do I feel about you in terms of your skills and abilities?

4.Am I connected to you?

5.Do I advocate for you early on?

6.Do I have a good relationship with your parents?

7.Do I challenge you?

(Brundin, 2014)

Equity Reflections.

• Ability to RECOGNIZE biases and inequities, including subtle ones

• Ability to RESPOND to biases and inequities in the immediate term

• Ability to REDRESS biases and inequities in the long term

• Ability to CREATE & SUSTAIN a bias-free and equitable learning environment

(Gorski, 2014)

What to do about biased language?• Assess the risk of speaking up.

• Try not to let unwarranted fear silence you, but do consider the consequences.

• Speaking up offers a powerful force for good, and it is felt by all within earshot. If you speak up, others may follow—and others after them.

• If all we do is speak up after the fact, we will forever be responding to the problem.

• Speak up against every biased remark, every time. Letting one go, then speaking up against the next one, sends an inconsistent message.

• Hate isn’t behind all hateful speech. Sometimes ignorance is at work, or lack of exposure to diverse populations.

• Sometimes people simply don’t know the negative power behind certain words or phrases.

• If all we do is speak up after the fact, we will forever be responding to the problem.

• Biased Language (Teaching Tolerance)

How close are you to this peer? (Strong friendship, mild but positive acquaintance, nothing more than “hello” in the hallway?)

What is the nature of past interactions? (Happy but shallow, feelings of real affinity, some tension over other issues?)

How does this person best receive communication? (Written, verbal, with humor, in group settings, as a quiet aside?)

There also must be some sensitivity about who else is present, who else might hear any interaction and how they might react.

• Explore how different people from different cultures define respect,

• Do speak up.

• Don’t antagonize.

• Do keep your eye on the goal: to keep communication channels open and help someone realize the effect of biased comments

Considerations for speaking up

Seven Engagement Factors

Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind

Eric Jensen

1. Health and Nutrition• Lower child's SES

higher the health risks.

• 14.5% U.S. families are food insecure. (2010).

• Low SES eat low-cost, low-nutrition diets with adverse effects to the brain.

2. Vocabulary

• Children of poverty add half the words by age 3.

• Vocabulary is KEY to enriching the education of children of poverty.

• Educators must use multimodal teaching reinforced by vocabulary.

7 Factors

3. Effort & Energy

• May be that teaching is not engaging.

• Educators misunderstand disengagement as laziness....

• Students of poverty value education as much as middle class.

• Students want the teaching to connect with their real world.

• Teachers are unaware of students culture.

4. Mind-Set

• Low SES correlates with negative view of the future and helplessness.

• Poverty is associated with lowered expectations about future outcomes.

• Engagement increases when students have positive attitudes about their own learning capacity

• When educators focus on growth and change.

7 Factors

5. Cognitive Capacity

• Low SES presumes lower cognitive skills.

• Poverty effects physical brain.

• Adverse environmental factors can artificially suppress children's IQ.

• Brain is as susceptible to positive effects as it is to negative environment.

6. Relationships

• 3/4 of children of poverty have unmarried parents.

• Children of poverty fail to learn appropriate emotional responses because of absence or stressed caregivers.

• Dropout probability increases by length of time in adverse relationships.

• Homes of poverty positive to negative ratio =1 to 2

• Homes of middle to high income families= 6 to 1

7 Factors

7. Stress LevelLow SES increases harsher discipline.

Impulsivity is an exaggerated response to stress.

Each risk factor diminishes child's capacity to defer gratification.

Acute stress leads to aggressive behavior.

Chronic stress leads to increased detachment.

Stress is linked to more than 50% of absences.

Examples

�An African American student walks into counseling center

and asks to speak with counselor. The student starts

talking about problems at home and therefore, can not focus academically. Counselor

says well I am not shocked you

are not being successful look where you come from and what your parents do. I am sure they are unable to help you.

Example

What to do?1. Upgrade your attitude

2. Build relationships and respect3. Get buy-in

4. Embrace clarity5. Show your passion.

BARNGA

Each group will have a deck of cards.Each group will have the game rules.

5 minutes will be allowed to read the rules to the group.Once the card game begins No talking is allowed.

Break ties by Rock, paper, scissorsThe winner and loser at each table will be moved to another

table.

Every moment that bias goes unanswered is a moment that allows its roots to grow deeper and

stronger.

Bias left unanswered is bias tacitly approved.

If you don’t speak up, you are saying, in your silence, that you condone it.

References• Brundin, J. (2014, February 5). Teachers undo personal biases to help students of color engage. Retrieved October 25, 2014,

from http://www.cpr.org/news/story/teachers-undo-personal-biases-help- students-color-engage

• Gorski, P. (2014). Equity Literacy: An introduction. In Reaching and teaching students in poverty: Strategies for erasing the opportunity gap (EdChange ed.). Teachers College Press.

• Torres, Z. (2013, June 30). Minority teacher numbers in Colorado lag growth of state's minority students. The Denver Post. Retrieved October 25, 2014, from http://www.denverpost.com/ci_23569287/undefined?source=infinite

Colorado children well-being. (2012). Retrieved October 2014 from http://www.coloradokids.org/data/kidscount/2014kidscount.html

Pupil membership for 2013-school data. Retrieved on October 2014 from http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/pupilcurrentschool

What states are closing achievement gaps? Retrieved on October 2014 from http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2013/#/state-gaps

The state of charter schools (2013). Colorado Department of Education. Retrieved on October 2013 from http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdechart/stateofcharterschoolsreport

Jensen, E. (2013). Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind: Practical Strategies for Raising Achievement