Building confidence in students is a difficult task. This is especially difficult for minority status who often have negative experiences that detract from their humanity. Every teacher should aim to build their students up, providing them with the tools necessary to succeed despite any adversity they may encounter. Culturally relevant teaching (CRT), as defined by Zaretta Hammond, focuses on developing the cognitive aspects of teaching and learning to increase the learning capacity of diverse students. CRT concerns itself with building resilience and academic mindset by pushing back on dominant narrative about people of color that prevent them from reaching the same level of success as their white peers.
The cultural wealth model is a tool we have used at Vintage high school to help our students, in particular, our students of color and other minority students to recognize all the tools they have available to them; tools they can leverage in their attempt to close the opportunity gap they face. The cultural wealths are aspirational, linguistic, navigational, social, familial, and resistant wealth. Aspirational wealth is the ability to maintain hopes and dreams for the future despite hardships in your life. Linguistic wealth is the collection of social skills learned through communication in many forms such as art, music, or translating from one language to another. Navigational wealth is the ability to succeed in different social settings. This cultural wealth describes someone who can adapt well to new situations with ease. Social wealth describes the network of people who support and uplift you. This cultural wealth describes the comfort of knowing you have people you can trust. Familial wealth describes the commitment our students have to the wellbeing of their biological or chosen family, those who provide you with your history and memories. Resistant wealth is the most relevant for culturally relevant teaching as it is a student’s ability to see and challenge inequality despite being a victim of inequality. To use this cultural wealth model in the classroom as a means to develop student capacity for learning it is important for students to identify the wealths they feel properly equipped with and those they feel they are lacking. We have, in the past, done an inventory with students to help them recognize when each of these wealths would have been a useful tool in negotiating a learning experience that had been particularly tricky. We also ask students to identify situations in other arenas of life where these cultural wealths can be leveraged to help students gain confidence in their abilities and ultimately find success.
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