“Knowing Their World”

Knowledge of Learners and Context

Through observation of and dialogue with the participating teachers, a view of urban teachers’ contextual knowledge base emerged that aligned with three existing models of teacher knowledge. The teachers relied upon “knowledge of learners and their characteristics” (Shulman, 1987, p. 8), knowledge of context (Grossman, 1990; Shulman, 1987), and “personal practical knowledge” (Clandinin, 1989, p. 121) to successfully navigate the urban context, paralleling Fitzpatrick’s (2008) findings with urban instrumental teachers. Teachers’ knowledge of learners included awareness of students’ racial and ethnic identities, socioeconomic status, immigrant status, family situation, housing, and parents’ orientation toward education. Their knowledge of the communities in which they taught included understandings about the local economy, employment, housing, population stability or transience, crime, social services, and community organizations.

Personal Practical Knowledge (PPK)

Conversations with participants further uncovered teachers’ “personal practical knowledge,” a type of knowledge that is “practical, experiential, and shaped by a teacher’s purposes and values” (Clandinin, 1989, p. 122). PPK is “imbued with all the experiences that make up a person’s being,” including their experiences within varied communities of race, class, and ethnicity (Clandinin, 1985, p. 362). In this study, teachers who shared cultural characteristics with their students were able to draw upon PPK to understand their students’ needs and approach instruction accordingly. For instance, Troy’s common cultural background with his students, all of whom were African American, enabled him to anticipate how students might expect to relate to adult authority figures.

I think that the common background tends to be that if you’re respectful to them and you really innately care about them, they will let you in their circle of family. Sometimes they see me as an uncle . . . definitely as more of a nurturer. When I grew up, it was not unnatural to walk around a neighborhood, and everyone would say hi to you, feed you, and chastise you if you did anything wrong. So the kids who are African American always have this assumption that you’re going to check them parentally if you need to. With kids in the inner city, it’s always that sense of village.

However, he noted that his students’ expectations for interacting with teachers varied according to context: “If I’m dealing with Caucasian or even Hispanic students, they expect you to be the teacher, the maestro and just do your job.” Troy’s understanding of his African American students’ relational patterns (e.g., “village concept”) and interactions with adults (e.g., viewing teachers as familial figures rather than as “the maestro”) is based upon his lived experiences growing up in African American communities and exemplifies PPK.

Teachers need not share racial or ethnic backgrounds with their students in order for their PPK to be relevant (Kennedy White, 2007). While Lisa did not share her racial and ethnic background with the majority of her students, she shared an important commonality with many of them: the experience of being raised by immigrant parents.

I grew up with my mom being afraid to speak to teachers, so she was never really involved. She knows how to speak English and she’s good at it, but it scares her to death. I don’t know why. So I can connect with their [students’] parents in that way.

Beyond the barriers that language can present to parent-teacher communication, research has suggested that Latino immigrant parents may maintain distance from teachers as a sign of professional respect, considering it presumptuous to impose expectations upon teachers (Lopez, 2001). Teachers expecting parental involvement in their children’s education might misinterpret this distance as a lack of caring, dynamics of which Lisa was keenly aware.

Consequently, she drew upon her understanding of parents’ interactional style to develop a system of parent liaisons to facilitate improved communication: “We have a lot of parent liaisons, because they work well with other parents. They trust parents’ word of mouth more than staff or conductors.” Liaisons talk with parents of students considering joining the choir, communicate details about upcoming concerts, and facilitate general communication among choir families.

John grew up in a rural community where encounters with racial and ethnic diversity were rare. He credits his parents, both of whom were educators, with teaching him to value diversity: “They raised us to believe that everyone’s a human being, everyone should be treated equal, and that there are great aspects to all people, all races, all religions, all socioeconomic backgrounds.” Yet when John, a Caucasian, began teaching in several predominantly African American communities, conversations with students prompted him to reconsider notions of racial equality with which he had grown up:

Being a White Caucasian, it’s easy for me to say, “Oh, we’re all equal, we’re all treated equally.” Even though that’s the way I feel, it’s not the way that the kids see it. They see me as someone who has a lot of the luxuries that come along with being a White Caucasian. I learned really quickly that I needed to understand my own heritage and accept it.

In contrast to the other participants, whose PPK allowed them to build upon commonalities with students, John’s PPK crucially relied upon cultural self-awareness, which allowed him to acknowledge cultural difference. This finding carries significance in light of literature suggesting that Caucasian teachers may lack understanding of their own culture and fail to recognize ways in which they filter assumptions through the expectations of a Western philosophy toward education (Benedict, 2006; Mazzei, 2004). As these examples demonstrate, teachers’ PPK enabled deeper understanding of the particular urban settings in which they taught, forming an integral component of their contextual knowledge bases.

Developing a Knowledge Base About Cultural Diversity

Developing a knowledge base about ethnically diverse groups’ cultural values, traditions, communication, learning styles, contributions, and relational patterns is foundational to CRT (Gay, 2000, 2002). All four participants relied upon cultural insiders, including community members, colleagues, students’ families, and the students themselves, in order to build their knowledge base of the values, traditions, and contributions of the specific ethnic groups with whom they worked. James regularly consulted with students’ families to learn music that held special significance in the community.

I inquire about whether there are musicians in the family. I love involving parents in concerts. That creates a commitment toward the choir and a strong connection with the kids. One father told me he plays the guitar. I said, “Bring the guitar in.” He sang one song that was really beautiful, so I arranged it for the kids. They sang it, and they love it.

James’s example is one of many instances in which participants engaged community members as “culture bearers” (Campbell, 2004) who provided song material, assisted in the teaching process, and performed alongside students.

When John established a new choir in a Mexican American community, he relied upon students’ families to develop advantageous contextual knowledge. He noted, “In terms of the trust between parents and how close the family is in that culture, we realized that it was crucial that they were involved in this.” He solicited parents’ advice about how to encourage students to join the program. One of their key recommendations was that choir parents, rather than the teacher, should follow auditions with personal phone calls to interested families. John noted,

The parent won’t give the same [musical] feedback, but they will bring in their knowledge and experience of having their child in that choir and what it means for that child, as well as their family. That basically would go a lot farther in terms of recruiting students. So we started [having parents make the calls], and saw a big influx of students.

Lisa and Troy sought knowledge of students’ musical interests, referencing pop culture to form connections between students’ musical experiences inside and outside of choir. Troy explained,

When they’re warming up and doing their stretching, I may play something on the piano like Tupac or something. It’s very subtle, and they’ll say, “How’d you know that song?” I don’t have to announce that I’m doing it. All I have to play is a lick of a hip-hop song, and they’ll say, “Oh, he knows my world.” You do that, and you gain a lot of respect because they say, “Wow, they’re really in tune to what I’m doing.” And they’ll love you for it.

By consulting with students, their families, and community members, participants developed knowledge of students’ “worlds” that was foundational to their effectiveness in the classroom.

Including Ethnic and Culturally Diverse Content in the Curriculum

All four teachers emphasized the importance of including linguistically, stylistically, and culturally diverse repertoire in the curriculum. Their processes for selecting repertoire for their specific learners and programming concerts tailored to their particular communities were especially informed by contextual knowledge. A concert titled Canto Latino, on which Lisa and James were collaborating at the time of this study, was particularly illustrative. Canto Latino is especially intended to engage the city’s Hispanic communities. James’s choir has a strong Puerto Rican presence, while Lisa’s is composed mostly of Mexican American students. However, as James described, the teachers included music from a variety of national traditions:

We did Puerto Rico which was “La Trulla,” and we did certainly stuff from Colombia. We did Venezuela and Argentina, and we had a fun song from Chile. I am trying to find music from different countries which have slightly different flavors and that the children can appreciate the change in the style of all these countries.

This strategy revealed the teachers’ attention to honoring specific musical traditions of individual countries. They did not essentialize culture by assuming that all people belonging to a social category were culturally similar (see F. Erickson, 2005), nor did they assume any single musical tradition was representative of or relevant to all people of a given cultural background. They further cautioned that teachers cannot assume that Hispanic students will receive a piece as culturally relevant simply because it is sung in Spanish, an issue raised in related literature (Kelly-McHale, 2011).

When selecting arrangements for his choir to sing, James sought renditions that were “very genuine, very traditional, and reflect the way people would sing” in the culture of origin. This reflects a concern for what Abril (2006) coined “cultural validity,” which he defined as the degree to which a piece is typical and characteristic of the represented culture. To locate culturally valid selections, James sought advice from cultural insiders, including a Puerto Rican teacher at a school in the community for which he was seeking pieces. She suggested “Mi Viejo San Juan,” telling him, “This is a song that will bring tears to every eye in the audience.” James summarized the song’s significance as “a song of longing of Puerto Ricans for their country. It’s a very romantic song, but it’s a song not of love for people but love to Puerto Rico.”

James’s decision to program “Mi Viejo San Juan” was informed by PPK he had developed through his own experience of immigration. When asked what he might understand about immigrant families’ experiences that a teacher who had not immigrated might not, he responded,

The feeling of cultural shock. The frustration is immense. They probably see the benefits of being here, but they miss their culture. I think there are many, many immigrant families that if you asked them, “Are you happy?” [Shakes head] They’re not. Can they really feel like being at home? That’s where the song “Mi Viejo San Juan” comes from.

On the evening of the performance, “Mi Viejo San Juan” generated an emotional response from the audience unlike that of any other piece on the program. Attendees sang along with tears in their eyes and applauded thunderously. James’ contextual knowledge concerning the salience of the immigrant experience to this community enabled him to create a meaningful experience for the audience.

Cultural Congruity in Classroom Instruction

A primary way that teachers used contextual knowledge was to anticipate and ameliorate cultural incongruities in the classroom. Gay (2000) noted that these “discontinuities can interfere with students’ academic achievement, in part because how students are accustomed to engaging in intellectual processing, self presentation, and task performance is different from the processes used in school” (p. 12). As one example, participants discussed how the European vocal timbre associated with Western classical music could initially be alienating to students accustomed to traditions emphasizing more extensive use of chest voice or a varied palate of vocal timbres, a phenomenon documented by several researchers (Armetta, 1994; Bradley, 2006; Chinn, 1997; Joyce, 2003). Troy elaborated,

We don’t use head singing in gospel music; it’s just nonexistent. If you walk into a room with sixth, seventh, and eighth graders and have them singing high Cs and D-flats in their head tone, they’re going to rebel because they think, “This music is so foreign to me.” We don’t sing everything, [in head voice] “up here” and “Panis Angelicus.” We sing [sings Kirk Franklin’s “I Smile” in chest voice] “today’s a new day.” Chest singing actually brings out more expression and emotion. It evokes more from the heart. So, when they sing here [in chest voice], they feel that there [gestures to heart]. [Sings in head voice] This is stuffy. It’s classical.

For students who have sung almost exclusively in chest voice, the sensation of singing in head voice can initially feel uncomfortable. Acknowledging this, Troy provided culturally relevant models. In class, he imitated a character from a well-known children’s television program who speaks exclusively in head voice. He then revealed to students that the actor who portrays the character “is actually an African American who’s probably 50 years old and he’s a millionaire and he’s dark and he looks something like me.” In this way, Troy was able to “get past that whole mystique of singing head tone.”

Participants also were aware that the individualist orientations of many choral classrooms, which foster competition for solos and promotion to advanced-level choirs, can be a disenfranchising factor for students from more collectivist cultures of reference (Carlow, 2004). To reduce this possibility, James built community among his diverse learners by engaging them as peer mentors. The rehearsals of his two choirs overlapped by half an hour to facilitate interaction between singers with different levels of experience. More experienced members mentored younger students, assisting them with everything from rehearsal etiquette to reading music. The resulting environment was compatible with the orientations of many students of color who “grow up in cultural environments where the welfare of the group takes precedence over the individual and where individuals are taught to pool their resources to solve problems” (Gay, 2002, p. 110).

Troy used his understanding of his students’ preferred learning styles to facilitate “cultural scaffolding,” a process of “using students’ own cultures and experiences to expand their intellectual horizons and academic achievement” (Gay, 2002, p. 109).

Even if I’m doing an African song, which can be a stretch because of the language, but if it’s like a beat, [taps on desk] and I’m rocking back and forth, they feel that. I’ll go [sings] “Ise Oluwa.” I have them sing it. Then I say, “This means the creator’s work cannot be destroyed, and who’s the creation?” [Students:] “I am.” [Troy:] “Well, you are wonderful. You know that you cannot be destroyed, your dreams. How does that feel? Do you look sad, or should you smile?” So, they’re smiling and I catch them that way because they feel the groove, the African beat. Even though the language may be foreign to them, they feel this; they get to move. As opposed to maybe starting with “Panis Angelicus” or [sings] “Hallelujah,” a Handel piece. I may get to that, but I may not start with that. I try to find something that moves them here [gestures to heart].

This example demonstrates several ways that Troy’s knowledge of students’ learning styles enabled him culturally to scaffold learning a piece in a culturally unfamiliar language and style. First, he used a strongly percussive rhythm, to which students related from familiar musical experiences, as a pedagogical bridge. Second, he had them move, capitalizing on the fact that many African American students prefer kinesthetic learning styles (Allen & Boykin, 1992; Allen & Butler, 1996; Irvine, 2001). Third, he taught the song holistically, promoting cognitive, physical, and emotional learning in synergy with one another. The benefits of holistic teaching strategies for African, Asian, Latino, and Native American students have been well documented (Escalanté & Dirmann, 1990; Irvine, 2001; Krater, Zeni, & Cason, 1994).

Cross-Cultural Communications

Another important form of contextual knowledge concerns students’ preferred communication styles. Many schools emphasize a passive-receptive style of communication in which students are expected to listen quietly and speak only when given permission by the teacher. In contrast, many groups of color communicate in ways that are more active and participatory, with listeners expected to engage with the speaker as they speak (Gay, 2002). For music educators, an interesting parallel exists in the expectations we hold for audience etiquette. A striking example of this occurred during one of Troy’s performances.

Troy considered the students’ spring performance of Handel’s “Art Thou Troubled” to be a significant teaching victory. Many of his students had extensive experience singing gospel at church, where music was taught aurally and sung using chest voice exclusively. Therefore, performing a Western classical piece taught from notation and requiring western European vocal timbre was an experience that stretched students musically and culturally. Troy described how relating the text to the students’ personal experiences was crucial to helping them understand and appreciate the piece:

I felt like the text was going to bring them in. [Quoting the text]: “Art thou troubled? Music will calm thee.” So I simply said, “How have you been troubled? How have you dealt with trouble?” Most of them said, “I listen to music when something’s driving me nuts.” I said, “This is the same song. Just place yourself in a different time period. Remember, you can’t use your own African rhythms because this was in Europe. It has to be how Handel would interpret it.” Once they understood the importance of music changing lives, I felt like they could relate to it. If I hadn’t had that conversation, there was no way I could pull that off.

On the evening of the concert, Troy knew that the piece might stretch his audience in the same way it had challenged his students. He related, “I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I was a little nervous. Then it dawned on me: Present it to the parents like the kids.”

With an energetic presence, Troy took the microphone and asked the audience, “How many of you have been too worried about your problems lately?” Several attendees answered “Mmm-hmm,” and “yes,” raising their hands. He continued, “Maybe you have too many bills to pay or the landlord is on your back. Maybe you’ve lost your job. Maybe someone has broken into your house.” As he engaged the audience, attendees actively shouted responses. Troy went on to explain the meaning of the Handel piece just as he had with his students. They rewarded the students’ performance with enthusiastic applause. (Field notes, April 24, 2012)

When I later asked Troy about his way of engaging with the audience, he explained,

I felt it was part of my responsibility to say what the song meant because otherwise, there would have been no connection to it. I knew as an African, that call-and-response is very important in our community. It doesn’t matter what style or genre, you have to talk to them. You have to say, “Listen, how many of you all have been dealing with this?” It was more effective than just saying this is a piece by Handel from the Baroque period.

This episode reveals how Troy capitalized upon his understanding of the active, participatory communication style favored within the community. Instead of expecting the audience to remain quiet and passively receive his comments, he engaged attendees in “call-and-response,” building upon his understanding of salient issues in the community, including crime, unemployment, and poverty. He drew upon contextual knowledge to make his students’ performance more connected.

Demonstrating Caring

Teacher caring has been a salient theme in studies of urban teaching effectiveness (Lehmberg, 2008; Robinson, 2006). It seems obvious that effective teachers would demonstrate caring toward their students, but Gay (2002) draws an important distinction between “gentle nurturing and benevolent concern” and “culturally responsive caring,” which “places teachers in an ethical, emotional, and academic partnership with ethnically diverse students, a partnership that is anchored in respect, honor, integrity, resource sharing, and a deep belief in the possibility of transcendence” (p. 52). John described situations in which he was challenged to build trust with students in underserved communities who knew that he would return to a comfortable, White, middle-class existence at the end of the day. As one dimension of teacher caring, John felt it important to acknowledge White privilege.

I learned that I need to accept my own cultural heritage and say, “These are the facts: Yes, I’m going to go home to my middle-class neighborhood.” Then I had to say, “How do I function as a teacher knowing that the students are seeing that?” So that really opened me up as a teacher, to realize I need to open up this dialogue. I understand that I do have these luxuries that they don’t and why is that? I was more aware of that, so the way I set up my teaching environment was more aligned for that from the very beginning. Even though I function as “I care for you,” I think the way I set it up had more sincerity in it.

When asked how, specifically, John creates a safe classroom environment in which to open dialogue, he discussed the importance of asking thoughtful, sincere questions: “Give them not a textbook question, but a true, sincere question or series of questions. ‘What do you think? I want to really know about you. I, the teacher, want you to teach me.’”

One of the most powerful teaching interactions to occur during the study featured the kind of thoughtful, sincere questions John described. The following exchange occurred in Troy’s classroom as he taught his African American students the Korean folksong “Arirang”:

The final line of the translation (“The one who abandoned me here will not walk even ten miles before his or her feet hurt”) prompted Troy to ask: “How many of you have had to move from one place to another?” Nearly all of the students raised their hands. “So let’s say for whatever reason, you moved, but then you came back. How would that make you feel?” One girl responded, “I’d be happy that I was in the new place, but at the same time, I would miss the old place because it would mean that a certain time in my life was over.” A boy added, “I would feel very emotional. You would remember a lot of memories that you had there, and some of them might not be where you are now.”

Troy posed a different question: “How many of you have had parents in your house and one of them left?” He joined three quarters of his class who raised their hands, saying: “I’m raising my hand.” Then, he asked, “What is abandonment? Is it different from leaving and then coming back?” The students were silent. “Okay, so I’ll ask this question, and if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. How many of you had a parent at home and one morning they were there, and then the next morning they never came back?” There was a long pause during which the students didn’t make eye contact with Troy or with one another. Slowly, one by one, five hands went up. Troy concluded “Alright, that’s abandonment. This song has all of those kinds of emotions.” There was a long pause as this sank in before Troy invited students to sing the song again. (Field notes, April 6, 2012)

Troy’s contextual knowledge included an understanding that many of his students had unstable family situations in which they frequently transitioned between living with various family members and foster families. Recognizing that many of his students had experienced a parent’s abrupt departure, resulting in feelings of abandonment, Troy acknowledged that he had personally shared that experience. In an act of teacher caring, he engaged in personal disclosure that was genuine, empathetic, and humanizing. His willingness to engage students in conversation about their personal lives, and to make himself vulnerable by revealing an aspect of his own, exemplified teacher caring and resulted in potent learning for his students.