Roadmap For Becoming A Culturally Responsive Educator

Needham Public Schools

Roadmap For Becoming A Culturally Responsive Educator

"A tool to assist educators on their journey

to becoming culturally responsive."

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Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Schools and Classrooms

DESE Center for Instructional Support

Across Massachusetts, our students are becoming increasingly diverse. Our education system is steeped in norms, traditions, and a lens that too often do not reflect and may not be supportive of this diversity. All students, families, and communities should have access to schools that are inclusive of, responsive to, and reflective of their cultural backgrounds.

It is critical to recognize that, regardless of the terminology used, the goal of this work is for educators to have the knowledge and capacity to serve all students well. In order to be highly effective, educators must develop an authentic understanding of the students and adults in their school communities, ensure that their students' experiences in school are affirming of who they are and what they bring to the school community, and unpack how their own culture impacts their worldview and approach.

What Is Cultural Responsiveness?

DESE Center for Instructional Support

Cultural responsiveness is an approach to viewing culture and identity as assets, including students' race, ethnicity, or linguistic assets, among other characteristics. Zaretta Hammond, a leading scholar on cultural responsiveness, explains that it is "a way to use culture to build trust and relationships with students as well as develop the cognitive scaffolding that builds on the broader knowledge students already have so that they can become competent, independent learners."1 We know from the research and from students and families that when educators are responsive to students' cultures and identities, students will have stronger relationships with educators, better learning experiences, and better outcomes.2 It is important to note that, while relationship building is necessary for cultural responsiveness, the ultimate goal is increasing student achievement.

Cultural responsiveness is essential for all students in the classroom, regardless of their background, culture, or identity. Educators should promote a school and classroom environment that is not only respectful of all cultures, but one that leverages student culture to improve and deepen learning. As Gloria Ladson-Billings explains, "A next step for positioning effective pedagogical practice is a theoretical model that not only addresses student achievement but also helps students to accept and affirm their cultural identity while developing critical perspectives that challenge inequities that schools (and other institutions) perpetuate." In order to do this, educators must be aware of bias and how it impacts the adults and students in the school community. Further, they should embrace asset-based practices that make an explicit commitment to sustaining the cultural identity of students, families, and communities, while proactively investigating barriers and challenges they face.

The Roadmap For Becoming A Culturally Responsive Educator

This is a tool developed by the Curriculum, Programs, and Data Subcommittee of Needham’s REAL Coalition to assist educators along their journey towards becoming culturally responsive. The roadmap is drawn from a variety of resources* and includes four domains through which to conceptualize culturally responsive teaching - KNOW YOURSELF, KNOW YOUR STUDENTS, KNOW YOUR CONTENT, and KNOW YOUR PRACTICE. Each of these domains includes essential skills and actions that educators can take to build confidence and competence as culturally responsive educators. Additionally, each domain offers reflective questions for educators to consider as they determine where they are on their journey and corresponding resources and suggestions for professional development geared towards continuous learning and growth.

Suggestions for use of this tool include:

Self-reflection
Forming smart goals
Developing Professional Learning Plans
Designing curriculum and instruction
Engaging in conversations

*Resources: www.ghequityinstitute.com/; crtandthebrain.com/; www.leadingequitycenter.com/; The Education Alliance. Brown University (http://knowledgeloom,org); Equity Alliance: Culturally Responsive Teaching Matters! DESE Center for Instructional Practices, https://pollyannaincrlc.org/, RIDES

How does this roadmap support the Portrait of a Needham Graduate?

In order for teachers to help support students as they develop as socially and culturally responsive contributors, it is essential that teachers know themselves, know their students, know their content, and know their practice.

This includes:

Going beyond teaching about diversity and respect for individual differences in order to ensure that every student is able to reach the competency for Socially and Culturally Responsive Contributors
Helping students develop the empathy and courage to act to ensure equity, access and an anti-racist culture
Providing students with the social-emotional support strength, and racial stamina to recognize systemic racism in the world today
Ensuring opportunities for students to trace the historical origins of race and systemic racism and its legacy and impact on our current time
Fostering the self-reflection skills necessary to recognize how the process of socialization has impacted their own views and attitudes on race and racism
Providing opportunities to engage with the community to make positive contributions

Domain 1: Know Yourself

To Know Yourself Means:

To understand one’s culture and why culture matters
To recognize biases and develop ways to overcome them
To consciously work at transforming oneself and one’s professional practice
To understand how issues of race, whiteness, and social dominance interact to create and sustain race-based educational disparities

To understand how the dynamics of dominance impact student outcomes in our schools and classrooms and how issues of privilege and power may get in the way of one’s practice
To understand how one’s race consciousness impacts student’s feelings of inclusion and efficacy
To practice the skills and dispositions to engage in difficult conversations as a means to understand privilege
To act with empathy and courage to ensure equity, access, and an anti-racist culture

Key Questions for Reflection:

How am I acting with empathy and courage to ensure equity, access, and an anti-racist culture?
To what extent do I recognize the role of microaggressions, implicit bias, intersectionality, stereotype threat, and systemic racism in my classroom interactions?
What aspects of myself did I bring to designing my lessons or working with my student?
What aspects of my lesson feel comfortable to me? What aspects of my lesson do not feel comfortable to me and are requiring me to stretch myself or assume a different perspective?
What bias or privileges was I mindful of when planning my lesson or working with my student?
What expectations do I have for each of the students I am working with? For whom do my expectations differ? Why?

Domain 2: Know Your Students

To Know Your Students Means:

To draw on students’ culture to shape curriculum and instruction
To actively learn about students’ backgrounds, cultural differences, interests, and learning preferences and translate this knowledge into instructional practice
To design and organize the classroom in ways that are inclusive and representative of all members of the classroom and school community
To build cultural sensitivity beyond easily stereotyped artifacts of culture (eg. food and art) towards ways of communicating and learning that are meaningful to students
To universally design methods and materials to provide greater access and learning mastery
To understand and address stereotyping, stereotype threat, microaggressions, and colorism
To create a sustainable learning environment that appreciates ability levels, socioeconomic status, gender, and sexual identity of students

Key Questions for Reflection:

Does my language, actions, and nonverbal cues build rapport and trust with my students?
How did I use my relationships with my students to design my lesson/activities?
What data did I / can I use about students to help plan my lesson?
- Ask students for examples from their own experiences.
- Assess prior knowledge and build on what students know.
How does this lesson connect to my students’ experiences?
How did I build upon the assets of my students in this lesson?
Am I building student agency through my language and feedback?
Do my students engage in conversation as knowers, problem solvers, and flexible thinkers (as opposed to conveyors of right answers)?

Domain 3: Know Your Practice

To Know Your Practice Means:

To provide culturally responsive universally designed curriculum and instruction that honors and supports all learners
To employ decolonial educational practices to disrupt traditional formats of teaching and learning
To utilize collectivist instruction to create collaborative learning environments that validates and supports all learners
To model high expectations for all students
To systematically move students from dependent to independent learners
To leverage relationships to increase engagement and effective effort
To employ culturally responsive SEL practices and behavior management techniques
To regularly communicate with families about student learning and performance while demonstrating understanding of and respect for different home languages, cultures, and values
To develop student advocacy and social justice awareness

Key Questions for Reflection:

To what extent does my lesson celebrate diversity, promote critical consciousness, or increase the independent learning capacity of diverse learners?

How do the relationships I build with students allow me to challenge them and increase their willingness to take academic risks?
To what extent are students carrying the cognitive load in my classroom?
How do you structure lessons to allow diverse opportunities for students to interact and demonstrate knowledge and understanding?
How do I establish an environment in which students are respectful of each other and their perspectives?
To what extent do I incorporate current trends and research on culturally relevant pedagogy into my content area?

Domain 4: Know Your Content

To Know Your Content Means:

To look for and address biases
To increase complexity of the story
To use texts and other materials that honor different races and cultures and helps to develop a positive perspective of self, others, and the larger world
To provide content that helps students gain knowledge about race and racism in America
To provide content that helps students acquire an awareness of their own racial socialization and skills for engaging in productive conversations about race and racism
To engage student voice
To require students to think critically and solve problems
To synthesize content across disciplines and vertically

Key Questions for Reflection:

Are the perspectives of marginalized groups acknowledged as part of the fabric of the dominant story as opposed to add-ons or (solely) as subjects that represent a particular group?
Do the curriculum materials engage all students as we consider background, culture, gender, interests, etc.?
To what extent do students gain an appreciation for diverse voices within my discipline?
Does the curriculum offer opportunities for students to explore their own stories as well as the stories of others?
To what extent are students provided with voice and choice in navigating the content?
Thinking about the content of the lesson, how are some students’ privileged over others based on their experiences?
Does the curriculum acknowledge multiple perspectives and stories?
Does the curriculum content promote the dominant narrative in our culture and to what extent does it offer counter narratives?
To what extent am I presenting the content for student interpretation and critique vs a body of knowledge to be accepted?

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