EDUC 283 - Teachers as Cultural Workers

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Drawing on education traditions in the anthropology of education, culturally-relevant teaching, Freirian pedagogy and the learning sciences, this course focuses on the relationship between culture, learning and teaching. Our major work together is to design learning experiences rooted in children and youths’ cultural lives. We begin by reading narrative examples of teachers’ work as ethnographers in marginalized communities in the United States and globally. Then, we design our culturally-saturated curricular plans using the cultural wealth in communities surrounding Vassar as our guide. First, we document the rich instances of learning youth display in their out of school lives and everyday activities. Then, we experiment with lesson plan design to leverage and build bridges between young people’s out-of-school skills and formal school-valued skills. We also consider ways to negotiate acultural school policy like Common Core in order to protect culturally-relevant teaching. Erin McCloskey.

Two 75 minute periods.