...the teachers were asked how these insights might shape their instructional practices. The photographs proved be informative to the teachers, and they were able to propose changes in practices for individual students. Unfortunately, they were unable to articulate changes that might make the curriculum more culturally responsive for the students.

Introduction

Making explicit connections between the students' lives and the school curriculum is a persistent concern for the effective urban teacher (Haberman, 1992). Connection making does not represent a problem an urban teacher can ever entirely master; rather, it is a challenge to which continual attention must be paid. Addressing this tension becomes an essential dimension of quality instruction in urban classrooms. Au and Kawakami (1994) speculated that the mismatch between the classroom and students' home culture explains the historically poor academic performance of minority children. They propose that schools need to make the curriculum and the manner in which it is enacted culturally congruent with the students' home environments.

A common tendency in American education is to regard students from non-mainstream populations as disadvantaged, often resulting in a deficit mindset that contaminates teachers' interactions with their students (McIntyre, Rosebery, & Gonzalez, 2001). Viewing nonwhite and / or low-income students as inherently defective may be a deliberate and conscious choice by some educators, but I would advocate that this mentality is most often a consequence of ignorance on the part of educators. To be certain, there is evidence that there are policies that indicate that my opinion is naive; the increased pattern of segregation in public schools is disturbingly clear in its effects, if not in its insidious agenda (Clotfelter, 1999; Orfield & Eaton, 1996). To suggest that most teachers engage in deliberately harmful actions, however, portrays them in the very deficit mode that we find so offensive in others.

This study sought to explore urban teachers' decision making when supplied with insights about their students. While in third grade, 24 students participated in a photography project, and these photographs, along with transcripts of the individual interviews about the photos, were provided to their respective fourth-grade teachers. All of the children except for one were African American and all had English as their sole language at school and at home. The teachers were then interviewed to determine their interpretations of their students' work as well as to evaluate whether these insights would prompt them to adjust their instructional practices.

Science Teaching and Diversity Issues

Teaching science to diverse populations is an inherent component of science education, and it is a central aspect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Project 2061 reform agenda (AAAS, 1990); however, the specifics of curriculum design and instructional implementation as it relates to teaching diverse student populations remains largely uncharted territory within science education. In their report about teacher preparation issues, Wilson, Floden, and Ferrini-Mundy (2001) identified the issue of the gaps between the backgrounds of teachers compared to that of their students as highly pertinent and problematic:

As the population of U.S. school-age children becomes increasingly more diverse, our pool of potential teachers remains less so. We need to consider policies that increase the diversity of the teacher pool, and we need to prepare all teachers to teach children whose backgrounds are different than their own. Researchers have had little opportunity to investigate the implications of this shift in students and their teachers, and while a question concerning the preparation of teachers to teach diverse students was not a focal one in this review, we argue (in our recommendations for future research) that it ought to be central in the next generation of research on teacher preparation. (emphasis added, p. 6)

Indeed, efforts have been undertaken to examine the challenges of science teacher preparation and development where the teachers are members of the dominant culture while their students are not (Howes, 2002; Moscovici, 2003; Parsons, 2003). The impression one develops from this line of research, despite the conscientious efforts of the researchers, is that it is still in its infancy. This is not to suggest that any single study is likely to overcome all the uncertainties nor to provide universal pronouncements about how to "fix" urban science teaching. Yet, as we join together as a research community, science educators are following the path described by Cochran-Smith (1995a) wherein we build our understandings even as we press forward with our immediate obligations and incomplete knowledge.

Teaching in Urban Schools

The difference in backgrounds between teachers and students within a school is more than a demographic curiosity--the differences manifest themselves in the moment-to-moment decision making characterizing teaching and pervading the very pulse and tone of the school day. The "common sense" notion that teaching well is independent of the context within which it occurs is a false proposition. Knowing the content and being able to transmit that information to students is more than just skilled performance.

Few educators would endorse the suggestion that effective teaching is simply a matter of mastering particular teaching techniques--the content being delivered is at least as important. Similarly, content mastery does not a great teacher make: Knowledge of examples, analogies, and illustrations that allow the material to be comprehensible is vital if a teacher is to be effective with his or her students. The unique blend of subject area mastery and making that subject accessible to an audience falls within the realm of pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986), and being able to adjust instruction to the background, interests, and learning styles of a particular classroom of students falls within this realm of teacher knowledge.

Meadows (1997) describes using real-world examples to make the ideas of kinetic and potential energy more concrete for urban high school students. Drawing upon his own experiences in nature, he attempted to use a waterfall as his analogy. At the top, the water has great potential but little kinetic energy. As the water cascades downward, potential energy reduces as the kinetic energy of the water increases. The students in whose classroom he was guest teaching were perplexed: None had experienced a waterfall and the explanation was completely ineffective. The pedagogical content knowledge that had served him so well in suburban science classrooms proved insufficient in an urban setting.

The wider the gap between the culture of teachers and the students with whom they work, the greater the likelihood that learning will be compromised. This does not accurately translate into the corollary that the absence of cultural gaps between teachers and students ensures better relationships. Nevertheless, whenever there are substantial differences between an instructor and their students in the communication styles, personal background, life experiences, and cultural norms, the educative process is certain to be less straightforward than in a situation where there is greater alignment between teacher and pupil.

In the "Teacher Survey on Professional Development and Training" (NCES, 2001), the U.S. Department of Education inquired about teachers' sense of preparedness to deal with various classroom activities: maintaining order, implementing innovative teaching strategies, meeting the needs of students with disabilities, and so on. Less than one-third of teachers surveyed indicated that they felt well-prepared to work with students of limited English proficiency or from diverse cultural backgrounds. Teachers feel inadequately prepared to work with ethnic minorities and students for whom English is a new language. There are indications that this discomfort can translate into less than ideal teaching practices. Metz (1998) compared a variety of schools and...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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