Culture education

Thinking about our visits to Holmes Elementary, Global Neighborhood, the Refugee Parent's Panel, Jacob's Well, the Salish Language Workshop, the Julyamsh Powwow, the American Indian Education Center, Riverfront Farms, Great Northern School District, and what we've been discussing in our academic classes, what did you discover about how cultural background affects students' success in school? In what ways is this similar to your home country? In what ways is this different than in your home country? As an educator, how do you understand your role in assisting students from a variety of cultural backgrounds to be successful in school?
In my country, I dont't remenber my teachers os seeing others teachers talking about other peoples's culture, because they assume they should only talk about the portuguese culture where everybody is monogomous, catholic, white,etc. We should think outside the box, because otherwise we are being etnocentric and disrepectuful or , at least we are negleting.
I borrowed an american book for children and compared to the portugueses books and my concluison was: in Portugal they dont't give the same importance to culure as they give in America. I understand that in America there is more mixtures , but that's not an excuse to ignore this cultures from the books.
In terms of cultural aspects, I think that is really important that we care about other people's backgrounds, because enrich our classroom and make students feel respected and understood. For example, some students don't eat during Ramadan and others want to wear a scarve. In France they don't let the women use a scarve in schools, even though is not covering their faces. I disagree with this law ,because is just a scarve, a symbol, is not like she is going to behave badly just because she is wearing it.
We could create a day where everybody bring food or music from their culture and talks about it.