by Beth Petitjean, Ph.D., Digital Learning Specialist, Reinert Center
I stepped into a classroom in January, prepared with my materials and eager to meet my students. I stood there, waiting, wondering what they would be like. There is always anticipation at the start of a new course, but this time was different. This time, I was nervous, and I didn’t know what to expect, so I tried to clear my mind of expectations and just let the course unfold how it would. Although the content was the same (the medieval plague of the 14th century), the culture and the context of this course were drastically different from anything I had experienced. This was a college prep course taking place in the St. Louis County Jail as part of SLU’s Prison Education Program.
The metal door clanged open, and my students filed in, picked up notepads and pencils, said hello to me, and found a seat to their liking. They sat there looking at me as I looked at them, then I took a deep breath and started talking about medieval Europe before transitioning into an icebreaker to learn their names. By the end of class, my students were taking turns reading out loud the words of Italian poet Boccaccio and I was assigning homework—just like every other time I’ve taught this content.
I’ve reflected on this teaching experience since then, especially since July when I joined the Reinert Center team and participated in our annual Culturally Responsive Teaching Institute in August. The three weeks I spent teaching at the jail were some of the most profound teaching moments I’ve been fortunate enough to experience. I’d like to think those students learned something during that time, but it’s become apparent that they taught me some very important lessons about teaching expectations and culturally responsive teaching.
They taught me that each student is different and brings their past learning and life experiences with them every time they set foot in the classroom. I knew nothing about the backgrounds of my jail students, or even their names, when they walked in that first day. I didn’t know why they were taking this course, what their past educational experiences were, or what their lives were like outside of class time, just like I knew very little about any of the students in my courses on the SLU campus. However, by clearing my mind of expectations and being willing to “go with the flow,” I was unknowingly practicing reality pedagogy. As author Christopher Emdin[1] defines it, “Reality pedagogy is an approach to teaching and learning that has a primary goal of meeting each student on his or her own cultural and emotional turf” (27). Emdin continues that, in this approach, “the teacher begins from an understanding of the students as unique individuals and then develops approaches to teaching and learning that work for those individuals” (28). The uniqueness of these students and their learning styles became quickly evident to me: one student never took a note but listened to every word I said and was willing to engage in a conversation about our topic, often recalling things I had said in a previous class; another student took copious notes and asked a million questions, not wanting to waste a minute without learning something; another was more comfortable wandering around the room as they read Boccaccio out loud; another used the pencil and paper to doodle ideas but would pipe up with comments showing they knew exactly what we were talking about. The mood changed every class with some days much more somber, perhaps due to the worries and stresses they faced; again, not that different from classes on campus. We never got as far in the lesson as I had planned because their curiosity took the discussion down different, but topical, paths that showed they were making their learning relevant for themselves. Checking our expectations and letting students show us how they want to learn goes a long way to creating an inclusive teaching context.
My students at the jail also taught me that being culturally responsive means more than addressing the needs of international students; it means responding to the culture of every student. It might be easy to forget the abundance of diversity among domestic students who reflect not only the “melting pot” heritage of this country, but also the economic disparities across our society. As Sharla Berry[2] points out, “Students that have been historically marginalized in society face similar experiences of marginalization in higher education” (12). Moreover, the geographic expanse of the United States means that students come from diverse locations, whether a small school in a rural farming town, a school on tribal lands, an underfunded school in the inner city, a private charter school in the suburbs, and everything in between. All of this means that there is no one single type of “American,” or domestic, student, just as there is no one single type of international student. How, then, are instructors to grapple with cultural diversity in the classroom, regardless of whether that classroom is on campus, online, or in a jail? Singhal and Gulati suggest that instructors can start by respecting a student’s culture, whatever it is: “By valuing each student’s culture, we contribute to their self-concept, which in turn influences their academic success.”[3] And that’s what every instructor wants for their students, isn’t it? Academic success. In respecting all culture, we can fulfill the values of our Ignatian heritage.
[1] Emdin, Christopher. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too. Boston: Beacon Press, 2016.
[2] Berry, Sharla. Creating Inclusive Online Communities: Practices that Support and Engage Diverse Students. Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2022. Note: The Reinert Center will be facilitating a SLU Community book discussion on this resource in Spring 2024. More information to follow at www.slu.edu/cttl/events.
[3] Singhal, Meena, and Sudeepa Gulati. Five Essential Strategies to Embrace Culturally Responsive Teaching. Faculty Focus. 31 August 2020.
The Notebook 