Students find purpose in their learning process when they can connect with the institution, the instructor, and information with their personal experience. Creating culturally responsive learning environments promotes student access and success while acknowledging institutional, instructional and behavioral obstacles. Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning (CRTL) environments address learning barriers and introduces effective practices to improve equitable outcomes across disciplines, moving us toward equity-minded learning environments that are welcoming, supportive, and student-centered - radical care.
"This 'cultural fabric,' primarily of European and middle-class origins, is so deeply ingrained in the structures, ethos, programs, and etiquette of schools that it is considered simply the 'normal' and 'right' thing to do."
- Geneva Gay, Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (3rd edition)
Culture refers to a dynamic system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioral standards, world views, and beliefs used to give order and meaning to our own lives as well as the lives of others (Gay, 2010; Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991). It also denotes a system of shared meanings expressed through patterns of customs, practices, and thoughts (Tervalon and Murray-Garcia, 1998). Culture, therefore influences how we think, feel, communicate, and learn.
Britany Barron shares a necessary understanding history of race in America.
"There is no escaping the fact that education is a sociocultural process. Hence, a critical examination of the role of culture in human life is indispensable to the understanding and control of educative processes."
- Pai, Adler, and Shadlow, Cultural Foundations of Education (4th Edition)
To get straight to the point, Geneva Gay describes the value of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning by calling out the sociopolitical reality we must know, admit and confront:
Students of color from ethnic, racial, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds different from the dominant Eurocentric middle-class group still are not receiving proportional, equitable, high-quality educational opportunities and performance outcomes. U.S. society continues to be plagued by resource inequities and human indignities toward diverse populations and communities. Racism, homophobia, classism, and other forms of inequality and oppression are still rampant (Gay xxix).
Gay is not alone in her clarion call. Zaretta Hammond declares:
As educators, we have to recognize that we help maintain the achievement gap when we don't teach advance cognitive skills to students we label as disadvantaged because of their language, gender, race, or socioeconomic status... While the achievement gap has created the epidemic of dependent learners, culturally responsive teaching is one of our most powerful tools for helping students find their way out of the gap (14-15).
Culturally responsive teaching and learning provides a pathway to enabling all students to become independent thinkers.
Let's revisit the difference between dependent thinkers and independent thinkers
In CRTL, education leaders become the cultural translators or cultural bridge builders. Environments, teachers and leaders take the prior cultural experiences from their students and connect between what is known and what is to be taught and understood.
Data reveals a dilemma in achievement when it comes to our disproportionately impacted students. CRTL argues that the dilemma in the achievement gap is the incompatibility between the cultural filters used to send instructional messages to students from the school frame of reference and how students receive messages through their own set of cultural filters. If they do not connect with the instructional messages, then learning doesn't happen. We are not equitizing our communication when our instructional messages do not connect
-@ONE Equity & Culturally Responsive Teaching & Learning Online
There are 5 assumptions about teaching with a "colorblind" attitude:
Education has nothing to do with culture and heritage.
Conventional teaching practices should reflect European American core cultural values.
Teachers mistakenly believe that to treat students differently because of their cultural orientation is racial discrimination.
Good teaching is transcendent. It's identical for all students.
Education is an effective doorway of assimilation into mainstream society.
It may not be color-blindness, but these attitudes do create blindspots. Applying an equity lens helps to surface and examine these attitudes, blindspots, and practices. Geneva Gay notes that CRTL "begins by exposing the fallacy of cultural neutrality and the homogeneity syndrome in teaching and learning for Native, African, Latino and Asian American students who are not performing very well on traditional measures of school achievement" (Gay 29). However, the process of exposing and admitting the fallacy of cultural neutrality and the homogeneity syndrome within ourselves is hard for it requires self-discovery and acknowledgement of our own implicit biases, and the courage to purge them.
As humans, we are wired to crave connection. However, when a person feels threatened socially or psychologically, their brain triggers the release of chemicals that cause one to disconnect. Culturally responsive practicioners understand that caring is a powerful source of communication. Education leaders, staff & teachers who genuinely care for their students' success will work tenaciously to ensure it.
With core values of caring, our partnership with students can promote purpose in learning and even living.
"We are placing someones loved one on a journey. It is our responsibility to give students the best experience in their collegiate journey." - Fabiola Torres
The work of Zaretta Hammond asks, "What is the connection between neuroscience and culturally responsive teaching and learning?" We begin by discussing how learning barriers, mindsets, language, and stereotype threat affect us both mentally and physically conditions.
Hammond's work builds onto this foundation by explaining how these stressors create apprehension, fear, and insecurity that causes students to move away, as opposed to lean into a learning experience.
Take a moment to reflect on a time in your own student experiences when you felt yourself push away because something didn't align with what you were accustomed to or fit your lifestyle. Or maybe you read something that just didn't make sense to you, so you closed your computer or phone. That's moving away. We want our students to lean in and engage.
Imagine that a course is an experience. What does that experience feel like? Feelings are the result of hormones released in the brain:
cortisol enables fear, defense, or escape;
dopamine fosters motivation;
and oxytocin encourages bonding with others.
So as we become equity-minded culturally responsive practitioners, we must be aware that the learning environments we create are actually experiences that have a real impact on our students' brains, which, in turn, affects them psychologically.
It is important that we apply the Brain Rules to our daily practice and employ strategies to increase dopamine and oxytocin, while reducing cortisol in the learning environment.
Please remember to lead with your heart and bring your whole self to the learning environment so that you may continue to teach and inspire that student who needs your expertise, talents, and wisdom to help them succeed. Think deeply about the policies and practices that impact our students' lives, and continue to be allies for them. And be sure to share this work with your colleagues in your institution, in department meetings, with your Classified & Academic Senate, and with your managers and Executive team. And consider participating in or helping to lead equity efforts at your institution!
As equity practitioners, let's move forward with our sleeves rolled up, hearts and minds committed to helping each of our students experience success. Let's embrace the work ahead because we now have more strategies and skills to effectively address equity gaps in the online learning environment.