Hello! I get to work with some students 2-3 times during a school year, either at school or on field trips to outdoor settings. When I read it, I realized that true culturally responsive teaching isnt as simple as I thought it was; its much more holistic. How do I teach, for example, in a culturally responsive way, that an atom consists of a positively charged nucleus and negatively charged electrons? Recognizing and nurturing those strengths not only encourages success but also promotes an open-minded, supportive environment that celebrates cultural differences. Thank you for the work you do and for advocating for students of color/diverse students. They are initiating a project that targets 20 CMCSS teacher aides and 20 recent high school graduates who all are first generation and minority students. You can have a student have a critical lens, Hammond says, but if hes reading three grade levels behind, (social justice teaching) is not going to do much to accelerate that. (Learn more about social justice resources here.). I think that we are fortunate that our practice is explicitly tied to the needs of diverse learners and the requirement for teachers to be culturally responsive. Culturally responsive teaching is a shift in mindset that will not happen overnight. Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Learn more about social justice resources here, how to use call-and-response to deepen student thinking, tips for making lessons more culturally responsive, Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain, The Diversity Kit: An Introductory Resource for Social Change in Education, Four Ways Teachers Can Support Students of Color, What We Can All Learn from a Montessori Classroom, How Dialogue Journals Build Teacher-Student Relationships, 13 Stunning Places to Publish Student Art and Writing, http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/4671, https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/registered-teacher-criteria-1, Four Tools for Interrupting Implicit Bias, 3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive. Relationships are about building trust so you can stretch students during productive struggle and they dont experience the stretch as stress but excitement because they are being led by a trusted ally. Heath and I had them make a list of the kinds of literacy that they encountered every day. Often they asked the storyteller to speak louder or reminded him/her that the story had to be true. Culturally responsive teaching doesn't mean lowering standards, Irvine says. Based on this, the idea to use restorative circles as a medium for classroom conversations and language development was created. Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post. A teacher recently told me that her students house was so loud that she didnt know how he could learn at home. While this strategy is often included in culturally responsive toolboxes, if a teacher doesnt take the time to learn how to use call-and-response to deepen student thinking, it might never serve a purpose beyond fun. It is based on the idea that every student brings unique cultural strengths to the classroom. This summer I took a short professional development class on Culturally Responsivre Teaching. Framed by culturally responsive teaching (CRT), this qualitative study explored how one middle school teacher and his students in two summer school English classes interacted with and responded to novel technology-based instructional approach that sought to connect the students' lives outside of school to the classroom. Needless to say, they defined literacy as the texts on cereal boxes, beer cans, eviction notices, etc.. After this project, the students posed their question: How are we supposed to make sense out of literacy in this rich folks school? These questions led to deeper and more complex questions that the students initiated. You can learn more through john powells work (he doesnt capitalize his name) around structural racialization. Trusting relationships are one part of the whole system when it comes to problem-solving. Once these connections have been established, additional ones can be created through music, food, and the sharing of common experiences. That first research project and becoming-a-teacher researcher caused me to begin to understand the seditious role cultural power plays in teaching and learning. Asking parents to read books or tell a story in their language can be the start of a great partnership. Bishop, R. (2009). The first two to six weeks of a semester is a very crucial time for all studentsespecially, students in the minority. Send your questions to lferlazzo@epe.org. perspectives related to culturally responsive pedagogy and possible strategies for employing the framework in the K -12 setting. But true culturally responsive teaching is more complex than that. However, my new students were often hindered by well-meaning educators who did not relate to their students cultural meaning-making or expressions of cultural pride. Educators' efforts to create classrooms where all students succeed can be sorted into three categories. In her role as an the English-language-development team lead in the Douglas County school district in Colorado, she coaches, mentors, and supports teachers and facilitates family-engagement opportunities: OK, I have to confess. Some intelligence-gathering can be done by just paying attention to students and what is happening in their world. She is the author of the 2015 book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, which offers a neuroscience-based teaching framework that goes beyond surface changes to really build cognitive capacity in our students from diverse backgrounds. Practical ways to make lessons more culturally responsive. To me thats essentially what youre saying. Such an important podcastthank you for the opportunity to hear Dr. Hammond speak about this important issue. 2. It was so informative, my wheels were spinning, I wanted more ASAP. It sets the tone for the time students will spend together and it should be one that it is supportive to all. Id suggest going back and reading the Trust Builders in Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Cheryl, thanks for listening! Spread the loveThis term refers to a student-based model of training, whereby the specific strengths of a student are recognized and cultivated to ensure the students accomplish great things and have a valid sense of belonging in the world. Gay refers to culturally responsive teaching as a way of addressing "universal marginality, powerlessness, and disadvantages" within the classroom by taking a critical view of the . Do your recon to really know your students. Author . This plug and play misconception can lead teachers to do things like adding call-and-response to their classroom routine, then assuming they have done enough to reach diverse students. Three reflective questions for culturally responsive teaching. Multiculturalism plays into the notion of color blindness as being the route to equity. Zaretta Hammond, The Diversity Kit: An Introductory Resource for Social Change in Education Accepting and understanding ones biases must be a first step in order to get out of our comfort zones and ensure that our students feel accepted and included in all aspects of the instructional process. Teachers need to interrogate their practice a little more robustly, because its not an off-the-shelf program, its not two or three strategies. less likely to practice culturally competent care.3-4 Since teaching drives practice, ath-letic training programs must seek to better educate students about providing culturally competent care. Culturally Sustaining/Revitalizing Pedagogy is a promising practice in utilizing Native culture and language to positively impact Native learners' achievement. Ms. Hammond thanks for defining culturally responsive teaching. Can you update the link? . 12. So the trusting relationship is just one part, and not the part. 2) Create a ritual that allows you reconnect quickly during after being apart for so long. I cant find any strategies or techniques within the podcast or website. The sequencing of that is really important.. Before beginning her career in teacher education, she directed child-development centers and taught at the kindergarten and secondary education levels: I suggest that teachers create learning environments that welcome the conversations, questions, and stories of multiple voices. By and large these approaches advocate for the recognition of students' cultural backgrounds as critical to their learning success (Gay, 2013; Ladson-Bilings, 1994). In addition, teachers should help learners engage in the subject matter that they, the learners, wish to pursue as well as the means that they want to use to explore that content. Another way is to talk with them, their families, and members of the community. The approaches require that teachers ask hard questions about privilege, culture, and what we want for the students. Think-pair-share exercises expose students to three lesson-processing experiences, allowing them to work individually and with a tutor or tutee. Disadvantages While there are many advantages to culturally responsive teaching, there are disadvantages as well. Culturally responsive teaching comes after a teacher understands how inequity by design works and uses the powerful pedagogy of CRT to help student process information better. Do they value individuals over community? Thanks so much for sharing Ill make sure Jenn see this!!! Regardless of where you are in your own understanding of this subject, taking a closer look at these four misconceptions should help you refine it a bit more. Value all. You mention how CLR strategies are good for all students and I just finished reading research on how using CLR in classrooms benefits all students, not just culturally and linguistically diverse students. For example, using the book Alma and How She Got Her Name, by Juana Martinez, students were able to engage in conversations about belonging to cultures with different pronunciations of names and how those names connect us to family members near and far. While those are really noble things and critical to a high-functioning classroom and school climate, it doesnt have anything to do with learning capacity.. Ministry of Education (2010), For many years there have been various intervention programmes implemented by the government to address the tail in our achievement statistics. I teach 8th grade English, and I am amazed every year about how so many of my students have not had high expectations of them by their teachers its so obvious. The quality of the relationship between teacher and student is one of the most crucial factors in Mori learners being able to engage effectively in education. Gloria Ladson-Billings proposed three main components . Hours. The second approach, the Shared Journal Process (Taylor, Branscombe, Burcham, and Land, 2011), was developed by Taylor and several kindergarten teachers. Jennifer, that would be great. Thanks to Altagracia, Barbara, Saroja, Amanda, and Becky for their contributions! What are the actual strategies used to teach in a culturally responsive way? I know I am late to the discussion. I will like to read your other books. . Ministry of Education (2011) Make sure that your students cultures are represented on the walls and within the physical space of your classroom.