Bridging the Cultural Divide: Enhancing Urban Physical Education

Abstract

Culturally Relevant Physical Education in Urban Setting One can argue that the main purpose of the study was to enlighten the teachers and the students on the need to understand cultural relevance in educational processes (Flory and Nate pg 1-10). Based on the author, it is clear that limited knowledge in understanding culture leads to poor interpretation of the term which leads to great misunderstandings between the teacher and the students. Such misunderstandings attributed to cultural discrepancies leads to poor relationships between the teachers and the students most especially in urban areas where the teacher and the students differ greatly in their culture setting fertile grounds of failure for such students. To avoid such cultural discrepancies, this article defines the cultural relevancies in physical educations in urban schools where the white teachers engage with non-white students whose culture, class and ethnicity differ from theirs by all means. It is through cultural knowledge that respect and communication between different cultures within and education process becomes manageable leading to healthy relationships between teachers and students. Based on the authors, the cycle of cultural relevance revolves around the consideration and fulfillment of cultural needs in educational process aimed at strengthening the relationship between the teachers and the students. Flory and Nate (pg 2) confirms that having sophisticated knowledge of community dynamics, knowing how community dynamics influence educational processes and devising and implementing strategies reflecting cultural knowledge of the community are the key to components of the cycle of cultural relevance in any education settings. To this effect, I agree with their assertion on the cycle as fulfillment of such cultural needs can yield positive results in strengthening the teacher-students relations and overall performance of students in a great manner. Based on the Flory and Nate (pg 2), discrepancies between teachers and students cultural lenses leads to misunderstandings which serve as a strong ground for schools failure. As the authors puts it, most of the teachers are whites, middle class women and from nonurban backgrounds which makes it hard for them to mingle and engage freely with , urban citizens who are largely low to lower middle class minorities who live within a complex urban matrix. Therefore, the cultural distance between such teachers and students spells out the discrepancies between their worldviews, backgrounds and values making it a challenge for the two parties to relate freely thus the need to enlighten them on cultural relevancy in education process. To this effect, I support the authors view towards discrepancies between teachers and students in urban settings and advocate for proper training on cultural relevance in such settings. As one of the common needs in the framework that defines the components of the cycle of cultural relevance in education process, (Flory and Nate pg 2) suggests that it is important for teachers to implement strategies that reflect their cultural knowledge while providing culturally relevant instructions. Such strategies enable them to...