US classrooms are more diverse than ever with 1 in 4 children having at least one immigrant parent and 1 in 5 children speaking a language other than English at home (US Census Bureau). These classrooms serve as a primer for students who are introduced to both the dominant local culture and the beautiful diversity of their peers, helping them to better navigate cross-cultural situations as adults.
Cultural intelligence (CQ) has thus emerged as a vital skill for K-12 teachers. They apply it in engaging their students and modeling the very behaviors and advanced communication techniques that their students will need to succeed.
Why focus on cultural intelligence?
The teacher’s role in both engaging and preparing diverse students for success, can’t be understated. It’s not surprising that many successful people can reflect on a teacher who had a profound impact on their lives. The late South African President and anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela often spoke highly of his teachers, citing his first teacher, Miss Mdingane, as an example of a teacher providing the support and guidance he needed during his formative years.
In today’s diverse classrooms, high-CQ teachers can be even more responsive to the needs of students, more effective in building trust with parents and families from other countries, and be in a position to pass on valuable cross-cultural strategies to students.
Crafting an inclusive classroom culture gives students the opportunity to experience and understand different communication styles, accept and appreciate diversity, and establish more informed expectations about the world around them.
How High-CQ Teachers Manage Culturally Diverse Classrooms
Culture directly influences how we perceive and interact with the world. It is our group-specific operating system, the code we learn when very young that aligns us with our closest in-group, the people we love, and generally, other people in our community. But this alignment often looks very different across cultures and can lead to misunderstanding and confusion at times.
A behavior seen as polite in one culture may be considered strange or even rude in another. Our childhood lessons of “appropriate behavior” might seem universal, but they vary tremendously across cultures.
- In Korea, accidental bumps in crowded spaces are ignored, unlike the American-style verbal apology.
- Finishing your plate in India is a compliment, while in Egypt and the Philippines, it might imply that you weren’t served enough.
- The American “please” and “thank you” for simple requests may feel overly polite or sarcastic to most Chinese.
In a diverse classroom, you will find young students use very different word choice, tone, volume, gestures, facial expressions, and behaviors to show respect, ask questions, resolve conflict, and solidify friendships.
Look out for these clues in children's interactions to get insights into how culture shapes their reality:
- How they ask questions
- How they express their likes, dislikes, love, and friendship
- Their reactions to stories
- Their reactions to conflict
- Their comments about family, friends, and strangers
Consider their language use, choice, tone, volume, gestures, facial expressions, and behaviors. Your observations of their word choices and sentence structure will also inform you of how language frames their reality.
Like players of the same game who are used to playing by a slightly different set rules, there is an inevitable period where students adjust to the culture of the classroom and the broader culture if their family is from a non-local community.
The benefit of having student diversity is that it broadens every student’s understanding of what is possible, that there are many more ways of doing things and communicating with others than what they may have previously been aware of. A teacher with a high-CQ will not just recognize this but will highlight these different approaches in a respectful way. The rules may be different in other countries, but how much better is it to know how to play and enjoy “the game” with many different people from other cultures.
How High-CQ Teachers Build Trust with Parents
Parents and family members play a crucial role in their children’s education, though engaging with them can sometimes feel like navigating a maze of cultural differences. Nevertheless, developing this relationship is essential for building a robust learning environment.
Consider these approaches adopted by high-CQ teachers:
- Be understanding of different cultural expectations: Initiate a dialogue by inquiring about their cultural norms and expectations. How are classrooms and education expectations different in the US compared to their country of origin?
- Avoid slang and idiomatic expressions: Use simple, literal language to ensure your message is universally understood.
- Encourage open communication: Help parents to feel comfortable asking questions. Be mindful that a nod from a parent doesn’t always indicate full understanding. Always clarify by asking open-ended questions. To ensure you are communicating effectively, use an interpreting service when parents prefer to use their native language.
Using an interpreting service for parents who prefer to communicate in their primary language is the best way to accomplish meaningful open communication and unravel misunderstandings that may be culturally based.
- Support parents’ involvement in education: Some parents might feel inclined to defer to you as the teacher, viewing you as an authority figure. Make parents feel comfortable through your willingness to detail how your classroom functions. Emphasize that their involvement is not only valued by you but also pivotal to their children’s success in the US education system.
Cultural intelligence is not just a professional asset; it’s a key skill in becoming a more insightful, empathetic, and effective educator in an increasingly diverse world. Hats off to all those teachers who make their classrooms a little more welcoming and the world a little more accessible to their students.