Cultural appreciation and culturally relevant pedagogy
Self reflection on cultural humility
Naj Sumar
This resource provides a list of reflective questions designed to guide educators in responsibly incorporating contemplative practices into their teaching.
Why reflection?
Cultural humility (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998) suggests that we cannot acquire expertise on other peoples’ lives and accordingly their cultures. In this way, engaging with culture is seen as relational, continuous, and subjective. By challenging us to step outside of our comfort zone of objectivity and mastery, cultural humility is a path to openness and curiosity. For educators, this means being humble enough to accept that deeper preparation and thought is needed when bringing cultures that are not our own into the classroom.
How to work with questions
There are many proposed questions listed below for you to reflect on and embrace cultural humility. While it may feel overwhelming, these questions are simply a starting point. Think of questions as bridges – pathways to understanding, not interrogation tools. The intention is to gather your responses to begin scripting and structuring your use of contemplative practices in the classroom.
This tool will guide you in answering some self-reflective questions about your relationship to contemplative practices and how you intend to use them in the classroom. By the end of this activity, you will have the option of downloading this script to keep on hand and look to when considering including contemplative practices in your classroom.
Related content
- Ridge’s self-reflection piece on the importance of self-reflection for instructors before implementing CP&P, including considerations of whether to take a secular or spiritual approach with your students
- Clarissa’s thoughtbook exercise for instructors on culturally-relevant and responsive pedagogy
- Cristina’s exercises for connecting contemplative practices to your learning outcomes
- Emil, Lee and Dave’s provocation questions for readers, including: what does it mean to reclaim or reconnect practices from our ancestry? What are questions to think about CP&P as settlers on this land? Where do we call “home”?
References
Tervalon, M. & Murrary-Garcia, J. (1998). Cultural humility versus cultural competence: A critical distinction in defining physician training outcomes in multicultural education. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 9(2), 117-125.
