01 May What Does It Take To Be Culturally Relevant?
I was one of four invited speakers at the Applied Linguistics Winter Conference last week, the theme of which was Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Preparing my talk took me back to my academic roots as a researcher of early language development. It also took me back to my organizer-activist roots as a builder of developmental environments. It was a creative challenge to fashion remarks that offered a non-identity based understanding of cultural relevancy—that is, to give expression to my understanding of relevancy as addressing people’s need to create culture and to perform a new world.
I invite you to read my remarks and decide if I succeeded!
The conference was chock full of creative workshops by educators and researchers, many of whom have developed marvelous teaching tools based in diverse art forms. The volunteer team of students who organized the conference were especially inspiring and I hope to see more of them and learn more about the work they’re doing. What made the day especially delightful for me was spending it with my dear friend Fernanda Liberali from Brazil, who was also a plenary speaker. Fernanda and I get as much pleasure from what we don’t agree on as from what we do—and that makes for a great friendship!
Fernanda Liberali
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