My group and I had a grand time dissecting the main facets of the Cultural Curriculum Standard A found in Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools. We came up with a handy alliteration to remember the different aspects of this standard, which states that, “A culturally-responsive curriculum reinforces the integrity of the cultural knowledge that students bring with them”:
This curriculum…
Reinforces
Recognizes
Roots
Responds and Reflects
Respects
Makes Relevant
With this in mind, I thought of a cultural sharing activity I can do in the music room. Every student has a culture, and every student has music that influences that cultural identity in some way- whether music is a deep part of their culture, or it is just viewed as something catchy to listen to. Students would be asked to find a song that reflects their culture (whether that be a racial/ethnic one, one involving their sexuality, living environment, belief system, etc.) and share it with the class.
We could even expand this to the greater community by having a “cultural music fair”, where each student researches their song, and subsequently their culture, and presents what they learned to their relatives and friends who would be invited into the classroom.
Ruth -Music plays such a powerful role in all of our lives. Talk about the influence of oral traditions! I would love to bring music into the Language Arts classroom as well. It would be fun to take song lyrics and look for deeper meaning, allusions and personification and metaphor. And what a hook! Students are so into their music, I’m sure they’d love to talk about it. A great entry into even more complex texts.
The “R” words are mnemonic!
Ruth, I love the alliterative saying your group came up with to remember this cultural standard! Very catchy!
Also, I love the idea of the “music culture fair.” It would be great to see this in action in the classroom. It’s very creative and innovative and really pushes the students toward both self-reflection and community engagement. I also like that this activity could be used as both a beginning of the year “getting-to-know-you” activity or as a mid-year activity for intensive self-exploration and honing of skills. It has a lot of possibilities.