ABSTRACT
In my graduate courses for prospective teachers, almost all are from middleclass, dominant-culture backgrounds, whereas the urban students they are beginning to teach as part of their field work are often from primarily lowincome, nondominant cultures. One of the biggest hurdles these teachers face is finding ways to get to know their students and then to connect their classroom mathematics lessons to their students’ own experiences and interests outside of school. In previous publications (Ensign, 2001, 2003) I have detailed how teachers can use students’ personal, out-of-school experiences in mathematics to teach their math lessons in school. In this chapter, I focus on using this approach in teacher education courses that I teach and chronicle the steps I see prospective teachers taking as they move through denial, resistance, and later understanding of including students’ cultures in classroom instruction.
