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Whitaker’s Dreamof
Culturally Responsive
Classrooms Driven by Plea of a
Fourth Grader and Encouragement
of a TeacherWho Cared
into two categories: economically disadvantaged students
and/or children of color. She says developing cultural
competency is a big key to bridging those achievement gaps.
“That means not only seeing but acknowledging the cultural
background and experiences of your students and also your
principals and teachers,” she says. “If I know enough about
students’ experiences and background, and if I use that
knowledge in a way that demonstrates an appreciation of
those experiences in the curriculum, it will help to engage
students in learning.”
Being of the same ethnicity alone is not a solution, Whitaker
says, noting her own experience as a first-year African
American woman teaching at an all-black school.
“I assumed I would be a good teacher of black students
because I was black. It didn’t happen,” she says. “Culture
is the air you breathe; who you are is impacted by your
childhood and adult experiences. The first competency I talk
about is knowledge of self-culture. I don’t care what color you
are, if you want to know if your child’s teacher is culturally
responsive, sit in the back of the class and observe whether
Dr. Sonya Whitaker was in her first year as an
elementary school principal when she was approached
by a teacher requesting to send one of her fourth-
graders to the office because he was kicking and
screaming and disrupting the class.
“Upon him making it to the school office I told him to
have a seat, that his mom was on her way,” Whitaker
recalls. “I noticed he got up and was talking to the
secretary. I asked him to have a seat, please. Then he
did it again.”
At the end of the day, the secretary asked Whitaker if she
wanted to know what the boy was saying.
“The answer,” Whitaker says, “changed my life.” The
answer to the question that the secretary posed to
Whitaker is what she will reveal during the opening of her
keynote presentation on Thursday afternoon (September
28) at the IASA 53rd Annual Conference. She will talk
about the importance of having culturally responsive
classrooms and how to achieve that goal.
“I cannot get that boy’s question out of my mind. It’s why
I have traveled the country speaking about it and why I
wrote about it,” says Whitaker, who wrote a book by the
title of “Is There Anyone That Can Teach Me
How To Read?”
Whitaker says that in studying
the data used to
determine students’
competency levels in
Illinois and across the
country, students not
making gains mostly fall
By Michael Chamness
IASA Director of Communications