By: Gloria Landson-Billings

Author’s Purpose

The Dreamkeeps by Gloria Ladson-Billings is a continued book about eight different

teachers and how they are examples of good teaching. The author’s purpose was

meant to inform the audience of what a good teacher consists of, and persuade them

to do the same. The idea behind this book is to be a culturally relevant teacher.

Culturally relevant teaching is not based on the gender, color, or teaching style that a

person has. For example some of the teachers shown in this book have completely

different teaching styles. However, the one thing that they all do have in common, and

the idea that is most stressed in this book, is that culturally relevant teachers work with

the unique strengths that each student brings into the classroom.

A Few Key Ideas about the Book from our discussions

-We often commented on the excellent ideas for culturally relevant lessons.

-Great discussions were had on what we can do in our current placements and the

future that will incorporate the culture of African American students to counter

negative factors and experiences and set them up for success.

-A topic that surfaced several times was the possible need for separate schools Ladson-

Billings suggested at the beginning of the book. This was countered at the end of the

book by explaining the need for better schools for African American students.

How This Book Connects with our Philosophy of Teaching Teaching social studies and social justice issues in a classroom is very important. The

philosophy we would adopt and keep in mind is that it is important to be a culturally

relevant teacher. Gloria Ladson-Billings highlights the importance of providing

educational self determination, honoring and respecting student culture and helping

African American students understand the world as it is and prepare them to change it

for the better (152). As a teacher it is my duty to become informed about the

community that my African American students are living in. Moreover it is my

responsibility to teach all of my students about African American culture, history and

current events. African American children need to know about the current issues that

affect them as minorities. It is important that students are given time to discuss ways that

they can overcome different societal challenges and be successful in the world. We

believe that teachers should not ignore African American history or the fact that

African American children have experienced different injustices and inequalities

throughout history that they continue to experience on a day to day basis. Instead of

ignoring these issues in the classroom, teachers need to take the time out to research

them, discuss them and reflect upon the changes students would like to see happen.

How This Book will Influence our Current/Future Practices

This book gave us many different examples of cultural relevant teaching that we can

adapt and use in our own classrooms. It gave us ideas of how to bring our students’

cultures into the classroom to make them more engaged in the activities and feel

represented in the classroom. There were many specific examples of actual lessons that

teachers did which incorporated their students’ cultures, so we can take those ideas

and create similar lessons to do in our placements. The book also did a nice job

outlining what culturally relevant teaching is and what it is not, so in our current

placements, we will be able to identify if our cooperating teacher is teaching in this

manner. If our cooperating teacher does not teach in this way, we can incorporate this

type of teaching when we do teach lessons and when we do our take over.