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Description-When I first started in the DOE I worked in a culturally rich area of Queens. I was observing a class in the morning, and the teacher was complaining about a boy who comes in late every day. Every morning he is missing out on circle time where they do their morning meeting and some phonics. The teacher mentioned that the boy was from Ecuador and this was his first experience in school.
Interpretation- The teacher was complaining that the student was missing out on instruction coming in late everyday. She was mentioning that the mother wasn't a good parent.
Explanation: the fact that this was the boys first year in a school could have been the reason why the mother did not hurry to bring her child to school at the start time. School expectations in Ecuador may be very different than they are in the United States.

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Description: My first year teaching for the NYC DOE, I worked in a very culturally diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY we had students from various middle eastern countries. One of the student's families were from Egypt. The student's father came to PTC, upon welcoming him I put my hand out to shake his hand. He looked at my hand but did not extend his hand and instead just kind of shook his head and said Hello. I was a little taken back and just smiled at him with a little nervous laugh. We proceeded into the classroom for the meeting. Some of the student's therapists came into the room to also meet with the parent. His speech therapist (who was a female) and his OT (who was a male). Upon the end of the PTC I saw that the parent extended his hand to shake the hand of the OT then turned around and said thank you to me and the speech therapist.
Interpretation: I thought that maybe I had at some point did something or said something that bothered the father of that student. I started to run down any time I remembered interacting with this specific student's family.
Evaluation: The student's family was from Egypt and they were Muslim and the student's father was honoring his religion by not making physical contact with a female that wasn't his wife. At the time, I was not aware of this. Moving forward I took this into consideration when I would greet my students family.

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One moment I can recall is from my first year teaching for NYC DOE. I remember bringing in my daily breakfast and lunch as usual. I shared a classroom with a math teacher from Africa who I still keep in contact with today. I remember telling her I was so hungry one given day, and I went into my lunch and started eating- I asked her if she was going to eat and she said it was Ramadan- I had heard of Ramadan, but did not know all the details of it! I was amazed but also felt so guilty for complaining of being hungry and then opening my food right in front of her! That was definitely a learning moment for me that will stick with me forever.

Description: A long day and feeling hungry at lunch time while sharing a classroom with a former colleague who was not drinking anything or having lunch. I couldn't believe that she wasn't hungry of thirsty.

Interpretation: Initial shock of the whole day going by without her drinking her tea, coffee, or eating anything. I came into the room saying I am so hungry and wondering if she was going to have lunch. Her initial response of no made me feel hungrier and confused.

Explanation: The fact that it was Ramadan and I was told what Ramadan entailed made much more sense to me, but also made me feel so guilty for feeling as though my food and drink were being waved in her face out of not knowing.

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Description: A few years ago I overheard a conversation between a couple of my teacher colleagues. One teacher was complaining about a student in his class who always had to use the restroom during his class and would be gone for 15-20 minutes.
Interpretation: The teacher had assumed that the student hated his class and was trying to skip it, was not a good student in general and just didn’t care to be there, or maybe thought the class was boring and was going to meet up with some friends at that time.
Evaluation: The teacher decided that the student was in fact intentionally skipping his class and decided to pursue disciplinary action.
Where his evaluation went wrong: First of all, he should have had a conversation with the student about the issue, but chose not to address it that way. I later found out that when the administrator was dealing with the behavior referral, he found out that the student was a Muslim and was actually going to the bathroom to pray every day. Once the truth was uncovered, they found a room for that student (and others) to go to so they could pray privately, and once the teacher realized what was happening, he of course allowed the student to go pray and didn’t take it personally anymore. He even set up a time for the student to come in and make up any work missed or get extra help if needed.

Sarah T.

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Description: A student had only been in our school one year after arriving in the United States as a refugee fleeing war. The student spoke a dialect of a language and there were no direct translations available for staff to access. The student's English language was extremely limited. The students frequently would get into conflicts with other students and as a result, were isolated by other students. Many of them said that the student wasn't nice and mean. In class, the student almost never attempted to complete classwork and would frequently disrupt class. Teachers were extremely frustrated with this student and they also thought the student wasn't very pleasant.

Interpretations: This student doesn't care about school. This student is not a nice person. This student doesn't want any friends. This student doesn't like their teachers. This student doesn't understand anything being taught in class. The student is misreading other students' verbal cues and body language.

Evaluation: After working hard to establish a relationship with this student through playing games and other activities that didn't require a high level of English and completing multiple observations in class and during recess it was discovered that the student was misreading their peers' cues and body language. The student would interpret many behaviors and gestures as offensive, rude, or aggressive. In class, it was identified that the student had no idea what the teacher was saying and no idea how to complete the work as it was much too advanced. We spent time coaching the student to help them understand what their peers were communicating. We helped teachers by providing the student with more attainable work and more visual materials. The student in turn made friends and participated more in class with less off-task behavior. The student also made huge progress in their understanding of English.
- Elliott Ryan

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Several years ago I was teaching an ICT class.  We also had several English Language Learners.  This class had a lot of different needs so, my co teacher and I tried to utilize station teaching and parallel teaching as often as possible.  The TESOL teacher often pushed into our class and pulled a small group for reading. This class worked in small groups often.

Description: About half way through the year a little girl joined our class community.  She was extremely quiet.  Any time she was in a group with the teacher she participated in lessons with a lot of teacher encouragement.  However, when she would go off to work independently at a station she frequently did not begin or complete assignments.  My co-teacher and I adjusted our check-ins, kept her longer in small groups, and moved her around into different groups so that she was receiving as much teacher instruction as possible.  She continued to perform in small groups but not in the “independent” station.  When demonstrating understanding in the small group she was able to complete tasks.  My co teacher and I were very confused.   We knew that she was capable of the independent work station assignments.  We decided to give her the directions verbally and with the station task card. We would then ask her if she understood them, her response was frequently “yes” and she would go off to her station while my cooperating teacher and I would begin a new group.  Again, she did not always begin the tasks or complete them.

Possible Interpretations: She is lazy and does not want to work independently.

She does not understand the work and more time is needed to reteach the content.

She does not care about her performance in class.

She is not understanding the expectations.

Evaluation:  We decided to take some data.  We found that on the days she did not begin the task the timer for station rotations was not visually on the smartboard.  After a conversation with her we learned that sometimes she was confused on when to begin the assignment. She did not want to ask the teacher if she should begin. On the days that she did some of the work but not all, she often came to something that she did not understand. When she was confused by a word, direction, or problem she sat and waited instead of asking a friend or the teacher.  Usually, by the time a teacher was not teaching the lesson was over and we were moving on to a new subject.

We then learned that in her culture, it was considered rude to interrupt the teacher to ask a question.  She was doing what was expected by waiting for further direction instead of interrupting us.  After learning this we remembered to always have the timer on the smartboard and gave a verbal direction for the start of the stations.  We also gave her a 2 sided counter (red/yellow) this allowed her to nonverbally let us know if she needed assistance.  If it was red she was able to work independently but if she flipped it to yellow it was her way of letting us know she needed our help.

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I will never forget when I worked an after school program during my sophomore year at college. There were many students from European backgrounds as well as Muslim students. We did an activity of telling the age of a tree by the lines inside of a tree trunk. We did a drawing and I told them to label each line "ring" with an important memory. One of my female students drew hers out and said to me by this line which will be when I am 18 I will be married and have kids right after. She was 8 years old. She asked me how I was at the time I was 21/22. She then asked me why I was not married yet. I said at the time I was in college wanting to be a teacher and not ready for marriage. She was very confused by this and then explained to me that in her culture she is expected to be married by that age. It was a learning experience for me from a differently cultured than me 8 year old.
The second experience I had was when we were asked to make "clubs". I decided to make a Salsa club, thought it was very straightforward "salsa dancing". But it wasn't -a Polish male student came to my club very excited. He thought it was a club about making salsa- like the kind you eat, not a dancing club. I should have explained it better and not assumed everyone knew what salsa dancing was.

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Since I have only been teaching several years in a pretty homogenous district, I spoke with my Korean friend who gave me a personal example that is useful to consider.

Description: My friend was born and raised in Korea. She attended grad school in the US. During required seminar courses, which were small groups intended to discuss and argue ideas, she would often be the only one in the group who would not speak.

Interpretation: She did not come prepared. She is not interested in the topic or knowledgeable enough to critique/argue points.

Evaluation: She is not capable of doing graduate level work.

It turns out that when she was raised, Korean culture dictated certain norms like teacher respect–“You don’t even step on your teacher’s shadow” was a common saying– and humility. Questions were discouraged because it could come across as challenging a teacher. Even if you knew an answer, you did not say it as you may come across as showing off your intelligence. So when my friend was in seminar, she had a very difficult time overcoming how she was schooled. She also was not fluent in English, so would have a difficult time expressing herself. She felt she sounded more ignorant when she spoke and felt very exposed. She had a visceral response to her professor entering the room, knowing that for several hours she would be feeling this way. (She powered through and finished her doctorate, so she was able to overcome this, although she says she still feels uncomfortable in small meetings/discussions).

It makes me think about how even eye contact may, in addition to being culturally unaccepted, be inviting verbal engagement that could lead to someone feeling hyper visible and forced into a situation that could produce similar feelings as my friend experienced. My friend feels that the Western culture encourages us to be verbally articulate, and it is important for us to understand that other cultures do not prize (and may even discourage) this.

Kerri Freese

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Description:This misunderstanding happened last year during an after school program for ELLs that I was working in. I was teaching test prep to a group of 6 fifth grade ELLs.One of these students was a new student who just came from Bangladesh. She new very little English but was trying her best to keep up with he rest of he group. One day we were taking a practice test and I was walking around asking the group if they were ok and if they had any questions  At one point I thought it would be a good idea to check in on my Bangladesh student so I asked her if she was ok and she didn’t seem to know or ,maybe  my wait time wasn’t long enough so I then held up my thumb saying ok?  The look on her face was in shock as I was holding up my thumb.Interpretation:I was definitely confused as to why she had that face so I assumed she needed help and went about helping her with the question. Then later I came around to her again, again asking her if she was ok and putting my thumb up. Well I got the same shocked look.Evaluation: I later found out from her older brother at dismissal that the thumbs up  here might mean OK but in some countries like Bangladesh it means screw you or up yours. Well I was mortified that I made her feel uncomfortable and or insulted her and did apologize for my misunderstanding.This was a lesson that not all hand gestures mean the same thing cross cultures -Megan

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My experience occurred during my first year teaching while working at a school in NYC. It was in the spring and my 6th graders were taking a district test. I brought fruit gummies as a snack for my class to reward them for their stamina. I noticed one of the students declined it. The next day they were testing again and I brought in granola bars. Again the student declined.  I interpreted this situation in many ways.  The first time it happened I thought maybe this student dislikes fruit snacks. The following day I thought maybe this student doesn't like chocolate or maybe doesn’t like me as his teacher.  I later learned it was Ramadan and my student was fasting. I apologized to my student for ignorance and putting him in an awkward situation. This situation became a great learning opportunity to learn about Muslim culture and become culturally aware of beliefs and values.
- Cindy

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One year during teaching I had a male student from Africa. Whenever I would ask him a question along with asking him to point to an anchor chart in the room during the lesson. He would refuse to point to the anchor chart and shut down. After a few times it happened in class I asked him why he wouldn't point to the anchor chart and he said in his culture it is rude and disrespectful to point. After coming to this understanding I asked him if he would feel more comfortable to walk over to the anchor chart instead. He agreed and he no longer shut down when asked to refer to an anchor chart or something on the smart board. This small change in technique actually increased his participation in class and gave him more confidence. Annemarie Josephson

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The only interaction I can strongly recall with a student was during one of my first years teaching and was also related to eye contact, similar to the situation that  Lindsay posted. Description: A student of mine originating from Jamaica will not make eye contact with me when we speak about his grades. Interpretation: This student either feels badly about his grades or does not care/want to engage in the conversation. Evaluation: I think students who don't make eye contact during a one-on-one conversation are being disrespectful. Where I went wrong at the evaluation phase was that I assumed because in my culture the respectful thing to do would be to make eye contact and to perhaps nod or show that they are paying attention, that this student was being disrespectful. In reality, it is part of the student's culture to NOT make eye contact in the same exact situation as a sign of respect. Truth be told, I still have to remind myself of this when I have students who do not make eye contact, but now I have an understanding and know better how to process what is happening. Another potential misunderstanding, but not maybe as clear an example as the one I just gave, is the following. Description: My Heritage speakers in the classroom call me "Miss" instead of Mrs. Reynolds or Sra. Reynolds. Interpretation: The students see me on the same level as a friend and do not recognize the formality of the student-teacher relationship. Evaluation: I feel students are being disrespectful by not calling me by my name, which I feel would demonstrate formality and respect. I wouldn't consider this necessarily a "misunderstanding" because I was aware of it happening as it was happening, however, because of my own cultural biases it still kind of internally bothered me. Thankfully, because of my intercultural competence in this scenario I was able to realize that that in my culture "Miss, Mrs. or Mr." is almost always followed by a name to demonstrate respect. However, in Spanish, it is very common to just call someone "Señorita, Señor or Señora" without demonstrating a lack of respect. Through this Padlet activity I was able to identify that a lack of cultural competence often comes across as a blatant sign of disrespect, which is not the case. More often than not it is ignorance of cultural norms/lack of intercultural competence. - Alia Reynolds

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During my first year of teaching, I experienced a cultural misunderstanding with one of my students. It occurred later in the year when I noticed a student display an unusual change in behavior. Since the beginning of the year, this student had always been engaged and active in class. They participated in class discussions regularly, consistently followed directions, and even supported their classmates in completing classwork throughout the day. One random day, I noticed that this student was showing minor signs that they were not engaging in class as much as they used to. At first, it started with the student not following directions and not participating in group conversations. After a few days, I noticed that the student became irritable and even fell asleep in class. My initial interpretation of the student's change in behavior was that the student must have been staying up late at night playing games or having issues with their parents or other family members, leading to their lack of sleep and sudden change in behavior. When I reached out to the parents to voice my concerns, they explained that their child's sudden change in behavior was due to their participation in Ramadan. The student had been staying up late to participate in prayer sessions with their family and fasting during the day, which resulted in them being tired and not having the same energy to keep up their usual class participation level. My evaluation of this situation was completely wrong because it was not a cultural norm for me to fast for days and stay up late at night to participate in prayer sessions. I thought the child may have needed an earlier bedtime or additional services to support them at home because I was unaware of Ramadan and its religious significance. That day, I learned something new about my student and realized that prior to that moment I did not get to know my students as well as I had thought I did before. -Jaleesa Ramirez

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During my first year of teaching, I worked in a Catholic school in Philadelphia that had a small program for ELs.
Description: In class I assigned a short paragraph response based on the novel we were reading. We reviewed the directions together, and I gave the class the opportunity to ask any questions about the assignment. A few students had brief questions about length, required quotations, etc. My EL in the class did not ask any questions. Students had time to work then finished their responses for homework. When I read my EL student's work the next day, I recognized that it did not respond to the question posed and actually contained some plagiarized information from Sparknotes. Interpretation: The student's work left me with questions: had he not been completing the reading? Did he not understand the assignment? Did he not care about the assignment or the class? Evaluation: The student had moved recently from Vietnam, and I learned that there are specific values related to communication in Vietnamese culture. As a sign of respect to teachers, students are expected to listen attentively and silently without asking questions. After learning this, I recognized that just because a student remains silent during the "any questions" portion of the directions, it does not mean they fully comprehend what they need to do. I spoke to this student about his assignment and pointed out the areas to fix when redoing it. I let him know that in the future, he could ask me questions or send me an email if he preferred. For the remainder of the year, this student emailed me questions about assignments as they arose. - Anna Carey

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This cross-cultural misunderstanding that I witnessed occurred in my classroom during my first year of teaching. Description : Every morning I would greet my students before they enter my classroom. This one student would say "Good Morning" but would never look at me and give me a high-five. I always felt sad and wonder why this student did not feel comfortable with me because all my other students would look at me while I greeted them and would give me a high-five. Interpretation: After a few days I started to notice that no matter what changes I did such as putting a visual of a clipart of an adult giving a high-five and also bending down to lower myself to the child's height he never wanted to look at me when I was talking to him. I just started to believe that I was not successful of building a relationship with this student.  Evaluation: During back to school night, I meet the student's parents and discussed the issue that I was having with the student during greeting time in the morning and his parents explained to me that  in their Indian culture males are not allowed to look  at a women in their eyes unless are told by their family member. I learned something new that night with my student and respected his background and culture.
-Charitssa Taveras

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This did not happen to me first hand, but an old colleague told me a story about a student that was studying abroad in her new school. This student would never look at anyone in the eye when they spoke to him. He would stare straight forward and only make eye contact every so often. This baffled the teachers because he was respectful. They could not understand. One teacher thought he did not like the school and was home sick or upset, another person thought he did not understand. My friend knew that there had to be another reason because he would answer them very clearly. So after looking into his background  (Japanese) and asking him about his culture, she found out that he was not being rude. In fact it was the opposite. For him, making eye contact for a long period of time is rude and aggressive. So he only would look up every so often. He was really enjoying school here and learning new things but he did miss his family. He was very polite but definitely trying to learn ways to fit in. -Lindsay