Teaching and Practice

Abstract

Teachers often learn techniques to manage the behaviors of the children in their classrooms with the assumption that those techniques are universal, rather than culturally based. In this article,Cynthia Ballenger shares her process of coming to understand the cultural assumptions that lie at the heart of effectively managing her class of four-year-old Haitian children. Through multiple"conversations" with a teacher-researcher group, with Haitian teachers and parents in a daycare center, and through her work with Haitian teachers in a child development class, Ballenger learns about Haitian cultural ways and queries the assumptions that shape her own experience as a North American teacher. Her story demonstrates a model of teacher reflection on both theory and practice that can illuminate the practices of other teachers who encounter children of differing cultural, racial, or class backgrounds.