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Reflecting students' lived experience. Respecting culture, community, and individuals.
Reflecting students' lived experience. Respecting culture, community, and individuals.
Latinx students at UC Davis. Retrieved from https://www.higheredtoday.org/2018/01/29/understanding-latinx-college-student-diversity-matters/
What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?
What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?
Formal education has a long history of not seeing students.
Formal education has a long history of not seeing students.
Educational systems often work from the premise that students come to school to be educated because they lack knowledge, or that they need to be changed. But, do they?
How can any child or young adult who lives in and negotiates the world lack knowledge or innate capacity? Discounting the knowledge, lived experiences, and perspectives of our students is no longer acceptable. Ignoring students' reality outside the classroom creates intractable barriers to learning and hobbles those whom we are hoping to teach.
Culturally responsive teaching, as a theoretical concept and teaching philosophy, has its origins in the writings of Gloria Ladson-Billings, Geneva Gay, and Django Paris. "These scholars promote asset-based approaches as alternatives to popular deficit-oriented teaching methods, which position the languages, cultures, and identities of students as barriers to learning" (Understanding Culturally Responsive Teaching).
When someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it,
there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium,
as if you looked in the mirror and saw nothing.
When someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it,
there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium,
as if you looked in the mirror and saw nothing.
Broken Column, Frida Kahlo (1944). Retrieved from https://www.theartist.me/art-inspiration/20-famous-paintings-frida-kahlo/
Kids trying different fruits at their school garden, part of the Hawai'i Island School Garden Network. Retrieved from https://kidsgardening.org/hawaiis-school-garden-network-supports-school-gardens/
What does culturally responsive teaching look like?
What does culturally responsive teaching look like?
Culturally responsive teaching starts with deep knowledge of our students' cultures. Rather than working against students' lives outside of school, culturally responsive teachers embrace the wisdom of their students' cultures as avenues for greater understanding.
This video takes us inside a thoughtfully redesigned, Hawai'an culture-based educational program at the Kamehameha Schools, Hawai'i.
Why does culturally responsive teaching matter?
Why does culturally responsive teaching matter?
As Gloria Ladson-Billings realized in the 1990s, culturally relevant pedagogy is "just good teaching!” Culturally responsive teaching emphasizes high expectations for all students, and uses the cultural knowledge and expressive styles of students to foster greater achievement.
The question is not whether tying classroom instruction into students' lived experiences at home and in their communities is a good idea—we have been doing this for middle-class white students for a long time—but why schools haven't done so for all children from all backgrounds?
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Perhaps the most important step for teachers (particularly for the majority of teachers in America who are white) is giving up on the notion that our students are flawed and need to be saved . . .
and that you will be their savior.
"I always say, if you’re coming into a place to save somebody then you’ve already lost because young people don’t need saving. They have brilliance, it’s just on their own terms. Once we get the narrative shifted then every teacher can be effective, including white folks who teach in the hood."
"I always say, if you’re coming into a place to save somebody then you’ve already lost because young people don’t need saving. They have brilliance, it’s just on their own terms. Once we get the narrative shifted then every teacher can be effective, including white folks who teach in the hood."
- Christopher Emdin as interviewed by PBS News Hour, "What 'white folks who teach in the hood' get wrong about education"
Reality Pedagogy by Christopher Emdin
Reality Pedagogy by Christopher Emdin
In this talk Christopher Emdin talks about the true meaning and role of "peace", "justice", "equity" and "equality" in the classroom by talking about reality pedagogy.
TEDx Teachers College (2012)
Christopher Emdin's classroom. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/what-white-folks-who-teach-in-the-hood-get-wrong-about-education
Over the past twenty years, numerous scholars have refined our understanding of culturally responsive teaching, but one of the most influential writers is Dr. Christopher Emdin, Columbia University professor, author of For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood . . . and the Rest of Y'all Too, and creator of #HipHopEd, which you can follow and search on Twitter!
Spanish teacher Trevor Boffone in a Dubsmash video with one of his students. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/unconventional-approach-culturally-responsive-pedagogy
How can I be a more culturally responsive teacher?
How can I be a more culturally responsive teacher?
Culturally responsive teaching requires consideration of topics that most people avoid: racism, sexism, structural oppression, anti-LGBTQIA+ bias, language bias, xenophobia, and unconscious or implicit bias. It also requires ACTING on those considerations to reduce bias, miscommunication, and erasure of our students and their personal, familial, and cultural identities.
That said, being culturally responsive starts with simply caring about students and being authentic. Meet students where they live, and grow from there.
As Zaretta Hammond, author of the book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain explains:
"Culturally responsive teaching doesn’t have to be some performance the teacher does to entertain students and . . . it doesn’t have to mention race or reference culture at all.
Instead, what makes a practice culturally responsive is that it mimics students’ own cultural learning tools. . . . These practices are helpful for all students, not targeted at minority students."
"Culturally responsive teaching doesn’t have to be some performance the teacher does to entertain students and . . . it doesn’t have to mention race or reference culture at all.
Instead, what makes a practice culturally responsive is that it mimics students’ own cultural learning tools. . . . These practices are helpful for all students, not targeted at minority students."
The quote above is from a post written by Zaretta Hammond, 3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive on the the Cult of Pedagogy website.
Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
Education experts Jackie Jordan Irvine, Geneva Gay and Kris Gutierrez explain how to make culturally relevant pedagogy a reality in your classroom.
Teaching Tolerance (2010)
Want to know more? Zaretta Hammond is a fellow with Teaching Tolerance, where several of her articles are available. She hosts learning opportunities and blogs at CTRandtheBrain, and posts on Twitter as @Ready4rigor
Click HERE for Jennifer Gonzalez's 2017 interview with Zaretta Hammond about 4 Misconceptions concerning culturally responsive teaching.
"Cultural responsiveness is more of a process than a strategy.
It begins when a teacher recognizes the cultural capital
and tools students of color bring to the classroom."
"Cultural responsiveness is more of a process than a strategy.
It begins when a teacher recognizes the cultural capital
and tools students of color bring to the classroom."
February 25, 2015.
Grove School Students. Redlands, CA.
My commitment to culturally responsive teaching.
My commitment to culturally responsive teaching.
As an anthropologist, I've spent my adult life studying culture, people, and power dynamics. My commitment to my students has always been to respect each student as a unique individual with their own experiences, perspectives, and knowledge that transcend the classroom. My hope has been to provide a broad scope on the past and the human condition, to help students see beyond their own experiences and cultures, and, ultimately, to value difference and diversity.
As a secondary school teacher:
I commit to researching a wide variety of cultural influences and knowledge systems, including those of my students, so that I can provide a fuller and more accurate accounting of science and its history.
I commit to maintaining high expectations for all students because I know that, given the proper support, all students can learn, grow, and thrive.
I commit to listening to and learning from my students every day.
Links
Links
Brown University Culturally Responsive Teaching Webpage - includes links to explanations of key components of culturally responsive teaching
The Knowledge Loom: Culturally Responsive Teaching - PDF also from the folks at Brown University; contains real-world classroom and teacher experiences and descriptions
Teaching Tolerance website - a wealth of information for culturally responsive teaching, social justice, activism, and diversity
Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Guide to Evidence-Based Practices for Teaching All Students Equitably - PDF from the Equity Assistance Center of Education Northwest; very through
Culturally Responsive Teaching - A 50-state survey of teaching standards policy document written by Jenny Muñiz, updated March 28, 2019
Culturally Responsive Teaching: What You Need to Know - a guide from the Understood group of educators
5 Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies - Clear breakdown of preferred culturally responsive instructional methods from Northeastern University's College of Professional Studies (2019)
Getting Started with Culturally Responsive Teaching - from Edutopia, a very useful primer
Eastern Oregon University Oregon Teacher Pathway Resources - this website leans heavily on culturally responsive instruction
Check out Twitter! and expand your teaching support group.
Check out Twitter! and expand your teaching support group.
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