Value and Culture Clashes
Cultural clashes between teachers and students may underlie resistant behavior. This cause should be considered in classes where students’ home life has strong ethnic roots in a culture different from the teacher’s. In addition to ethnicity, another cultural dimension to be aware of is tacit rules—unspoken cues and habits—of different socioeconomic groups:
For example, being able to fight or have someone who is willing to fight for you [may be] important to survival in poverty. Yet in the middle class, being able to use words as tools to negotiate conflict is crucial. (Payne, 2005, p. 60)
Other examples Payne cites include laughing when disciplined as a way to save face in matriarchal cultures; inappropriate or vulgar comments that may be the only language a child has learned for dealing with conflict; not following di- rections, which may be due to the absence of practice or procedural memory training; and incessant talking, which may be a manifestation of the partici- patory nature of the family dinner table. Some of these examples border on stereotyping. But other cultural differences, like avoiding eye contact and not
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participating in class discussion, may be rooted in cultural norms and need acknowledgement rather than criticism.
The bottom line here is that a student may be behaving in ways that are consis- tent with their own culture (racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic) but may be con- sidered inappropriate in the school culture. It is imperative to examine inap- propriate behavior with that in mind as a prerequisite to teaching replacement behaviors for students.