Connecting Home and School Funds of Knowledge:  An Examination of Early Theories

In recent years, educators have been tasked with the challenge to provide a meaningful education for children of increasingly different backgrounds and experiences.  Being able to present curriculum so that it has significant connections for students, however, is not a new dilemma.  In 1902, Dewey discussed this problem saying, “…the great waste in the school comes from his inability to utilize the experiences he gets outside the school in any complete and free way within the school itself; while on the other hand, he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning in school” (p.75).  Researchers, theorists, and hands-on teachers over the last 100 years have struggled to find ways to connect school learning to students’ community and cultural selves, a challenge that has not been easily approached by many educators. Maria Montessori, Paulo Freire, Geneva Gay, and the editorial team of Norma Gonzalez, Luis Moll, and Cathy Amanti have all published works that have prompted educators to examine their beliefs about culture, community, and education and how they impact their work with students of all ages.  While there are both similarities and differences between the theories and opinions of each of the authors or editors, all of the information has been instrumental in helping me as a researcher and educator form my conceptual framework regarding the education of young diverse learners. 

Since the researchers discussed are prolific writers, it is important to identify which of their works are discussed in this paper.  The following books were used as the basis of this review:  The Secret of Childhood- Maria Montessori, Pedagogy of the Oppressed-Paulo Freire, Culturally Responsive Teaching-Geneva Gay, and Funds of Knowledge- edited by Norma Gonzalez, Luis Moll, and Cathy Amanti. These works provide information regarding the authors or editors views on learning theory, how teaching style impacts children, and how parents, the community, and culture influence learning both at home and school.   In order for educators to better assist students with connecting knowledge in a holistic manner, they must have a foundation in understanding these concepts and how they relate to their own teaching practice.  

Learning Style

 Each of the four books discussed similar views regarding learning as an intrinsic action that educators can help bring to its highest potential.  In The Secret of Childhood, Montessori asserted that children are born with the skills they need to engage in learning; however she felt that adults blocked the process by attempting to mold children’s skills to meet what they considered to be most important (1966).  She said that children should be allowed to express themselves by using free choice in a structured setting that encouraged age-appropriate investigation and learning (1966).  Along with free choice, Montessori believed that repetition of skills was necessary to allow children to learn material well enough that they were able to experience a sense of pride of accomplishment and comfort with their own abilities (1966).  She asserted that sensory experiences from vision, hearing, and motor movements enhanced comprehension and helped children make connections between their explorations at home and school (1966). 

              Although his work was based with adults, Freire also believed that individuals were equipped with the internal skills they needed to be able to learn (1970).  He felt that schooling taught students thinking patterns that would transfer into their daily lives and with the acquisition of this knowledge they could find freedom and an improved quality of life (1970).   Freire highlighted the importance of questioning and critiquing information and encouraged individuals to work together to practice critical thinking skills through dialogues saying, “I cannot think for others or without others, nor can others think for me” (1970, p.108).  Like Maria Montessori, he supported reflection as a vital piece of learning and encouraged his students to spend time with their thoughts in an effort to assist them with moving to deeper levels of comprehension.  Finally, in contrast to Montessori who did not focus heavily on the cultural aspect of learning theory, Freire believed that culture placed a significant role in how individuals learned and disseminated information.   He felt that educators should be either members of or should be immersed in the culture of a community before they were given the responsibility of guiding learning.  This premise was central to his views on how individuals should organize to change the system of oppression they were living with on a daily basis (1970).

            Geneva Gay believed that culture was a driving force in understanding the learning styles of children.  In her book, Gay discussed the value of being aware of the out of school lives of students.  She felt that children gained knowledge in both home and school, but noted that rarely did the two bodies of information intersect to allow children to make connections between the environments (2000).  Gay proposed the importance of teachers having high performance expectations for all of their students, even ones that they may view as coming with deficits because of their cultural or socioeconomic background (2000).  Like Montessori and Freire, she felt that making connections between home and instructional knowledge for students helped them to have a better understanding of the material and opened pathways for discussion. 

            Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti (2005) continued the argument for linking culture and learning in their edited book, Funds of Knowledge.  The three editors, along with other research team members, investigated the impact of linking home and school knowledge to promote learning.  The investigators felt strongly that by tapping into children’s familiarity with educationally based knowledge from home such as hobbies, parental careers, and cooking, teachers would be better able to effectively engage students in learning (2005).  Like the other authors discussed, they felt strongly that using language and discussion was an effective vehicle for transmitting information to students in a way that would promote the development of critical thinking skills. 

Teaching Methods

            Teaching methods are the backbone of classroom practice and research has shown that educators’ views on culture, student ability, and what they have experienced themselves as learners form the techniques and expectations they have for their own students (Gay, 2000).  Montessori, Freire, Gay, and the Funds of Knowledge researchers all discuss the importance of dialogic teaching, free choice, developing critical thinking skills, and experiential learning as effective techniques for helping children bridge the gaps between their home and school knowledge. 

            Before discussing specific methods, each of the theorists and researchers discussed qualities for teachers that are needed in order for them to serve as effective practioners.  First, Montessori discussed the idea that teachers need to be calm with their students in order to foster a sense of safety in exploration that would allow the “true child” to emerge (1966).  Gay took this idea farther when she proposed the importance of students viewing their teachers as caring.  She reported that student motivation for learning would increase when they felt their teacher cared for them as a learner and provided a safe and nonjudgmental place in the learning environment for them to take risks (2000).  Gay and the Funds of Knowledge researchers also advocated that teachers should engage in reflection to think about their own ideas regarding culture so that they would be aware of their own biases and could acknowledge them in their practice (2000, 2005).  Once teachers have addressed these concerns they are ready to focus on the techniques they will use to teach their students. 

The authors reviewed in this paper have some differing views on what is the most effective method of teaching.  Maria Montessori adhered to the approach of free choice when teaching and felt that by allowing children to choose their own educational activities, they would pick tasks that were directly related to their developmental stage in learning.  She also championed individual repetition as a way of helping students increase both their skills and their comfort level with academics (1966).  In contrast, Gay and Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti took a Freirian approach to teaching, describing cooperative learning as one of the most beneficial teaching strategies for helping students to learn and master new information (2000, 2005).  Gay, however, noted that although students may appear to understand what skills are needed for students to be successful during cooperative assignments they must be taught the expectations for working cooperatively before engaging in it in the classroom setting (2000). 

In addition to cooperative learning, the researchers stressed, along with Freire, the importance of quality literacy instruction.  Freire felt that learning to read and write was one of the most powerful tools for fighting oppression.  He encouraged his students to increase their literacy skills by learning to read the newspaper and responding to editorials about political matters (1970).  Gay also stressed the importance of teaching literacy skills and discussed the idea that students from non-majority backgrounds, particularly those that speak English as a second language, are continually allowed to have lower standards for reading performance.  Instead, she challenges, they should be encouraged to use support to analyze materials that require advanced critical thinking skills (2000).  Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti expanded this idea by encouraging teachers to find out about the background knowledge of their students, including home literacy practices, and to use this information to develop curriculum that would allow students to demonstrate their knowledge to the fullest extent (2005). 

            Assessing student knowledge is another teaching method that was described in the readings.  While standardized testing continues to be the main way of measuring student progress and learning, Montessori, Gay, and the Funds of Knowledge researchers would argue that these assessments do not provide the most accurate information about learning of students from culturally diverse groups.  Based on her writing in The Secret of Childhood, Montessori appeared to advocate for naturalistic assessment of students (1966).  Geneva Gay further supported more holistic assessment by arguing that students learn more in the classroom than can be shown by a traditional test, and therefore teachers should be flexible to using other modes to allow students to demonstrate their knowledge (2000).  In addition, Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti’s book provides examples of non-traditional assessment methods in their case studies of classroom units that incorporated materials gathered from interviews with parents and other family members of elementary school teachers (2005).  Providing fair assessment measures that allow students to incorporate all of their knowledge bases continues to be a struggle for educators but examples like those in the Funds of Knowledge research can be useful for teachers attempting to help their students maximize their learning potential. 

Integrating Culture, Community, and Family

            Culture is a fluid concept that according to Gay includes our worldview, values, standards, and beliefs.  It is influential on our thoughts and actions and in the field of education it impacts the way that teachers provide instruction and the way that students engage with and understand curriculum (2000).   Culture is a broad ranging topic that may be related to concepts like ethnicity or religion, but is not comprised solely of any one of them.  A community, however, may have members of multiple cultures and/or it may have its own culture to which members adhere.  Families are individual units within communities and they too may have their own cultural standards while at the same time being incorporated into the unique culture of a neighborhood. 

Maria Montessori stated that children learn the norms of their culture through imitation of their family (1966).  This idea is important because if it is true, children then enter school classrooms that are made up of as many cultural ideals as there are students.  Teachers must have an appreciation and respect for each of these views because as Freire stated, “One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by people” (1970, p. 95).  The concepts of culturally responsive teaching and funds of knowledge are directly related to Freire’s idea.  Culturally responsive teaching challenges teachers to learn about their students as “whole” children, not just “in-school” learners.  This multidimensional view of students allows teachers to move beyond what is considered the dominant culture from the school’s perspectives and learn more about the cultural practices of the community at-large.  The Funds of Knowledge researchers advocated the importance of teachers joining with the families of their students through interviews and home visits (2005).  They discovered through their research that visiting families allowed them to see firsthand the learning activities that families were engaging in with their children and from this were able to invite parents to participate in classroom lessons and were able to base curriculum around familiar activities for the students.  This integration of families and their home cultural aspects enabled non-majority families to become a part of school, incorporated community values into the school setting, and validated for the students the importance of their experiences with their parents and families.  

Relationship to Conceptual Framework

            As a doctoral student, educator, and novice researcher, I have spent time developing a conceptual framework of how I view and understand education theory and its impact on my own study.  In my work with intergenerational family literacy, I have identified four aspects: family, school, communities, and theory, as having a significant influence on the way that family members participate in the early literacy learning of their children.  All four of the books examined in this paper had direct links to these aspects and the way that I view education.

            The main idea that connects to my framework and is present in all of the readings was the idea that families and communities play a major role in the development of a child’s education.  From Montessori who felt that children learned through imitation of their parents to the Funds of Knowledge research that highlighted the importance of connecting with families and the community to view students in a holistic manner, it is evident that the need to connect home and school learning continues to be a major issue for educators.  Parents are often considered to be children’s first teachers and if this is the case it stands to reason that education professionals should be interested in learning about the formative education of their students.  This is especially true for families who may operate outside of the “typical” norms of the education system, including students from low socioeconomic or minority backgrounds that are often seen as entering the system with learning deficits. 

Studying the four works for this review has given me the opportunity to see how patterns have developed in teaching methods and in theory to address the continued need for integration of children’s knowledge and the importance for enhancing critical thinking skills.  By studying the works of established educators, I and other professionals can learn about the history of connecting families, schools, communities, and cultural practices as we continue to improve the education system to include learning standards that capitalize on the strengths of all children, whether those strengths come from knowledge learned in school or at home.

References

Freire, P.  (1970).  Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  New York:  Continuum International

                Publishing Group, Inc.

Gay, G.  (2000).  Culturally Responsive Teaching. New York:   Teachers College Press.

Gonzalez, N, Moll, L., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2005).  Funds of Knowledge.  Mahwah,

            New Jersey:  Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.