ABSTRACT
This simple lesson illustrates one aspect of the kind of teaching that Louise Ann was attempting to do in the late 1990s. Within the context of a large, longitudinal, multi-site study project, teachers and researchers worked to enact “funds of knowledge” (Vélez-Ibáñez & Greenberg, 1992) teaching. That is, we made efforts to understand and value families’ skills, knowledge, and experiences and we attempted to make curricular connections to the family understandings for purposes of better student engagement and achievement. Louise Ann acknowledged Shontay’s out-of-school experiences and spontaneously turned it into a short math lesson. In addition to spontaneous lessons the teachers also developed highly planned units of study based on family knowledge and experiences.
