Content area
Full Text
This study presents the case of one kindergarten teacher who, in order to reflect on and address her classroom practice in mathematics, conducted an in-depth examination of a single child in her classroom. This examination took place within the context of a Professional Study Group of elementary school teachers, all of whom were White, and all of whom were studying an African-American child from their own classrooms.
The growing diversity of students in United States classrooms is met with a teaching force that continues to be over 80% White and middle class (Howard, 1999; Nieto, 2004). Research indicates that White teachers often have difficulty relating to children who are not White and middle class (Nieto, 2004). This may be due in part to differences in lived experiences that exist from one cultural group to another. Knowing the middle-class White experience may support middle-class White teachers in validating that experience. Knowledge of and respect for lived experiences that are not middle class and not White, therefore, may provide a base from which White middle-class teachers can develop a sensitivity which can support them in better understanding and relating to the students who come from backgrounds different from their own.
Because children's thinking, mathematical and otherwise, develops in the multiple contexts of their lived experience both in and out of school, careful consideration of children's thinking and the multiple social contexts in which it develops may support teachers in becoming better teachers of mathematics for all children including those students from non-dominant groups. As several researchers have pointed out, teachers need to know children as well as subject matter in order to teach them well (Ball, Lubienski, & Mewborn, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1994a; National Research Council, 2001). This suggests that attention needs to be directed to issues concerning students as well as issues concerning mathematics content in developing effective mathematics teaching practice. Reaching beyond the confines of the classroom may enable the teacher to access competencies and knowledge that the child possesses but that have not been taken up in the classroom in a way that supports that child's learning.
Ladson-Billings (1994a; 1994b; 1995) proposes that it is necessary to understand and to build on the community practices that children bring with them into the classroom. She argues...