Embracing Culture in Schools

Imagine a school community where all parents and children feel included and accepted, where cultural knowledge and diversity are embraced. Our host for this week’s episode is Katelyn Hopkins, a passionate Kindergarten teacher who works in rural Saskatchewan. Katelyn welcomes Shannon, former school community coordinator at Howard Coad School, as well as Ayesha, a parent in the Howard Coad community. They discuss the importance of developing an inclusive school community through the use of language, culture, and family funds of knowledge. This discussion provides ideas for integrating family knowledge into the classroom and school community to develop authentic relationships and empower families, students, and teachers. 

Resources

Khan, M. & Cottrell, M. (2017). Oh Canada, whose home and native land? Negotiating multicultural, Aboriginal, and Canadian identity narratives. Education Matters: The Journal of Teaching and Learning, 5(1).

Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., González, N. (1992.) Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31, 132-141. http://www.jstor.org.cyber.usask.ca/stable/1476399

Pushor, D. (2019). Using parent knowledge to enhance teaching and learning experiences in schools for children and youth. In T.A. Turner-Vorbeck & S. Sheldon (Eds.), Handbook of Family, School, Community Partnerships in Education (pp. 243-263). John Wiley & Sons.

This podcast is funded by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

Transcript

Welcome to school interrupted. Join us in rewriting narratives surrounding parents engagement in schooling and education. Let's talk about making a shift to family centric schools.

Welcome listeners, my name is Katelyn Hopkins I will be hosting school interrupted today. I'm currently a kindergarten teacher in horizon school division as well as a master's of education student at the University of Saskatchewan. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Shannon and Aisha Shannon is the school community coordinator as well as a parent at Howard coed school, and I you should as a parent in the school community, they'll be sharing their experiences as part of the school community, as well as discussing the roles of language and culture and building relationships. We will discuss the importance of culture and the wealth of knowledge that families, specifically those who are ESL or English as an additional language have to share. In Western Eurocentric society. There can be misunderstandings, or even deficit thinking about the knowledge of multilingual people whose first language is not English. Through their stories, this podcast episode will provide ideas for integrating the valuable knowledge of families, as well as highlight the importance of developing authentic relationships. It was truly my pleasure to speak with Shannon and I Isha and have a wonderful and rich conversation. I hope that you're able to take something from our conversation, and I hope you enjoy Shannon and Aisha. Thank you for joining me. I'm so excited to talk to both of you today and look at going from a school centric approach to a family centric approach. To start, I just want to get each of you to do a little introduction. Tell me anything you want to share about yourself, your family, and then your role with the school or as a parent.
My name is Shannon De Bucher, I, now the current Community Coordinator of our Code School, I'm also a parent in our code school. I've been a parent and Howard Code School since 2009. My youngest is in grade five there, and my oldest is now in grade 10 at another high school. So I started in Howard code as a parent and moved into the position of parent connector when Debbie pusher came into our building, offering the pilot project at the parent engagement prototype happening in our code. And I was approached to begin there. And from there, I was able to build relationships with parents and families and students in the building and really take off into the career I hold them. Excellent,
thank you. My name is Aisha I shifted beacon from Bangladesh, they came to Canada, July 2017. I have two kids, one girl and one boy, my girl is in grade one in hardcore disco. I work in Hong Kong is cool. As a parent, I have a good connection with our cause is a full member in my family, my husband, my two kids and me. Now I'm not working anywhere. My younger one is very little nine months old. And about the COVID situation, I'm not working. I mean, no, I'm looking.
Perfect. Thank you. So now that we know a little bit about each of you, I know that you have a strong relationship with each other, and that helps your relationship with the school as a whole.
So do you want to tell listeners a little bit about your relationship and how that developed? So while working at Howard cook school as a parent connector, one of my jobs was to create and develop different kinds of programming and structures that could be held in the school during school times and out of school times. So one of the things that we brought in was the open door society's conversation circle. So we had that running during school hours, which was unique for both the school having parents in the building during class time being able to practice English skills, and also for Open Door society because they only ever have classes in the evenings offered. So it was a unique opportunity for us to come together and another The thing that made it unique was that our school was staying open during summer. So that was also part of my position to be able to be in the building and navigate our families during library and gym time and just free play kind of thing, just to be able to be on the school landscape to create that feeling of community more so than this is a place we learn. And that's it. So we had conversation circle running through summer program. And again, that's unique to open door society, because they typically don't have a summer program running. So we had parents coming from our own school community, and the greater community. And so the first summer I met I Isha was our first summer running conversation circles during the summer, and she Aisha, you were just in Canada for about four weeks, was it?
Yeah. Yeah, three or four weeks, because I can put that in July. And after she with maybe three or four weeks, I started to join the conversation circle. And we have class meeting in conversation, some kind of NATO summer.
Yeah. And I remember you talking about how you were just so homesick, and being able to be at the school on the landscape and build a relationship with myself and other mums that were from Bangladesh, or, you know, our full Bangladesh community ever school was starting to build and get stronger in the building. And so you were really able to develop a lot of good connections to really help you feel at home.
Yeah. When I came to Canada, I was so like, lonely or feeling very good sake. missing my family. But the chairman was the first person in Canada like my friend, I met with her in house for this bill. And I feel like this smell is also my family. I started filling. This will give me a lot. And Shannon also gave me a lot. Like I started filling this Canada, it's also my country, and the school is also my family. I have lots of time in school. I started with them. I worked as a volunteer with them. Yeah, it was a good time for me.
Yeah. Yeah. We had lots of good opportunities coming. For sure. Yeah.
I volunteered in school. And I work with the students also. Then gentleman.
Yeah. And then you also did a little bit of the working alongside teachers in the classroom, too. Yeah, as the band's manager. Yeah. Yeah, so we had a parent mentor program as well, where we were able to bring in parents to work in what suited their preference to which classroom and age group. So for our new moms to Canada, they were able to be in a classroom and work on their own English skills as well. And then we were able to eventually bring in a English class, during school time in the mornings, and we have a classroom space set up for parents to come and continue their English levels as well. This is all so interesting to me. And what I'm hearing is that the things that the school is doing, they're very focused on family and trying to bring people in and build that sense of community, which I think is so important. And I you should, it sounds like you felt very welcome to come in and be a part of the school and even considering that school community of families. That's a really special thing. And I think that more families and more kids should have that experience. Did that make it a lot easier for both of you to want to spend time at the school and be part of that community? 100% Yeah, and myself being a parent at the time too. And being able to build those relationships with families that really helped to build more comfort and see more faces that weren't just children in the building. It was a really important piece for my own benefit, and for everybody else.
Yes, absolutely. Like it helped me a lot to know lots of things because our culture is totally dependent Canada. And lots of families are from different cultures. So it's really interesting and really helpful to build yourself in another country in another kind Just so it's really helpful. Yeah. And really confident building to Yeah.
There's another parent that has worked with us who was really, really insecure about her English and really struggling about where she was at and trying to get to school because one of the things that's difficult with, like the resources we have in town is often if a mom has babies, they're not able to go to class because they don't typically have a daycare. I don't know if that's changed now in the last few years. But that's what it was like, then. Yeah, I just ran into her actually, last week and Walmart, there was no flaw in her English, it was perfect. She was able to say what she needed to say, you didn't have to stop and think I was so proud of her. And, and I'm super proud of the parents that have come through because I believe almost all of you ladies in the Bangladesh community are now working. And at some point at or at some part of your working, you're in a school as an EA or, you know, along those lines. Their parent is an EA just got started working and a third parent is believe a preschool teacher now. Yeah,
yeah. From my group, who we want were in hot crystals. And they all started like, Please pulling. Three of them started, please claim one started educational assistance. They all did their process. I also did my political science. At level one i computer, but they don't I didn't start joke for my younger ones. I love to give more time to him about the COVID situation. It's not easy to live him at home or other daycare. That's taking my time. So that's yeah, I can start Mason.
Yeah, that makes sense. Because at the end of the day, your family comes first, right? Yeah. Even that statement that you just made Shen and that family comes first, I think that speaks to exactly what we're talking about today. Instead of thinking that school comes first, because some of us work in the school, we do need to remember that family comes first. And I heard you mentioned culture as well. And I just want to talk about culture and how that fits into school and how that changes the relationship that families have with school when culture is included. I think home visits are a big part of that as well. Right? Rather than having families always coming to the school and centering on us, having teachers and staff members go out to families and experience that home culture instead. Yeah, totally.
So in education, like one of the things that we're learning while being in the building, as seen how kids really thrive, when they see themselves in their learning. And it's not just in white, you're learning like they need to see themselves in the building to when you walk in, you don't want, you know, to walk in. And it's just stark and brick walls, and everything is white. And you know, we want to know who's in our building. So some of the things that have happened over the years, we had a Muslim student who advocated for the Muslim kids in our building in our building, our population is a third newcomer, a third, First Nations and a third everyone else. And so this girl advocated to see that they got prayer maps, and got their prayer time in our building. And I thought that was incredible, especially in the shift we're seeing in education, where we're really needing to embed indigenous culture and in the school, on the landscape. And so a lot of schools are starting to put in vents in a specific area in their schools so that smudges can happen in the building. In our building, I do a lot of the indigenous advocacy and I lead lunch with the kids. Right now, it's been so tricky with COVID. But we're finding ways to make sure that kids are being met, where they're at and that their needs are really being fulfilled in those cultural ways. Whether that's, you know, on the walls, and they see, you know, their culture represented in some way, whether it's language or art, it really doesn't matter what it is the kids need to see themselves as a part of the building as a part of the BRICS, not just somebody here to learn
and also very good thing is that any school building, we have family picture is really possible like students feel very familiar with it. They can see their family picture in a school in a school well, they can feel this school is also their home or their family and their family. Li is very vulnerable on school. Let them they feel really familiar with school. So yeah,
that's a really good point. Because that's what a lot of teachers are doing now to, especially in their early years. It's inviting families to come in and take family photos, or when we've had events in the building, whether it's winter carnival, or when we have our culture nights or anything like that. We we've always tried to have a photographer around to be able to get those shots for families at no cost to them. We had lots of home visits before. Yeah. Last decision. Maybe it's not happening. More. But it we had lots of room visits. Yeah. So yeah. So with the culture piece, being able to go on home visits, I know, there's always that concern of making people feel nervous. Why is the school coming to my house? What are they doing? Why are they checking up on me, and that's often our own fears, and beliefs and assumptions is not that of the family. And especially with newcomer families, because it is really enriched in their own culture is or ingrained story, in their own culture to have, you know, those connections with neighbors and family. And even like I used to, you've told me before how your families live, like in an apartment complex, basically. But you all come together at the end of the day. Yeah, so I think when we go into homes, we have that fear. And I had that fear, too. When I began, I would, I'd knock on a door and I'd be like, 1-234-567-8910, they're not home, and I'd run away. Yeah, so I would just be so stressed and worried about, you know, how I was making everyone else feel. Then one year, one summer when I was developing the program stuff, and I said, Okay, I'm just gonna make a commitment, I'm gonna go to everyone's door, I'm gonna wait for everybody to come to the door, I'm not going to just drop in the mailbox and run. I'm just going to see what happens and see what it feels like and see how they feel. And you know, one thing that comes up often, too, in conversation, when you talk to a lot of people were like, I'm not going on home visits, what I would have liked, what if they have bedbugs? Like things like that. And, I mean, in some cases, yes, that can be a concern. But honestly, it is not. You gotta leave that at the door, like you just got to, you just gotta trust that when you get in there, everything's going to be as it's supposed to. So I started this one summer doing my canvassing, and I went alone into one of our complexes, that's kind of kitty corner from our school and have about 40% of our families live just in this complex. And I walked up to the first door, and I was greeted with and running down, you know, we gotta get our friends, you know, and just being able to have like this great conversation. And the cool thing is when you have this relationship with kids, and they're so positive and happy about seeing you, it takes a lot of that, you know, fear that you think the parents have away, because the parents just warm up, and there's the odd house, you go to where the parents like, why are you here? As soon as the kid sees you, there's a shift. And it's like, oh, we're all good. It's no problem. Let's, you know, let's do this. So I would do regular door knocks, just checking up, how are people doing, you know, letting them know what was happening in programming. And just like keeping that relationship going, especially during the summer, because we completely break tie for the summer. And that's really hard. And I think it's important for families to know that there are people who can still support especially our higher needs families, when you're in community, there are people who do still need, you know, support and have limited access, whether it's food security or transportation, like things like that. So I just think those pieces are really important too. And so one of the things we started doing with home visits is during Ramadan, we we decided we were going to do as many F tars as we could, myself and a couple other of the staff members. So we went like, sometimes we had three a night. So the one year we did nine F cars in about two weeks, we ate so much some families we would go to, we'd get there around 8pm have a visit. If tire would start the basket would open around at that time. It was about 845 or so when it's when fast would open. Like there were some families we'd be there till like 12 One o'clock in the morning like it was just we were just connecting we were building the kids were having You find I bring my own children, my colleague would bring her own children, we've just we've come together and just really create these special relationships. And it just changed the way the building felt. The following year, we really worked on home visits, like from the beginning of the year, not just for Iftar, not just to eat other people. But to really like, build relationships with, you know, our indigenous families, everyone else, you know, everyone else was a part of it, and just to really see and feel, how people were feeling about, you know, having someone from the school there, and I, and I can't tell you how many home visits I've been on, but I can tell you, none of them have been negative. If I had to pick a number, I would say, four, come in, sit down, have a thorough home visit, I say like 2530, for sure. I've done in my first, especially my first year of working as the community coordinator, just really building those relationships. And yeah, I really, I got a lot a lot of the out of the experience lots of learning from culture and what we can do for their children and other children and their culture and what we can bring into the classroom. They should do you want to talk about how it felt to have people in your home. And as you
almost talk a lot about home visit, but I just want to share one experience that I experienced already. was first one with it was in my home for from my daughter class. And teacher to teacher was there Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Gracias. And when they came to my house, I opened the door and I see the two big smile part of me. And one bag full of toys. Oh my God, it was my first experience and they were so good. They are very familiar and very, like, lovely ladies, I had a really good relationship with them too. Because my daughter when my daughter started, started school, and she was with Gary or something he was crying. And there's the I had to go to school for two to three weeks with my daughter. And I, I build a very good relationship with them. And first one was it was oh my god, it was like, memorable. I can I took a picture and send it to my home. And I told them that two teachers came to my house with very, like, very familiar, like, actual that I know them from long time. They were so good. It was amazing. Then you me, baby come to my house. After that, we want to come to my house. I never been scared. I never think about something. I feel really happy to have you. And I also want to have you more but the situation I cannot. Inshallah we'll do it again.
Yeah, it's hard right now, with the COVID situation,
I'm not able to go to people's homes when kids are sick at school, I can't even drive them home anymore. They have to just wait. It sounds like you've both had such rich experiences with home visits and with sharing culture. It just sounds amazing to me. And I can just imagine the feelings and the experiences that kids must have in an environment like this where everybody's building relationship together. Are there other ways that the school brings parents in and get information from parents about what they would like to see going forward or what they would like to have included in the school?
Yeah, there's been teachers who have, when they have like, instead of doing parent teacher interviews, they've done the alternative of just inviting families in to just, you know, have a potluck, or some teachers have done like scrapbook events, and they take all the pictures they've taken of their kids in school. And they'll sit down and they'll say, here's the pictures, let's make some pages. And some parents come back the next day for parent teacher interviews, because they're not even interviewing and we're just getting to know each other. And teachers are asking them what kind of things do you want to see for your child like, you know, tell me more about who this person is asking those real meaningful questions so that you're not the expert of their child. They're the expert of their child because our parents are first teachers, right? Who knows a kid better than have their own parents, I, I just believe this to my very core, like, you just got to just gotta trust that kids are, you know, having their needs met at home and that we're not the knowers of all, we just have to be in that place of forever learner. And then other things we've done is like having parent forums, where we just, I personally call everybody, and they would come in for an evening, we pretty much we always have a feast of some kind when we have families in the building, because it's just fantastic that way. And yeah, we just have seats of some kind and ask the questions, just like as a school, what do you want to see, like just give the parents that opportunity to share their voice and SEC meetings, like we went from having, you know, for parents to think like 1314, sometimes 15 people would show up, which is really big for sec, and making sure that we were asking those questions to eight came more into the administration than men teams, decisions of what they were going to ask parents. But those are the types of things that were being asked, What do you want to see what would make this work better for your child? Do you believe just really trying to keep everybody engaged in what was happening in the walls?
Yeah, I would like to say one thing, that we know that parents are the first teacher for children. But in Canada, I didn't meet with other schools, but I know the hardcore school. And I feel really, that my teaching is really valuable to them. And it's cool also, for my children, just not only limited in my home, but I can share my thought my teaching my ideas to the school, that really gratefully to me, that I can share, share my feelings, my my thinking, it's really good school feel,
make me feel that the school is my family. And I really love that, just because it's such a family focused approach. And it's really valuing the knowledge that parents have. And I feel like not in all schools, but in many places. That's something that's lacking a little bit, we're trying to move in that direction, but the shift hasn't really happened. And I'm seeing all of the wonderful pay off that's coming out of that within Howard coed school. So I think that's really special and really fantastic for everyone. Based on what you've said, it sounds like the school is such an incredibly welcoming place, for community and for everyone. Is there anything that's coming up or anything going forward, that the school is trying to include more? Like, where
are we going in the future? As far as parent engagement goes, We're just, we're really just waiting for this COVID to settle down. And I think at the end of the day, a lot of those types of focuses are definitely like a teacher approach. It's how teachers want to work in their classrooms. So the teachers who have been a part of the program or who have taken Debbie's classes and things like that, they're continuing the movement of seeing these things happen, as a school, that things that we'll always continue to do to make sure parents and families feel welcome and invited. And culture is consistently seen. We've made a four year commitment two years ago with our elder to host feast. And so because we made that commitment, we also made a commitment to our Muslim families that during Ramadan, we would host Iftar as well. So we have that continuing because of COVID. Last year, it was completely next and this year, it's you know, on a standstill, as well, but next year, if things keep going the way they are, we should be back on track with ensuring that we have those pieces and it's, it's really an incredible thing to be able to have an indigenous feast in the building and not just indigenous people are there. You know, everybody was there. We had Muslim families coming out. We had everybody coming out, you know, it was a hook on this. I think we had 420 people out for that event over lunch hour. And when we had our Iftar It was a Friday night. It was you know time to be from eight to 10pm and we had 200 50 People I believe came out on a Friday night to the school. And we worked together as a school to create food. And then as the family started coming in, more food came, and our time like we were supposed to finish around 10. We were there till like 1130. Like, we were just, it was so awesome. So by having those kinds of pieces continuing, like, I think that's really important to the dynamic of the school too.
But one thing made me emotional that evening, like when I entered the school, I saw a lot of teacher wearing our culture, dresses, and like Bangladeshi culture, dresses, so it made me really emotional. And they wear hijab, they wear saris, and oh, my God, it was really amazing to see them wear our content. Yes, it sounds good. Yeah,
our nutrition worker in our building, she's a Muslim woman as well. And so she had gifted me with like, the full, full outfit that for when she went on her trip back home, she brought me back, open, and I was just so touched by this and, and she, she told me, you you have to wear
and there was looking so beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, it was,
it was such a good experience. That's like that was, yeah, just those two pieces alone, like, I'll never work in a school where I can't do those two pieces.
That really says something. I think that's really incredible. Family Engagement, like so many other things has to be differentiated, right? We have different families in our buildings that have different home cultures and different experiences. And if we're not interacting with those families, and those parents, we can't understand where they're coming from, and we can't help support in that way. So I think knowing that you have different cultural groups within your school and being able to like really build those relationships and find out what those family cultures are like, I think that has really built that sense of community because there's no assumption about what families need. There's actual questions like, What can we do for you? And instead of thinking, you know, as a school, we're going to do this. For parents, it's parents and families. What do you need from us as a school? I think that's that whole school centric to family centric approach, right? Families have all of this knowledge and experience. And we need to remember that and to bring people in and to tap into that. I'm part of it. Like Shannon, you even expressed that fear. When you started home visits. And I think educators, a lot of us have that. And parents on some level, too, might be feeling that way. But I think we all need to move past that if we're going to do better. I know language is something that we touched on a little bit, but not much. Is there anything language specific that helps bring the school community together?
Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Actually. We have our kindergarten teacher, Melanie Lynch, check. I know, she's on one of the podcasts, other podcasts, I'm going to drop her name. She's one of the most incredible teachers I've ever met. Like, in my life. She's so skilled, so talented. And in her class, she teaches from the Emilio Reggio approach. And so she really and she's a pre K teacher. So she really is strong and family centered classrooms. So she has her parents of all culture come in and they work on numbers and letters and words and language in those ways. She has elders come in the classroom, she has parents from Bangladesh come in and share his home stories, you know, like these kinds of things. And we have other teachers throughout the building who do this kind of stuff to? It's really interesting to see because there's a real divide in culture societally. So in the classroom, initially, you saw that, that there was the divide, you know, the Indigenous kids stuck together, the white kids stuck together, Muslim kids stuck together and that was it. And then as we continued with this work and kids seeing themselves in the classroom, but being able to express all that to my culture to a we do things like that, to all this work. There's like such a flow between the kids alone so you could see how it really enhances their own learning to it's it's not one sided. It just, it really brought all the kids together. And not just in one classroom, like the classroom communities, I found so strong with the kids, there were some tougher groups too, you know, there's, we're always going to have that, that's just something you work through and get to the other side of, for the most part, it was all slow. And just, I don't know, it was just an amazing experience. And the kids having the language in the classroom and having elders come in, and like a lot of our elders to they don't just speak English to the kids, they drop language to them, right. So being able to have those words on the walls and things like that, I just think is so important. And I know in EAL programming, it's really encouraged that as teachers, we're telling kids speak your own language at home, don't bring English home, like you still gotta practice blah, blah, but you speak your language at home. And you you know, it's it's just such an important part of their development. And
it maintains that connection to family, like family members that speak their first language to and that we don't want to lose that. Yeah,
I don't know, your school has such a magic or something that attract children to the school children and family. And you can see my English is not good sales. But I have a good connection with this girl and my daughter. And I will, I want to share a story when he came to Canada and my, my daughter has no information. One day, we in conversation circle, I can hear something from my daughter from another table. And it was not Bengali. But it was not all Singlish. But she was communicating with other children and other teachers and saying something, but I don't know what she was really comfortable with them with her own language. So it's good, it's good to have this magic. Trick children and family. It's such a magic. So language was not very well not a little barrier for us. To communicate with them, we have like a patient, or we sometimes you know, we use our own language to them to give our expression. They understand. Yeah, exploratory language is so important in learning to write. So I think that's so cute that she was just speaking, in
hurl, or whatever.
And she was so comfortable with them. That's so awesome. I love that.
I do want to mention, just kind of to wrap up that I would encourage parents who are listening to this or teachers who are listening, anyone can work toward forming relationships. So whether you are a parent or a staff member, it's not going to hurt to try and forge that relationship. And it might be a little bit uncomfortable in the beginning. But getting there is so important for everybody that's involved for families, for teachers, for students. So as teachers, we need to keep moving forward. And it can be one small thing at a time, or even as a school one small thing at a time. I know I've started to try to bring parents in with COVID. This year, it is difficult, but I want parents to be more part of my classroom and share that knowledge that they have. And we've talked about, you know, taking books and translating them into another language so that we can make them dual language books, and help kids connect the language that they're using at home with the language that they're learning at school, just to make that connection better. Because I don't want kids to feel like home is one thing and school is one thing we can really create a bridge that combines the two and makes it one big community and one big family. And I think home does it serve a very big part of shifting to that family centric approach where we're not doing everything, necessarily at the school or experiencing things on the land together is another way to kind of break out of that. But there are so many things that we can do and we don't have to take it on all at once. But I think we do need to move forward and we need to try and build those relationships up as much as we can. I want to thank both of you for doing this with me. I know it's a little outside the comfort zone for me for sure. And You might be feeling the same way. But this conversation was really helpful for me and I think it'll be really helpful for anyone who's listening to really understand the impact that shifting from school centric to family centric can have. Yeah, I just can't thank both of you enough for doing this with me.
Yeah, you're so welcome. Thank you for inviting us to come do this. This is a cool experience. I like it. I'm not uncomfortable.
And I have a future in broadcasting there.