Hidden Culture -- Finding the Individual

This paper was written as part of a requirement for EDCU 606: Education and Culture, which I completed at George Mason University in the Spring of 2002. It focuses on some of the children I teach, but it also is about my own journey and how I used the Cultural Inquiry Process (CIP) not only to learn about my students but also to examine and improve my practice. Reflection for me was a key factor in learning how to effectively use the CIP; this paper documents some of the self-reflection that helped me understand the process and adapt it to my practice.

Setting

I teach a pre-K class in a private preschool in Northern Virginia. Should you visit my class you will find 15 bright, happy and engaged five-year-olds, all obviously from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. What is not so obvious however, is just how diverse those backgrounds are. Although all 15 children speak English, 10 of the 15 children hear a language other than English in their home. These languages include Chinese, Japanese, Tamil, Fanti, Ibo, Tagalog, and Amharic. While all the 15 children were born in the United States only five have at least one parent born in this county. And only three of those have two parents born here. Of these eight American born parents, four are of European ancestry, two are African American, one is Asian American and the other describes himself as an African American and Native American mix. Only one set of these parents shares a common ethnic background. The other 20 parents of the class are from all over the world, but they would generally describe themselves geographically as either Asian or African. (Please note that although I have 15 children I have only 28 parents because I have a set of twins in the class.) Twelve of my parents describe their home countries as Asian with the specific countries being very diverse. They include Pakistan, Iran, India, China, Japan, Cambodia and the Philippines. The seven parents who were born in Africa come from Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia and Morocco.

Although the preschool is housed in a Methodist Church, less than 10% of the children come from the church families. However, many do come to the preschool indirectly through the church because the building is used by a number of community groups. A Muslim worship group meets in the fellowship hall at noon each Friday, an Ethiopian (Greek Orthodox) Church meets Sunday afternoons and a Mennonite Church uses the building Wednesday evenings. Historically the congregation of a local synagogue used the church for worship while their temple was being built and the two groups maintain this connection with social meetings and dinners. The building has housed the Korean Y which ran a Saturday language school, and a Spanish Church awaiting the construction of their facility. It was the home of a play group for pre-school children who were HIV Positive or who had parents with AIDS. In addition the church does outreach to the local African communities, particularly new immigrants from West African countries. All these associations have made people aware of the preschool and, as it is familiar, it becomes their preschool of choice.

A Puzzlement - Me!

This is my setting and the environment in which I was eager to apply the Cultural Inquiry Process (CIP) introduced in EDUC 606, Education and Culture. But then I hit a brick wall! The first step in the CIP is the identification of a puzzlement. I didn’t seem to have any. I questioned how it could be that I have such a culturally rich and diverse classroom and no puzzlement? So my first inquiry turned out to be how my own attitudes and practice might block my ability to discern educational puzzlements.

The curriculum focus of my preschool is on socialization skills. We measure growth in developmental terms and frankly a child has to be well out of a normal developmental range before I usually consider that they may have a “problem.” Usually developmental problems are not quickly determined. Because the normal range of abilities is broad it takes time and considerable observation before a ‘developmental puzzlement’ might appear. I therefore concluded that in the early observations of my children I was accepting most of what I was seeing as normal and not cause for immediate concern. Still, as a teacher I could not escape the idea that I should have some questions about my class. I considered other explanations for my lack of a puzzlement.

Because of the diversity in my classroom and my own curiosity about people and their backgrounds and histories, I have always tried to understand as much as possible about the cultures of the families in my class. I considered that perhaps I know too much about my families and was making assumptions about the influences of their culture on the development of their children. Perhaps this knowledge provides me with an explanation for behavior and short circuits some of the educational questions I might otherwise have.

Brenna for example, has a hard time with gender distinctions in her speech. She often confuses the terms him and her, he and she and the sex of specific individuals in her speech. Although not uncommon in very young children, this type of gender confusion is less frequent in five-year-olds. Still I was not particularly concerned. Brenna’s first language is Chinese and although she speaks and understands English I attribute the gender confusion in her speech to the fact that Chinese has no gender rules in its grammar. I assume that she is translating this lack of gender matching into her knowledge of English as an unimportant consideration. My normal course of action would be to reinforce English semantics and correct what appears to be an overgeneralization and confusion in the meaning of gender words. Because I know something of Brenna’s background and native language I assume a cultural rather than developmental disconnect in her language.

I speculated that my knowledge of her family’s culture was contributing to a possible delay in recognizing potential developmental issues by providing me with a easy explanation for some developmental differences. I considered if there were developmental rather than second language explanations. I concluded after discussions with her mother, who occasionally makes similar gender switches in English, and listening to Brenna’s otherwise sophisticated language structure, that it was not a developmental concern. However, I began to realize that I was perhaps paying more attention to my children’s cultural backgrounds than to them as individuals.

I try to incorporate the children’s cultural heritage into the class by doing a survey of their families’ cultural background at the beginning of the year. One of the questions on the survey is specific to what the family feels would be important for children to know about their culture. To this question I often get answers that speak to family celebrations and origins. These are items that I try to incorporate, with the families’ help, into our curriculum. Another question I ask is about what they want their children to learn. Although I do get a few answers about reading and early literacy skills most of the responses I get speak to the ability to get along in a multicultural environment by respecting differences in people. While this answer can be a fairly standard reply from parents of young children, I believe that it reflects the multicultural nature of our school and is consistent with the fact that parents chose this environment for their children. Cultural differences and respect are important to both me and my parents and are therefore an important part of my curriculum.

I do ask parents for specific information about their child. But I tend to pay more attention to the cultural information than the individual information. Frequently this is because the information provided reflects the child’s behavior in the home not the school environment. Like most people children adjust to the requirements of the specific environment they are in, and a child’s behavior is often different in the school setting than at home. I do not ignore this information and indeed it can provide clues to how children relate outside the class in other situations, but my primary focus is how children interact in the classroom.

An Intervention

This reflection on my practice led me to read several articles that I hoped would help me understand my practice better. One of the articles caused an intervention in my thinking as I considered how I had not integrated the individual into my desire to understand the cultures in my classroom. Henze and Hauser (1999) talk about “personalizing culture—that is, in moving away from broad generalizations about cultures toward specific knowledge about individuals and students and families, and toward awareness of the teacher’s own culture.” They went on to discuss concepts of culture. Although I understand that cultures are constantly changing and no living culture is static, because of the age of my children and the fact that they are in a relatively concrete thinking developmental stage I tend to interpret their culture in concrete terms and accept the outward manifestations of culture as the meaningful cultural influences on my children. Concrete manifestations of culture in the form of celebrations and recognition of specific traditions are important to children. I have seen children pleased and proud when special recognition was given to one of their traditions in the classroom, but Henze and Hauser point out that “Some anthropologists believe that the most meaningful aspects of culture are with the person” and “that culture exists primarily in the …meanings people bring to their experiences in the world.” and that “…it is often more useful to focus on actual practices familiar to children than on what parents can say about their culture.” I have been trying to personalize culture by looking for explanations of behavior and development in a global understanding of specific cultures, but in focusing on this macro level I may be missing the real cultures of my children. Children are active participants in the activities of the home, and looking for what is practiced in the homes is the operational definition of culture (Henze and Hauser, 1999).

I felt I needed to refocus my emphasis on culture from a global view to one that looked more closely to what was happening to my children on a day to day basis. I need to focus on information about what is happening in the family, where cultures are adapted and take on meaning for individuals. I decided to learn more about my students as individuals and what see them in the context of their families.

Monitoring—Me!

Culture (with a capital C) is fun. It is also important to acknowledge it in peoples lives. But, I believe it is also important to monitor my interest so that I keep a proper balance between culture, family and individual explanations in the assessment of children’s development. Still I could not completely explain why I found finding a ‘puzzlement’ to study for this paper so difficult. I concluded that one cause for my block in the CIP assignment was my anxiety to find a "good" cultural puzzlement. But I was looking for something hidden in plain view. I realized that I already considered culture as an integrated part of my class, but I was missing a connection. I needed to pay attention to the individual families and how their actions and interpretation of their individual culture was impacting their children.

A Puzzlement—Finally

My first classroom puzzlement actually grew out of the knowledge I had about one of my families from the previous year. Zach was in my class last year and is now in kindergarten. I am able to keep up with his progress because I have his younger brothers Omal and Amed in my class this year. Early in the fall the boys father, Mr. K. brought Zach to see me when he came to pick up the other children. We require that parents sign their children out at the end of the day. Mr. K. had Zach sign the sign-out sheet. He did this to demonstrate how well Zach has learned to write his name. He then reported that Zach has been working very hard on his name because his kindergarten teacher says he has trouble with his fine motor skills.

Last year Zach was not at all interested in learning to write his name. Most of the children wanted to learn and could write an identifiable name by the spring. About April we switched our sign in procedure and the children were asked to write their name on a sheet each morning to indicate they had arrived. Zach could make three disconnected lines to indicate a ‘Z’. His father seeing his son in comparison to the other children never said anything to me or to his son in front of me except to encourage him to write as much as he could. Within two weeks Z was writing his whole name but still, tried no other letters or numbers. Zach did have a difficult time trying to write letters particularly his name, and yet I remember he was always cutting and loved to sew. We made fabric quilt blocks which required the children to use needle and thread and sew a straight line. His stitches were even and precise and his work very intricate. This was not consistent with his kindergarten teacher’s report that he was having trouble with his fine motor skills! I wondered how this could be.

Both Omal and Amed entered class this year able to write their names in a generally identifiable manner. All indications are that this is a skill that all the children practiced at home. Omal can identify letters in his siblings’ names but can not identify other letters. In September I took a skill sample from Omal. I asked him to write his name, draw shapes and a picture of a whole person. I took another sample a month later in October. The difference to me was dramatic. The October sample showed major improvement in coordination and control beyond what I normally see in such a short period of time. The primary difference however is not rapid development, but rather that the September sample was done with his right hand and the October sample with his left hand. Both boys however, were reluctant to try any activity that had to do with writing. I subsequently observed that Omal uses both hands but seems more comfortable using his left. He can cut with both hands. I spent some time observing his brother Amed who writes with his right hand but cuts more comfortably with his left. I sat with both boys one morning watching them cut and asked them to tell me which had they were using to cut with. They were both using their left hands. I then asked which hand they liked to draw with and if they worked at home on writing. During the conversation Amed volunteered that his father wants him to use his right hand.

I wondered if there was a relationship between their reluctance to try writing and their father’s request to use their right hands. At first I thought that it might be a desire to do what the other children did. Mr. K. and his wife are from Pakistan and place a very high priority on ‘fitting’ into American culture. Most children wrote with their right hands so theirs should also. They celebrate with zest all things American while keeping their Muslim faith. But this seemed a weak explanation. I decided to research the issue of handedness and came upon information on an Islamic web site on handedness and religion. From there I went on to read some of the Sunnah or laws of the Muslim faith. There is a Sunnah that calls for eating and doing important work such as writing with the right hand (Armstrong, 2000). That does not mean that there are no left-handed Muslims but the law is interpreted that every attempt should be made to use the right hand and if necessary to train yourself out of a left handedness and implies that being left handed is a challenge from God (see http://www.ourdialogue.com/l5.htm#3).

I am not knowledgeable about the Muslim religion and did not want to misinterpret another person’s laws but I did think that there was enough information and evidence that I made it an agenda item for my October conferences with Mr. K. I speculated that Omal particularly may be confused over which hand to use, the one his father requests or the one that is most comfortable for him, and that the easiest solution for him is to avoid writing altogether. Drawing, cutting and sewing may not have the same weight or pressure as writing does when using the right versus left hand.

At the October parent conference I approached the topic carefully. I discussed each boy’s development separately, sharing their individual work samples. But then pointed out how they both tended to use different hands with different activities. I showed samples of cutting, sewing, and writing. I mentioned which pieces were done with which hand. I particularly pointed out the left handed writing of Omal which was so much stronger than his right. I then took a leap and said that I knew some culture prefer that one hand be used over another for certain activities and wondered if there might be any cultural or religious reasons for his son’s preference of one hand over the other. Mr. K explained to me his preferences which was based on his religion that the right hand be used for eating and writing. He did acknowledged that this was a preference not a requirement. Seeing how differently the boy’s work was when using one hand over the other, he agreed that neither of us would encourage the use of one hand over the other. That we would let the boys use whichever hand was the most comfortable for them. I could tell that this was not the most desirable solution for him, but he understood the difference this could make in his son’s ability to learn to write. Although we did not talk about his older son, I know that I was thinking that perhaps I missed something important last year in Zach’s reluctance to write and that his current teacher was also missing an important cultural issue.

Now several months latter I can report that Amed uses his right hand for writing and his left for everything else. Omal refuses to write with his right hand but will still use it when he cuts. Both boys are eager to try any new writing activity.

From Intervention to Puzzlement

I was feeling great. This was the simple and clear cut example of the CIP I had done it but, now what? I didn’t want to turn every developmental observation into a problem. Yet I had learned that I needed to look more carefully at what was going on in the life of each child for what might be a hidden explanation for where they were developmentally. My continued reading about culture as part of the Education and Culture course led me to try an intervention that caused a puzzlement.

In late November we were assigned to read an article by Shirley Brice Heath, “Questioning at home and at school: A comparative study.” It caused me to consider the kinds of questions I used with children. The article described how teachers did not always have the same assumptions about the use of questions as their students did, and that questioning techniques that form part of language socialization vary across cultures. I could see myself as one of the adults in the article who “…saw questions as necessary to train children, to cause them to respond verbally, and to be trained as conversational partners.” Heath went on to describe how children without the same socialization in questioning techniques that I had could respond in ways that I might classify as either inappropriate or developmentally delayed.

One morning during our group gathering I was watching Beth. Beth seems to struggle with responding to or acting on simple direct requests or instructions. Her communication with me is often non-verbal and indirect. Yet, I had observed during group activities that her interaction, responses and overall awareness of what is happening are well above the level of some of her peers. I regret to say that without that observation and the Heath reading I might have assumed that she was simply developmentally behind some of her peers either socially or in her language development. But looking at her that morning I saw a bright and capable young lady and I realized that I was not accurately accessing her knowledge and might be missing her needs. I wanted to find a means for us to communicate more clearly. So I simply phrased my questions to Beth that morning differently. I did not plan for this mini-intervention but what I got was an instant connection. I asked Beth what I should do next. I would usually ask what comes next or make a direct request for her to tell me what we (the group) should do next. I asked for her opinion, not for direct feedback of known information. A normal answer from Beth would be a stare and a smile and perhaps a look to her classmates for a clue as to what I wanted. That morning she told me I should put a bean in our measuring cup to count the days we have been in school and then she asked if she could be the teacher!

Now I had to figure out what I had done, why I got this response, and what to do next. I began a more formal use of the CIP. I first defined what I thought I wanted to explore—my puzzlement. I wanted to understand and communicate better with Beth by exploring different conversation and questioning techniques. I began by looking at how Beth’s interaction style and my expectations may be in conflict (CIP 3.3.1). The Heath article provided several examples of communication disconnects that were cultural in nature. One that I wanted to explore was that communication may “lay in the nature of interactions called for in school” by examining specifically the types of questioning techniques I use. Beth does not come from the same culture described by Heath and I could already see that some of the example given were not directly relevant to Beth but I could see that my communication style and Beth’s were not in sync and something needed to change. The easiest thing to change was me.

I also decided to investigate if there are home-school negotiations taking place that may explain her communication preferences (CIP 3.5.1). I reviewed what I already knew about Beth.

What is Known—Available Information

The Teacher Information Form and the Cultural Survey I ask parents complete at the beginning of the school year provided the following information:

· Beth was born in Virgina.

· Her mother and father were both born in Ghana. Her father has been here 16 years and her mother 6 years. She has an older sister who is in middle school (age 11). Her sister was born in Ghana and came here with her mother just before she entered school. Both English and Fanti are spoken in the home.

· Both Mother and Father state that religion as important to them and they attend the Methodist Church where the pre-school is housed on an “irregular” basis.

· Father lists the ability to “memorize and recite things” as the most important skills he wants his daughter to develop in pre-school and wants her “to do a lot of recitation.” Mother lists learning “to write her name” as the most important thing to do.

· Beth has been in the school since she was three. She does not participate in any play groups outside of the preschool. They have no local extended family.

· Beth spends a great deal of time on the computer and playing with her sister. Her favorite game is hide and seek.

Through informal discussions with her parents and observations during the morning drop-off and noon pick-up times I collected the following information:

· Mother is a nurse who works nights. She gets home generally right before her daughters are to leave for school. She sees her oldest to the bus and then drives Beth to school. When mother is too tired from her night shift Father will bring Beth to school. He is a cab driver on a day shift and tries not to leave the house before he knows the girls are on their way to school. Mother usually goes home and sleeps for a few hours before she must return to pick up Beth. Beth is generally the last person to be picked up from class.

· Mother rarely greets Beth verbally at the end of the day. They greet each other with smiles but her mother never asks what she did during the day, nor does she offer comments on the work Beth may hand her.

· Neither parent initiates conversation with me. This is unusual in that most parents are very inquisitive about what we are doing or how the day went. I have initiated several conversations and tried to engage them in discussions about Beth. They have always been responsive but volunteer little beyond what I have asked.

· I have asked each parent separately about language in the home. Both have told me that although they speak Fanti to each other, they speak to Beth only in English which they both have informed me is the ‘official language of Ghana’. Father does not believe that Beth understands any Fanti. Mother says that Beth may understand simple words like hello and good-bye but does not understand anything else. She tried to get Beth to say hello in Fanti, but Beth either could not or would not respond and looked, to me, very confused by the request.

The following information is from my October conference with her mother:

· Beth is very quiet at home. “Like her father, she never says anything.”

· She and her father both like the computer. Beth has several computer games to teach her letters and numbers. Her mother wants her to learn to write her name and she can find the letters on the computer. (Note: At this point in the year Beth could not write her name. She could make a recognizable B but would not try any other letters. However, she could spell both her first and last name and identify isolated letters.)

What was emerging from these bits of data was a portrait of a five-year-old with limited verbal opportunities and apparently little conversation interchange directed specifically toward her. Most of the conversations we seemed to have also fit this non-verbal framework. For example, she will stand and stare at me and smile with her hands on her coat zipper until I ask if she needs help. Then she looks at the zipper and points.

One of my frequent mantras is “right on the rail” as we go up and down stairs. If I look at Beth as she passes me on her way to the stairs she raises her right hand straight out in front of her and keeps eye contact with me until I acknowledge with words, a smile or a nod what she is doing. If I ask her “what hand is that?” her answer is usually “left”. If I ask, “what are you doing” the answer is “ right hand.”

I still did not understand whether Beth was displaying a developmental language delay or a culturally learned response. Since Beth was in our school last year I went to speak with her previous teacher. The teacher said that she noticed Beth’s non-verbal responses but assumed that it was because she spoke a different language at home. The teacher never bothered to ask if indeed that was true and the fact that Beth is only spoken to in English did not seem to confirm the teacher's assumption.

At this point I was not sure how to treat Beth’s language. English was identified by her parents as her first and only language. Yet there was a language spoken in the home other than English. I suspected that this was influencing Beth and had an impact on her fluency in English. I could not classify her as bi-lingual or with English as her second language but I felt that there was something missing from her language skills beyond a cultural difference in communication techniques. I decided on a hybrid solution. I would experiment with different communication and questioning techniques but I would also use some of the techniques and principles for encouraging second language development in children including demonstrations, modeling, role-playing, paraphrasing, presenting new material in the context of know information and tailoring questions to different types of participation (McLaughlin, 1995).

Meanwhile my assistant and I were collecting examples of how Beth responds to requests and instructions. For example, I had made copies of a spiral on paper of varying weight and color for the children to use in the art center. When we first started cutting these in October, Beth had a difficult time cutting and spent a lot of time sitting and observing others cut. Slowly she gained confidence and regularly practiced cutting. Every morning long after the other children had lost interest in the activity she would ask if she could cut a spiral. She often asked by bringing us a copy of the paper and showing it to us until we acknowledged what she wanted. No permission was necessary, but Beth “asked” anyway.

In January we were working on the concept of outlining and patterns. We used the spiral as our pattern. We asked that the children to start with a dot and draw a spiral using a black crayon. We had been using the terminology and working on the concepts since the beginning of the year so that part was understood by the children. They were then asked to ‘outline’ or follow the pattern of the spiral with the other colors available to them in any order they wanted. Beth made a black spiral but then didn’t seem to know what to do next. My assistant kept telling her to select another color, any color, but she seemed not to understand. I finally said “ I wonder what color I would pick?” and she said “Orange--it is your favorite color.” She then picked up the orange and outlined the spiral and continued with the other colors. I don’t know why but this type of indirect statement seems to get the most direct response from Beth.

My attempts at using different approaches in my conversations seemed to work with Beth but not all the time. She became much more relaxed and began to initiate some conversations with me, usually when she wanted something but it was not consistent or predictable.

Information - More Please

I continued to try to discover more about both Beth and her parents. I also tried to learn about Ghana and the languages spoken there. It appears that although English is the ‘official’ language of Ghana most children hear and speak a more indigenous language before they enter school. And in most schools formal English instruction does not begin until about the third year. However, not much in the ‘official’ information on Ghana helped me understand Beth better. I began to believe that the answers I needed were hidden in the culture of her particular family. Meanwhile I was continuously observing Beth, looking for clues on what motivated her to engage in conversation. I thought that perhaps it was the additional attention I was giving her that caused Beth to try to be more verbal in her communication with me. Then by chance I put her in a place where she was the center of attention.

Another Intervention

In January we started some story drama—acting out some of the stories we had been reading. The first one was the ‘Gingerbread Man.’ I decided to use the social hall in the building which had a stage so that when the gingerbread man was being chased there would be plenty of room to run. I chose Beth to be the gingerbread man and that seemed to transform her. She loved the role. She said the repetitive lines accurately with no prompting and in response to the other children’s lines. After that I was asked daily by Beth if we could do the gingerbread man again, downstairs, on the stage. This was one of the few requests she ever made. About this time she began to take care of the class mascot, a pink pig puppet who likes to boss people around a little too much. She would take him for a few minutes go into a corner say a few words to him privately and return him. I was reminded of Heath’s comments on self-talk and wondered if she was ‘practicing’ communication skills by using the puppet as a “nonthreatening vehicle for …risk taking and building confidence in speaking abilities” (Jalongo and Isenberg, 2002). Seeing an opportunity for a different type of intervention that might encourage the practice dialogue I searched for information about drama and language. Jalongo and Isenberg encourage the use of enactment as a way to develop knowledge of appropriate roles, actions and behaviors and try out new and emerging skills. I have always incorporated story or interpretive drama into my classroom, but now I could see that it had a special use allowing Beth a place to practice conventional conversational skill patterns.

I was gathering a lot of information about Beth and some rather eclectic ideas for intervention, but still had some missing pieces and was looking forward to finding out more about Beth and her family during the March conference with her mother. I was very disappointed however, when she did not sign up for a conference time and then surprised when she and Beth showed up for school that day. She said she had confused the days. I had another parent cancel because of illness and a twenty-minute break before the next scheduled conference so I was able to spend about twice the normal conference time with Beth’s mother. The following are some of my notes from that conference. Some of the information reconfirmed earlier statements or observations but other parts provided a new insight into Beth and her language negotiations.

Data—Again!

· Beth is very quiet at home and doesn’t talk very much. Much of her after school time is spent watching TV while her mother takes a rest. She still does not participate in any play group outside of school. The family lives in an apartment building and they have not made friends with others in the complex. Beth’s older sister is her only playmate. Mother says she is very homesick for Ghana but will not return until the girls are finished with school.

· The computer is a primary source of activity for Beth. She is allowed to use it after her sister is home from school. The sister is actually a half sister to Beth and was born in Ghana.

· Mother has been working with Beth on writing her name. She said, “I told her that she could not go to kindergarten if she could not write her name.” This is more than just a casual comment. Mother wants Beth to be accepted to a "traditional focus" school in her school district. When I asked her why (thinking perhaps this was the type of school structure found in Ghana) she said because there was a bus that would take her and bring her home. Her local school was too close for bus transportation and she would have to take Beth to school and pick her up. She was hoping for more rest with less disruption.

· Mother stated that at times she has trouble understanding Beth because she “reverses her sentences” and “mixes up things.” She also stated that Beth “cannot remember things” and offered this example “One day she will take my keys and put them somewhere. When I ask where are the keys she can not tell me. I tell her to find the keys or I will punish her and she goes to them.”

· The sister speaks Fanti and, although she is fluent in English, Mother, Father and Sister speak to each other almost exclusively in Fanti. However, they all speak to Beth only in English.

Analysis

The more I learn about Beth the more I see a very complicated life. The primary language in her home is not used with her. She speaks her family’s second language as her first. The language spoken by adults (or ‘older’ family members) to each other is purposely not used with her. I wonder if she thinks that the language spoken by adults is not meant for her. I also wonder how much of the family’s native language she does understand. She must have heard it as a baby, even if she was not encouraged to speak it. I wonder if she hears this indirect language and responds to it non-verbally and that that is why my indirect comments are easier to respond to than direct ones. Now I have so many puzzlements! I also have an indication that what may happening with Beth’s communication is not a cultural pattern of speaking but a lack of knowledge of how to engage in effective and socially acceptable communication—a missing component, the pragmatics of her language. She doesn’t share Fanti with her family. Her mother has stated that she notices lapses in Beth’s language: “she reverses her sentences” and “mixes up things.” Father wants her to learn through recitation and memorization and there is a perception expressed by her mother that she “can not remember things.” I am beginning, at the end of this study, to believe not that Beth has a different set of pragmatics or social rules, but perhaps that she has none at all and she is trying to negotiate her way into two different language environments. One at home where she is left out of the main conversations and one at school where everyone speaks the language she speaks but for which she has no conventions to apply because she is unable to participate at home. I believe that this situation is specific to the operation of Beth’s family not any larger cultural model.

What is Next?--Intervention, Observation, Monitoring

I’ve reached the end of my time in the course. But Beth will be with me for eight more weeks. I will continue to try different conversational techniques and give here some communication models to try. My focus for the next month will be on providing some experience through drama and story interpretation that will provide her with some language patterns and models. Hopefully she will be able to translate these experiences into her day to day communications. Meanwhile I think I will loan her the class mascot; everyone needs someone to talk to.

Conclusion

The Cultural Inquiry Process is at once both a circle and a spiral. While Omal and Amed provided me a smooth ride through the process, Beth was a looping series of puzzlements, interventions and data collection activities. What I learned from both was to collect the obvious, consider culture, talk with families always see the individual as the center of my inquiry. I also learned to be alert to the role I play and the impact I may have in the Cultural Inquiry Process. I need to continuously look through the data, through the observations and back to the individual, hidden in all the pieces of information I collect.

References

Armstrong, K. (2000). Islam: A Short History. New York, NY: Random House.

Heath, S. B. (1982). Questioning at home and at school: A comparative study. In G. Spindler (Ed.) (1982). Doing the ethnography of schooling: Educational anthropology in action (pp. 102-131). New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston.

Henze, R. and Hauser, M. (1999). Personalizing culture through anthropological and Educational Perspectives. (Educational Practice Report No. 4) Santa Cruz, CA: Centerfor Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence. http://www.crede.ucsc.edu/products/print/eprs/epr4.html

Isenberg, J. and Jalongo, M. (2001). Creative Expression and Play in Early Childhood (3^rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Jacob, E. (2002) Cultural Inquiry Process Web Site (Online). http://classweb.gmu.edu/classweb/cip/ (January 8, 2002)

McLaughlin, B. (1995). Fostering second language development in young children: Principles and pracitices. Washington, D.C.: National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED386950)

Our Dialogue (Islam in Perspective). (Online). http://www.ourdialogue.com (October 12, 2001)