Humanizing Pedagogy: Beliefs and Practices on the Teaching of Latino Children

Abstract

Recent research in teacher education has placed much attention on teachers' knowledge in subject matter and instructional practices and not enough on their attitudes and perspectives that contribute significantly to the pedagogy to which they adhere. In other words, teachers' prior knowledge and life experiences strongly influence the way they perceive the nature of learning and their students. This article describes an investigational ethnographic study that explored the pedagogical perspectives and teaching practices of four urban elementary school teachers whom Latino parents and students rated as effective in working with Latino students. Special emphasis is placed on a “humanizing” pedagogy (Bartolomé, 1994; Freire, 1987; Fránquiz & Salazar, 2004; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Nieto & Rolón, 1999) for the theoretical framework. This study found that these 4 teachers put into practice what they knew and believed. In general, they held a certain level of sociocultural knowledge. Based on this knowledge, they further built relationships with their students and created instructional practices based on students' realities, history, and perspectives in order to connect the subject matter to their students.

Notes

¹The term Latino refers to all members of various Spanish-language-based U.S. subgroups such as Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, etc. Latinos vary in regard to national roots, socioeconomic status, education, religion, etc. (Gándara & Contreras, 2009). While this study focuses primarily on Mexican Americans living in California, the all-embracing term Latino is used because it better captures the community studied.

²To protect participants' privacy, the school names and the community are pseudonyms.

³Pseudonyms are used for the four teacher interviewees.

In the first part of the table, the Xs signify that there was a match between HP concepts and what teachers articulated to be part of their perspectives. In the second part of the table the +s signify frequent use of the HP practices, meaning that such practice was used 75% or more of the time; and the –s signify occasional use of the HP practice, meaning that such practice was used 25% or less of the time.

⁵English Language Development (ELD) is a systematic use of instructional strategies designed to promote the acquisition of English by students whose primary language is not English. These strategies build on developing a solid language foundation to teach English learners to understand, speak, read, and write English and acquire the linguistic competences that native English speakers already possess when they enter school and continue to develop throughout life.