Becoming a Culturally Competent Educator

Some Places To Start

Where can you and your colleagues begin the journey to becoming culturally competent? There is no one place to begin. Individuals and schools start at different points along a cultural competence continuum. To help you get started, we've provided the following guidelines (from "How Do I Start?" on the CECP Web site):

• Determine the diverse groups served by your school. Consider cultural, linguistic, racial, and ethnic diversity. Find out the degree to which families and students in these groups are accessing available school services.
• Assess what your school staff perceive as their staff development needs related to providing services to each group.
• Engage school staff in discussions and activities that offer an opportunity to explore attitudes, beliefs, and values related to cultural diversity and cultural competence.
• Create a cultural competence committee or task force. Include administrators, teachers, education support professionals, students, family, and community representatives. The committee can serve as the primary governing body for planning, implementing, and evaluating organizational cultural competence initiatives.
• Ensure that your school has a mission statement that commits to cultural competence as an integral component of all its activities. The cultural competence committee should be involved in developing this statement.
• Network with other schools that are developing and implementing culturally competent systems. Adapt the processes and information that are consistent with your school's needs and interests.
• Conduct a comprehensive cultural competence school self-assessment. Use the self-assessment results to develop a long-term plan, with measurable goals and objectives. Incorporate culturally competent principles, policies, structures, and practices into all aspects of the school. This may include, but is not limited to, changes in the following: mission statement, policies, procedures, administration, staffing, instructional delivery, outreach, communications and information dissemination, and professional development activities.
• Identify and include budgetary expenditures each fiscal year to facilitate personnel development through their participation in conferences, workshops, and seminars on cultural competence.
• Gather and organize resource materials related to culturally diverse groups for use by school staff.
• Build and use a network of "natural helpers" at school and in the community as well as "experts" who have knowledge of the culturally, linguistically, racially, and ethnically diverse groups served by your school.
• Network with parent, family, minority community, and faith-based organizations concerned with the needs of diverse students. Solicit their involvement and input in the design and implementation of initiatives for culturally, linguistically, racially, and ethnically diverse groups.

Related Content

How Do I Start? - Guidelines from the Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice Web site.

Promoting Educators' Cultural Competence To Better Serve Culturally Diverse Students - NEA's policy on cultivating the strengths of all students.