Culturally Responsive Thinking on the Professional Development of Rural Teachers——Toward Cultural Understanding,Reflections and Practice
Examining the professional development of rural teachers based on the concept of cultural response helps to fully connect their professional growth with the social environment,educational objects and field features in their work.The shift in cultural response helps rural teachers to regain their right to speak in their professional development after it gives way to urban culture,reconstruct rural students'cultural aspirations after their cultural perplexity owing to urban impact,and promote the return of rural society after the cultural rupture in the context of linear development.Under the concept of cultural response,rural teachers aim at the following in their professional development:At the macro level,they pursue the professional ideal of integrating modernity and rurality;at the meso level,they expect to play the role of culturally comprehensive and reflective practitioners;and at the micro level,they reaffirm a public and professional discourse.As culturally comprehensive and reflective practitioners,rural teachers need to have the spiritual soil used to cultivate local feelings,the knowledge map full of rural stories,the responsive teaching ability rooted in the rural field,the ability to develop the curriculum based on local conditions,and the cultural sensitivity to understand"non-self"and reflect on"self."To this end,we need to establish a relationship of public communication nourishing cultural understanding,direct educationally narrative exploration based on cultural reflections,build a teaching and research system by focusing on the key situations of educational practice,design the curriculum based on special resumes closely linking local history and culture,and optimize the evaluation mechanism based on the special identity of rural teachers.