Dialogue and Leadership the Key to Academic Success

Teaching
Responsive Pedagogy, Dialogue and Leadership the Key to Academic Success
Public schools in the US comprise of students hailing from diverse racial, cultural and economic backgrounds (Pehmer et.al, 2015). While certain pupils belong to poor households, just as many come from affluent backgrounds. According to an ethnic/racial survey performed in 1995, the racial composition of Oak View School located in California’s Huntington Beach and having a 609-strong student population was: 529 Hispanics, 14 Whites, 1 Black, 1 Filipino, 1 Asian, and 1 Pacific Islander. Considering the rich cultural diversity of public schools in present-day urban America, it is vital that school districts and teachers come up with innovative means of working with students hailing from diverse cultural backgrounds, as it is critical to ensuring educational equality and quality for all (Sleeter $ Milner 2011).
Further, the need to improve teaching within a large number of urban schools may be evidenced by the persistently below-average scholastic performance of urban minority and low-income pupils (Tangney et.al, 2018). For bringing about true improvements in the teaching process, urban schools must modify their culture from one which presumes obstacles to effective learning are inherent in the learner to one in which educators are expected to assume collective responsibility for ensuring all their pupils learn (Pehmer et.al, 2015).
In the year 2006, New Leaders for New Schools came up with the EPIC (Effective Practice Incentive Community) program for learning from teachers who drove achievement gains within high-need schools in urban areas. EPIC aimed at identifying educators and school leaders whose pupils made considerable achievement gains. Financial rewards were bestowed upon these teachers in return for documenting and sharing practices resulting in those gains (Pehmer et.al, 2015).
Public schools display a commendable urge to accept and respect the diverse cultural groups they cater to. This serves to improve students’ academic performance, in addition to creating a sense of community and belongingness. For instance, Pennsylvania Avenue School’s educators who were part of a 3-year study group tremendously improved in their capability of facilitating reading achievement, particularly during the final year (Sleeter $ Milner 2011). But it is an erroneous assumption that only educators are responsible for pupils’ performance and for the cultivation of a cohesive multicultural community; pupils are also equally responsible.
When dealing with a diverse student population, closeness with pupils will contribute appreciably to decreasing cultural bias within the classroom and even challenging it. Students must be made to self-appraise their personal views, beliefs and attitudes regarding diverse cultures in order that culture-based bias doesn’t permeate the curriculum (Tangney et.al, 2018). Engaging in structured dialogues with peers and educators can help counter a few related challenges, besides facilitating major academic performance improvements. The quality of the teaching process will also improve through the creation of plans and tracking tools to review different teaching techniques and through responding to curricular gaps in terms of fulfilling course requirements and defining deliverables (Pehmer et.al, 2015).
Human dignity and equality regardless of social standing or racial background is a key principle underlying the articles, confirmed by a need for educators to consider different cultural backgrounds within urban public schools and improve majority as well as minority student groups’ academic performance (Tangney et.al, 2018).


References
Pehmer, A. K., Gröschner, A., & Seidel, T. (2015). How teacher professional development regarding classroom dialogue affects students' higher-order learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 47, 108-119.
Sleeter, C. E., & Milner, H. R. (2011). Researching successful efforts in teacher education to diversify teachers. Studying diversity in teacher education, 81-103.
Tangney, J. P., BOONE, A. L., & BAUMEISTER, R. F. (2018). High self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. In Self-Regulation and Self-Control (pp. 181-220). Routledge.