Cultural+Competence

=== The Ithaca City School District includes families from over 70 countries across the globe. All children deserve an education that is responsive to their families, communities, and racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. For children to develop and learn optimally, teaching professionals must be prepared to meet cultural and linguistic needs along with developmental and educational goals. ===

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Cultural Backgrounds
Our students must be made visible, understood, and accepted. This task is easier when family culture mirrors the dominant school culture. It becomes more difficult when a family's culture is unknown or misunderstood. According to the ICSD Equity Report Card, many school staff are uncertain how to collaborate successfully with families, especially families from backgrounds that are different than our own.

Everyone Has a Culture
Culture shapes how we see ourselves and others. It is learned from our experiences in a particular context. Each of our students and families bring knowledge from their cultural background that forms the basis for further learning. Teachers who learn how to tap into this knowledge, and create an intercultural dialogue with their families and students, will enrich the lives and understanding of everyone they work with. The following resources will help teachers become more familiar with the cultural background of their students and families, and offer suggestions on how to reach out to culturally diverse families in a way that's welcoming and respectful.

**Ithaca College Professor, Jeff Claus, on Culturally Responsive Teaching**
media type="youtube" key="4NRRsGvwuB8" height="315" width="560"

Resources
The Cultural Orientation Resource (COR) Center provides important orientation resources for refugee newcomers and service providers throughout the United States and overseas. Housed at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), the COR Center combines CAL's linguistic expertise, the cross-cultural and technical knowledge of COR's many consultants, and the field experience of refugee service practitioners. || Asia Society is the leading educational organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among peoples, leaders and institutions of Asia and the United States in a global context. Across the fields of arts, business, culture, education, and policy, the Society provides insight, generates ideas, and promotes collaboration to address present challenges and create a shared future. || Norine Dresser (Writer) gives expert video advice on: How do teacher-student relationships differ among cultures?; How does discipline in schools differ among cultures? How does the concept of education differ among cultures? How does classroom participation differ among cultures? and more...... || If you are a teacher, you have a treasure trove of resources available to you through the Coverdell World Wise Schools program of the Peace Corps. There's the Correspondence Match program that puts you and your class in touch with a currently serving Peace Corps Volunteer. There are innumerable lessons about cultures and countries worldwide. You'll find free cross-cultural publications, award-winning videos, stories, folk tales, classroom speakers, and more. The program is designed to broaden perspectives in culture and geography and to encourage service. || Young children and their families reflect a great and rapidly increasing diversity of language and culture. The National Association for the Education of Young Children’s (NAEYC) recommendations emphasize that early childhood programs are responsible for creating a welcoming environ- ment that respects diversity, supports children’s ties to their families and community, and promotes both second language acquisition and preservation of children’s home languages and cultural identities. Linguistic and cultural diversity is an asset, not a deficit, for young children. ||
 * [[image:cultural-orientation-resource-center.png link="@http://www.cal.org/co/"]] || ==== Cultural Orientation Resource Center ====
 * [[image:asia-society.png link="@http://asiasociety.org/education"]] || ==== Asia Society====
 * [[image:multicultural-manners.png link="@http://www.videojug.com/interview/multicultural-manners-in-school-2"]] || ====Multicultural Manners In School====
 * [[image:worldwise-schools.png link="@http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/"]] || ====__Coverdell World Wise Schools __====
 * [[image:where-we-stand-naecy.png link="@http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/diversity.pdf"]] || ====__NAECY: Responding to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity__====
 * [[image:welcoming-families.png link="@http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/article/welcoming-all-families"]] || ====__Responsive Classroom: Welcoming All Families__====

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Question: I know that it's important to have a good working relationship with the parents and care-takers of the children in my classroom. The children come from diverse backgrounds, with differences in ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, and family structure. What can I do to reach out to families in a way that's welcoming and respectful of all? ===== || Welcome to the **Teaching Diverse Learners (TDL)** Web site, a resource dedicated to enhancing the capacity of teachers to work effectively and equitably with [|English language learners] (ELLs). This Web site provides access to information -- publications, educational materials, and the work of experts in the field -- that promotes high achievement for ELLs. || It is important for teachers to support families that do not live together, no matter what the reason. This article focuses on transnational families—those from another country, with some family members living in the United States while other family members remain in the homeland—and shares practical ideas for early childhood teachers. || The Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research in the United States of America (SIETAR-USA) is an educational membership organization for those professionals who are concerned with the challenges and rewards of intercultural relations. Our members work within many environments and professions—business and industry, consulting, training, K-12 and higher education, counseling, all aspects of the media and arts, to name a few. SIETAR-USA members bring a vast array of experience and perspectives to the field of intercultural relations, both in the USA and around the world. || Children develop their identity and attitudes through experiences with their bodies, social environments, and their cognitive developmental stages (Derman-Sparks, 1989). As these three factors interact, young children progress through certain stages of racial and cultural awareness. In this article, we'll talk first about the stages of racial and cultural awareness. Then we'll give you some ideas for activities that will help children accept themselves and others. || The purpose of this website is to provide anyone interested in improving U.S. schools with valuable information and resources about important issues in education and teaching. The information and resources presented here are the product of ongoing work by an education professor, [|Jeff Claus], at Ithaca College, in Ithaca, NY and students in one of his courses. It focuses on analysis of contemporary issues in education, with particular emphasis on issues of equity, diversity, multicultural education, and the development of schools more effective for ALL students and families. || = =
 * [[image:Teaching-diverse-learners.png link="@http://www.lab.brown.edu/tdl/"]] || ====__Teaching Diverse Learners__====
 * [[image:supporting-transnational-familie.png link="@http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/201007/ChoOnline.pdf"]] || ====Supporting Transnational Families====
 * [[image:sietar.png link="@http://www.sietarusa.org/Default.aspx?pageId=87312"]] || ====__SIETAR USA__====
 * [[image:precious-chidlren.png link="http://www.pbs.org/kcts/preciouschildren/diversity/read_activities.html"]] || ====__Precious Children: Activities that Promote Racial and Cultural Awareness__====
 * ==[[image:Multicultural-ed.png link="@http://www.ithaca.edu/wise/multicultural/"]]== || ====[|WISE: Multicultural Education & Culturally Responsive Teaching]====