Self-regulated learning & Culturally Responsive Pedagogy : An Integrated Approach to Fostering All Learners’ Engagement & Motivations
by Ifeoma Chinwuba
Sunday 9 March 2025
Author: Aloysius C. Anyichie, Lexington Books, Lanham. 146 pp.
In 2020 , in France, Samuel Paty, was ambushed and wasted by one of his students, whose grouse was the victim’s irreverent depiction of his religious icon in class. The teacher, operating in a secular, free-world environment, where free speech is a given, failed to appreciate the sensibilities of and cross-currents churning in his wards, and the mismatch between their antecedents and their new reality.
In Quebec, the provincial government insists that pork will continue to feature in the school menu, despite that dish being verboten to a cross-section of the populace. The government’s position could be rendered linguistically as : This is Canada. Adapt.
From the above examples, it is obvious that a clash of mores is brewing in the classroom environment, which, if amplified, could help explain some of the fatal confrontations in some of our educational institutions.
From this perspective, Anyichie’s Self-Regulated Learning & Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, becomes vital because it recognises that, across the world, many classroom spaces are increasingly heterogenous, due to migration, (arising from war, tanking economies or the simple quest for a better life). The challenge is how to teach children from different backgrounds-linguistic, religious, socio-cultural, psychological, lumped together in one class, in a new milieu.
SRL & CRP is a vademecum for teachers operating in a multicultural environment. It proposes how to leverage the various past experiences of wards in promoting learning, not obstructing, ridiculing, downplaying or minimising them, and by so doing reduce conflict, internal and external, whilst instilling tolerance and social cohesion and adaptation.
The book’s aim is,
To advance theory and practice …that might enable educators better support culturally diverse learners in schools and communities. (p.10).
Anyichie offers the CRT and SRL frameworks to address this challenge of diversity in the classroom: Culturally Responsive Teaching and Self-Regulated Learning. The book is divided into three parts:
- Diverse Classrooms CRT and SRL framework;
- Classroom Designs and Implementations;
- Final Discussion/Conclusion.
The language is technical but simple enough for the uninitiated in pedagogy to understand. The practicals/case studies are also easy to grasp for possible implementation or replication. The author provides an ample bibliography for further study, as well as appendixes of case studies.
Being co-educators of their children who complement their wards’ learning experience, migrant parents will find this book insightful as well. However, the author did not include any worksheets or templates for concerned parents. Still, I consider the book timely, and therefore, have no hesitation in recommending it to the teaching community. Padre Anyichie must be thanked for producing this opus, a research borne out of industry need; a research engendered by social consciousness and the desire to solve a recurrent problem in society. The study is in its teething stages, and invites further research into this field to expand knowledge.
The author’s family tree counts many educationists, so he attributes his interest in pedagogy and methodology to this DNA.
Though its target is the multiracial society, the book could be useful in multiethnic/tribal communities, where rural-urban migration occurs with attendant challenges of culture, religion and language. In addition, despite focusing on the elementary classroom, Anyichie’s treatise could be extended to the secondary and tertiary levels of education, depending on the age of the migrating demographic. From this perspective, Self-Regulated Learning & Culturally Responsive Pedagogy has the potential for universal appeal and applicability.
Ms. Ifeoma Chinwuba was the 2021-2022 Writer-in-Residence of the Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton. A retired diplomat, she is the author of five books, made up of novels, poetry in dialogue, and a juvenile novella. Her “Merchants of Flesh” and “Waiting for Maria” have, at different times, won the Prose Prizes of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), while “Waiting for Maria” was on the Long-list of The Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2008. Ms. Chinwuba’s latest novel, Sons of the East, was released in November, 2023, by Griots Lounge Publishers and is on the shortlist of: The Fred Kerner Prize 2024; Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Prose Prize 2024. Ifeoma Chinwuba’s novel, Sons of the East is out. Get a copy from your book seller. Email: ifeomachinwuba.com Web: Ifeomachinwuba.com Website: Ifeomachinwuba.com
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