Introduction

I am born and raised on LOCATION, about 20 minutes from the high school that I teach at, SCHOOL NAME. While it is argued that our our island is quite small, the rich and diverse cultures have created communities that differ from valley to valley. Even though my school is only 20 minutes away from my home, I have been exposed to a new culture of people and places in my new beloved community of NAME. The students of SCHOOL NAME are similarly rich of diversifying cultures that I am lucky to learn about every day as their teacher.

As I learn more about my students, I become better equipped to be a Culturally Responsive Teacher, a necessity to being an educator. Becoming a culturally responsive teacher is a two way street, students sharing their culture, and taking that information in order to create culturally responsive lessons that amplifies authentic voices. My students have played the largest role in molding me into the teacher I currently am and they will continue to mold me as I become more exposed to my students and their unique cultures

Internal Reflection and Self Examination

Educators play a vital role in helping youth establish a foundation for their personal and cultural identity. As I reflect on my experiences in primary and secondary schools, I recognize the lack of culturally responsive teachers impacted my cultural, educational, and personal development. By no means do I seek to complain about my experiences, considering the privileges that I have been granted, I just hope to use that experience as a drive to play the important role of a culturally responsive educator to my students.

It is important to recognize that prior to executing practices that seek to establish cultural identity in students, educators must first ground themselves in understanding their personal identity. I have come to understand that the discovery of my cultural and personal identity took much more self examination than I initially believed. Throughout high school and college, I found myself confused with my biracial identity which consequated in cognitive dissonance. As I worked to find consistency within my identity, I began to understand the uniqueness that my biracial identity has provided me.

Despite not being fully exposed to the type of culture my student’s have grown up in, they have time and time again shown me that they are knowledgeable, curious, and passionate about everything. People underestimate the perseverance and knowledge of the students that I work with and I will continue to confront biases of those who question my community's strength.

Classroom Planning: Building Relationships

My cultural and personal identity is constantly changing and challenging current and past beliefs that I hold. While I always work to gain a deeper understanding of myself, being an effective educator also requires a deep understanding of my students. Building relationships with my students is my primary goal every year. From just listening to my students chat in my free time to deep classroom discussions regarding past experiences and lifelong desires, the information that they share is key to creating a classroom that is their own.

The first time I ever called home to share the amazing progress of one of my students is the reason I continue to do it to this day. I had a student that was having a difficult day, I could sense her frustration by her facial expressions, but she continued to work through the lesson and even stayed after class to help her partner. I let her leave as soon as she finished but I wanted to show my appreciation for her kindness and perseverance even though she was struggling. I called her mom and introduced myself as her Math teacher, I was immediately caught off guard by her hostility, “I only have 30 seconds, what did she do?” I let her know that I was extremely proud of her daughter for the work she had been putting in and working through even though I understood that some days she didn’t want to. I talked to her mom for 10 minutes about how incredible she is, even though her grades don’t accurately reflect that. I spoke to her for nine and a half minutes longer than she initially wanted because of the relationship we were building for her daughter and my student. That same student visited my classroom pretty much everyday after that.

Establishing the Classroom Environment

As students enter their classrooms on the first day of school, I want them to understand that they are the molders and creators of their learning experience. My second year teaching, I worked with an incredible co-teacher that did so by having the students create their own classroom expectation, consequences of failing to meet expectations, and personal goals. I took this planning strategy back to my classroom and the results were astonishing. When students have the opportunity to shape the framework of their own classroom they begin to establish their sense of belonging to the classroom which affects their well-being and consequently their actions in class.

Building a Community

I have been able to get to know my students personalities throughout the year, however, I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of my students diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. To develop stronger connections with my students, I had them all write a letter to me so that I could gain a better understanding of who they are as a holistic person, not just what I perceive of them in class. I was astounded to learn so many interesting beliefs and perspectives my students shared. One pattern that I noted from reading all of the letters is that my students value family over everything. Despite my students sharing the difficulties or hardships their family have faced, in the end of the day, those are the people they count on the most. This information solidified the need to create a classroom environment that prioritized a sense of community and family values.

With the impacts of CoVid-19 hindering abilities for students to get to know one another and myself getting to know them, it is important that innovative practices are implemented to encourage a sense of community. In order to cultivate personal connections with and among with culturally and linguistically diverse students, I had them complete a “getting to know each other” slideshow where students shared their interests, hobbies, and aspects of their life they find important.

Given the difficulties of distance learning and limited time with all of the students, they did an incredible job of interacting with one another through inquiry and conversation. Through this community building exercise I was able to have students interact with one another so that we could have build a classroom with the foundation of community and personal connection at the forefront.

Cultivating Personal Connections

It is important to ensure that classrooms are structured in ways that are responsive to my student’s needs. While it is difficult to immediately understand what their exact needs are at the beginning of the year, I strive to continually improve my practice so that it is adjusted based on what I learn about them and what they share with me. If I have learned anything about teaching thus far, it is that students' needs should be placed at the forefront of any teaching strategy. I constantly do so by encouraging students to build personal connections with one another and with me through the below activities.

Intellectual Safety

In order to explicitly plan for a culturally responsive classroom, students must feel that they are in an intellectually, emotionally, and socially safe environment. To prepare students to engage with one another in a manner that is respectful and appropriate for all community members, students were given an “Intellectual Safety” lesson. The purpose is to ensure that students understand the standards that are expected in our classroom environment. It is imperative that all students’ voices are elevated, respected, and encouraged in my class so that students feel comfortable to share the ideals, beliefs, and opinions in order to expand their perception of the world. The slideshow below outlines the instructions given to the students to understand intellectual safety.

The student responses have demonstrated their part in establishing and maintaining an intellectually and socially safe learning environment. Students were able to digest the definitions of intellectual safety in order to create definitions that resonate with them. This process allowed students to recognize the importance or respecting their classmates to ensure that our classroom environment would remain safe for everyone.

Student Reflections

Reflections are used consistently throughout the year so students are able to understand their progress as well offer constructive criticism to me. I have been able to utilize reflections that students submit to alter lessons in order to meet the needs of my students. Through reflection, I have come to learn the many modalities my students prefer, the best practice I have found is utilizing all of them. I want to ensure that students are receiving high quality instruction, and using their experiences as means of feedback is the most effective way to do so.

Student Profiles

After building personal connection with my students and developing classroom environment that fosters the sense of community, I am able to leverage their diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds though the curriculum. Below are three student profiles in which I outline valuable characteristics that I have learned of the students in order to create lessons that engage their backgrounds

Student A: Peter (pseudonym)

His response shows his ability to use biological concepts in order to strengthen his argument for efforts against the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea.

Student B: Tim (pseudonym)

Tim was exceptionally active during the lab, especially when determining what emotion his partner was feeling. Using his cultural and linguistic background, I was able to create a lab in which he was able to leverage his background to create higher order thinking and connect it to the topic of the Central Nervous System.

Student C: Izi (pseudonym)

I encouraged Izi to take on the role of the doctor so that he could simultaneously leverage his storytelling abilities while pretending to act as someone in a professional role. Izi nailed his presentation, he remained in character the duration of his presentation and developed a storyline that the audience was immediately able to understand and link to body systems at risk.

Culturally Responsive Teaching in Practice

Building meaningful relationships with my students is a priority in my classroom. The mechanisms above show the steps in which I take to gain a better understanding of them and their needs. The purpose of gaining a rich understanding of their culturally diverse backgrounds is to sustain trust in order to implement content that reflects their various backgrounds and is simultaneously rich in content. No school is the same, no class is the same, and no student is the same, therefore, instruction should be the same. Instruction should be varied in ways that amplifies their strengths and aids their areas of growth in order for them to become higher order thinkers that possess innovations skills that are necessary for success.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Plan

The Culturally Responsive Teaching Plan helped guide me to determine areas of strength and growth of my students. Therefore, as I plan for instruction I have a full understanding of strategies I need to implement to benefit my specific students. Creating my Culturally Responsive Teaching Plan required cultivating personal connections with my students in order to determine ways in which I could create authentic learning experiences for them. The result in my classroom shows an environment and community of learners.

Culturally Responsive Lesson Plans

My Culturally Responsive Teaching Lessons serve as the evidence that students are at the forefront of thought as I plan for instruction. All lessons are geared toward ensuring that students are able to gain deep understandings of new material in order to become critical thinkers. With various techniques presented in all the lessons, many of which students suggested in reflections, students are able to reach mastery of new material. Through harnessing connections and understandings of my students, I am able to create authentic learning experiences for my culturally and linguistically diverse students.

The lesson plans below highlight mechanisms used in order to meet the needs of my students based on their reflections. Many students stated that they preferred many modalities of learning, the lessons plans below demonstrate ways in which they were applied in the classroom. The lesson plan on the left demonstrates the use of stations in my classroom. Each station in the lesson allowed the students to learn about the Central Nervous System (CNC) in four radically different ways. The first station utilized online videos to understand mirror neurons, the second station required students to write a short Dr. Seuss styled poem about the CNC, and the last station required kinesthetic movements to understand receptors in the body. The second lesson plan, on the right, also uses different types of modalities in order for students to strengthen their high order thinking skills. This lesson was about biogeochemical cycles, however, students learned about the topic through discussion, research, and presentation. Students identified individual carbon emission to determine an estimate amount of carbon ‘Aiea High School puts out. They researched and discussed possible solutions that they could implement in order to decrease carbon usage at our school. Students put together a presentation with steps the schools could take in order to decrease their total amounts and presented it to the administration. Strategies from the lesson plan, including group work, arts-integration (Dr. Suess poem), kinesthetic learning, discussion, and presentations, are all different modalities that are vital in ensuring that all students have access to their preferred means of learning.

To leverage student’s diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, students use their understanding of our island and their communities to strengthen their higher order thinking. The lesson on the left requires students to pick some of their favorite places on the island in order to form a deep understanding of correlation. The destinations that students picked ranged from close to SCHOOL NAME to very far. Students shared their destinations with one another and reasons why they chose those places. Many of the places they picked were chosen due to personal significance, for example a student shared that his favorite place was Yokohama Bay because it is one of the furthest places away from the light pollution in Honolulu, therefore, that was his favorite place to watch the stars. Students then researched the time and distance it took to those locations from our school, when they got their coordinates they were able to plot them on a graph. When all points were plotted, they were able to determine that time and distance had a positive correlation to one another. Their ability to apply a mathematical concept to the real world demonstrates their high order thinking skills that developed through the process of a culturally responsive lesson. The second artifact, on the right, is a project that students engage in for Biology. The project requires students to determine a community they are a part of in order to compare the aspects of that community to the functions of organelles in a cell. Students often struggle when learning the function of a cell and the parts that belong to because cells are microscopic. The concept of cells is difficult to teach since they cannot see an individual cell with their bare eye. When given the task of understanding a cell through comparison of something they are familiar with, like a community they are a part of, they begin to understand how parts come together in order to create a functioning community or cell! The use of their cultural background has had a profound impact on their ability to understand difficult concepts, their incredible final projects are shown in the pictures below.

Ongoing Commitment to Reflection

The second professional development is called Cultivating Culturally Responsive Practices (above). This is a course for Spring 2021 that I have enrolled in. Continuing to partake in ongoing culturally responsive teaching and action will give me the tools necessary to support all of the diverse needs of my students. Not only does this course encourage examination of teach beliefs and the concept of identity, it also aids my journey to becoming a highly qualified teacher. Students that are taught by highly qualified teachers have statistically done better in academics.

I have also taken the initiative to further my reflection in order to deepen my role as a culturally responsive educator through developing a movie checklist that provides perspectives from various Native Hawaiian voices. Not only will I devote time in the classroom to honor my student’s authentic voices, but I also want to take my own time to learn about the development of my local culture through film. Most of the movies on the list are created, directed, and centered around the Native Hawaiian culture. Since I am a teacher to indigenous Native Hawaiian students and I am teaching on stolen Hawaiian land, it is important that I understand and reflect my respect for my students and their culture though learning about it. I have created a timeline for watching the movies and shared it with all of the teachers within ‘Aiea High School’s Freshman Academy. Within our group chat I will encourage thoughtful reflection and discussion between myself and other teachers. Since there are teachers in our Freshman Academy that are Native Hawaiian, we will hear perspectives and beliefs that are authentic and come from personal experience of being Native Hawaiian.

Conclusion

My students have exposed me to a rainbow of cultures that I commit to implementing in to my classroom practices. I am lucky to be a part of the ‘Aiea community and I owe this to my students. Through building deep relationships with my students, based of the idea of trusting one another, I have been able to use their insight to guide my development as a Culturally Responsive Teacher. Over the past couple of years I not only have formed a deep understanding of the community that I teach in, but my entire island as a whole too. With this understanding, I am obligated to share and teach this to the students that I will continually my work with. Their openness to share their culture will guide my practices to integrate their life with new content they will learn alongside me.