Creating a classroom community is probably the number one most important thing you can do as a teacher. If students don’t feel comfortable and welcome in your classroom, they’re just not going to learn. One way I like to promote a positive classroom community is to learn about each other’s cultures. Celebrating culture in the classroom leads to students feeling cared for and understood.
Why it’s Important to Learn About Culture in the Classroom
Learning about each other and where people came from is truly one of the best things you can do for your students because they get to feel important, they get to share about their family and students get to learn about other cultures.
When you make the time to incorporate culture in the classroom, you’re showing your students that they matter and their family matters.
How to Incorporate Culture in the Classroom
Invite a Student’s Family Member to the Classroom
I love the opportunity to have parents join in with what we’re doing in the classroom. I think it is amazing for parents to see all that your students (their kids) are doing every day. Also, inviting them in bridges the gap from home to school and boosts up the classroom community because now everyone feels welcomed in.
One way you can incorporate cultural diversity in the classroom is through inviting parents (or family members) in to share something about their culture. This can happen throughout the year if maybe they celebrate something at a certain time, or it can happen all at once. If you’re planning on inviting families in throughout the year, you may want to send something home or mention it at Back to School Night. You can tell them that you’re hoping to have families come in throughout the year and share something about their culture. They can then email you when they want to come in and you can coordinate. When you do it all at once it might be nice to host a Culture Fair. (See next point)
Host a Culture Fair
My whole school hosts a Culture Fair each year and it’s a great way to celebrate diversity at our school! We invite parents to bring in a special dish related to their culture, ready to serve and ready for kids to taste. We also invite students or family friends of students who do any cultural extra curriculars such as dance or art to either perform or share with the school.
On the day of the Culture Fair, a table is set up for each class with many different foods from different cultures. We take an afternoon to celebrate our diversity together, tasting foods and watching performances. It’s also fun to incorporate any games from different cultures for students to play at the fair.
My Culture Project
To prepare for our Culture Fair, I have my students complete a project about their culture. This project helps them learn more about their culture and gets them excited to share about it at the fair.
Interview a Family Member
What better way to learn about your culture than interviewing someone in your family? Included in the “My Culture Project” is the task to interview a family member.
I ask students to sit down and write questions they are curious about. I also give them ideas of what to ask such as about special foods, holidays and traditions or dress.
They write down three questions they’re going to ask and who they’ll as them to. Then, after they’ve had the interview, they write (or draw) about one thing they learned about their culture. I like to have my students share one thing they learned to their classmates.
Students Research About their Culture
Another great way to learn about their culture is through research. Of course, parents would have to help with this (which is why I love sending home projects). A great resource for kids to research anything is through checking out books at the library or searching on a kid friendly search engine such as Kiddle.
Other kid friendly search engines:
Once students research and learn about their culture, have them come back and share to their classmates something interesting they learned!
Culture in the Classroom
It is so important to create a caring classroom community. Celebrating your students’ cultures is a great way to build relationships in your classroom. You can do this by inviting families in, hosting a Culture Fair or sending home a culture project.
How do you celebrate culture in your classroom?
