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Looking Inward: Self Reflection
Looking Inward: Self Reflection
As a cis-white female, it would be irresponsible not to properly analyze, reflect, learn, and un-learn many of my own implicit biases in my job as a teacher and as a person. Further, as the sole 4th grade humanities teacher at my current school site, I alone make many curricular and planning decisions, which is in it and of itself problematic because I hold specific worldviews, preferences, and blindspots. While I am given a lot of creative freedom and autonomy to interpret and reimagine our Wit and Wisdom ELA curriculum as I see fit for my student population, I cannot do this work effectively if I am not aware of my own identity. The first step in preparing for culturally responsive teaching is understanding myself — the ways my identity holds strengths and areas of growth that can be used to empower or cause harm, respectively. In this section, I will demonstrate how my own beliefs about the world and of public education have shifted, stretched, and progressed over the last few years in the classroom in order to provide the highest quality, most meaningful learning experiences for my scholars.
Un-Learning Through Academic Work
Un-Learning Through Academic Work
In my Sociology, History, and Education courses as an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, I found that one of the most natural places for me to begin making sense of identity, intersectionality, and culture is through academic work. As someone who needs a lot of processing time and multiple modalities through which I can express my feelings, writing has long been a meaningful way to organize my own thoughts and make sense of challenging content. Writing at this level of my journey into teaching, however, was largely based on theory and research rather than on my own practice. It is sometimes much easier to synthesize an academic's perspective on topics of racism, classism, and privilege than it is to unpack the ways in which those institutions impact the ways I show up in a professional and personal setting.
Coming into Johns Hopkins having completed TFA and a credentialing program, I had ample opportunity to write about systemic inequities through the scope of my classroom. Now, instead of thinking about macro societal challenges through a solely academic framework, I was being pushed to apply this learning and theory into my own practice. In the beginning, I admittedly struggled with feelings of guilt, uncertainty about my own strength in approaching such a challenging job, and imposter syndrome. Looking back at some of my earlier assignments, I can see the ways in which I felt so strongly that I had to resist a white savior complex in the classroom and demonstrate that I was "woke" enough to approach this work adequately. Of course, guilt and virtue signaling do little to actually promote change within the self, a classroom, or larger system. That said, I own that these feelings are still a piece of my journey into deeper understanding and genuine desire to do right by my scholars and their families.
CulturalSelfStudy_AbberNatalie (1).docxMy cultural self-study from JHU's Effective Practices II dissects the way my identity markers affect and inform my teaching practice.
In my Culturally Responsive Teaching reflection to the left, I reflected on the ways in which gender, class, and religion make me the person I am and inform my practice as an educator. I explore critically what it means to show up to my school site every day having lived a life of immense privilege and opportunity. The truth is, I am an outsider in the community I serve and my lived experiences differ tremendously from those I teach in my work. While this was not a realization I came to as I started teaching, I believe that the severity of disparate lived realities hit me hardest when beginning TFA and my teaching career in the summer of 2020. Having a very explicit look into my students' home lives through Zoom teaching, I came to deeply understand and grow tremendously frustrated by the barriers to entry for my scholars. Whether it be unsteady internet access or having to prepare meals to support younger siblings and adults, my students' responsibilities extend far beyond school. There were times where I questioned if I should be enforcing homework policies or tracking minutes spent on learning programs like Lexia or Amplify when I could see the ways in which my students struggled just to come to class.
In my first year, which was undoubtedly a challenging one on all accounts, I was unsure how to navigate these feelings. I simultaneously wanted to provide high expectations and rigorous content for my students while also honoring their lived realities and current circumstances that might not always allow school to be a priority. I found myself frustrated with families, students who logged in and out of Zoom learning sporadically, and generally disheartened that I could hold both truths: that my students were struggling to get their basic needs met and emphasizing the importance of learning.
Through this experience and a serious look at the ways in which I was allowing my own biases and privilege to interfere with providing the best experiences possible for my scholars, I learned the dangers of either/or thinking and was able to recognize that many of the challenges I was facing came from my own deficit mindset. In Zoom teaching and in the classroom, my job as an educator is to provide a safe, welcoming, and deeply meaningful learning environment for my scholars with great emphasis on their backgrounds, culture, and lived experience. I learned the power of both/and thinking as well as multiple truths. Recognizing these tenets of white supremacy culture in myself was unsettling, and ultimately allowed for greater progress in my own identity work and growth as a culturally responsive educator. As I continued reflecting, reading, and writing about the ways my identity implicates what goes on in my classroom, I began to recognize the power of strong relationships, meaningful family engagement, and critical discussion. This continues to inform my approach to advocacy and access work.
CRTClassroomPlan_AbberNatalie (1).docxEven in my third year of teaching, I still see the ways in which I miss the mark and struggle with implementing authentic CRT in my classroom. In my CRT Implementation Plan just a few assignments later from the one above, I discuss the challenges I faced in consistent, intentional relationship building and family communication in the first quarter of the school year. With so many ideas of ways to engage students in rigorous, anti-racist learning opportunities, I realized that I left out one of the most critical components: my students. Though I was still building strong relationships with scholars from the start of the year through surveys, ongoing feedback, and homework support after school, I was allowing my own overwhelm to distract from getting to know each of my scholars and families as meaningfully as possible. In this paper, I reflected on the ways in which my culturally celebrations were a bit shallow and my sense of urgency to create an independent reading program, implement a Civics curriculum, and support new teachers at my in the name of CRT wasn't really CRT at all.
As a result of this assignment and its call to plan, execute, and reflect on a CRT strategy in my instruction, I was able to realign my own priorities during my work day to ensure that I was more consistently and thoughtfully planning opportunities to engage with scholars and families alike. This has since taken the form of more meaningful planning around classroom culture building events, school-wide celebrations, and a family communication plan that can be read about in further detail below.
To the left is my Culturally Responsive Teaching Implementation Plan from JHU's Effective Practices II.
Harvard Implicit Association Test
Harvard Implicit Association Test
In addition to my academic work that pushed me to reflect and grow into deeper awareness of my own identity, I still acknowledge that I have a long way to go in my journey of self understanding and teaching. I knew it would be important to continuously check my blindspots and ensure that I wasn't letting this important personal work fall to the wayside. One of the ways I commit to ongoing self-examination is through periodically taking one of the Harvard Implicit Association Tests. At the start of TFA Institute in 2020, we were encouraged to take a few of these tests in our DEI session and discuss our self discoveries in a small group. When I first took this test a few years ago, I found myself trying to "beat the test" in an attempt to prove to myself and to others that I did not hold prejudice, I have come to a greater place of self awareness to know that it is human to hold bias, but inhumane to use that bias to negatively hurt others. This can be particularly nefarious, though, as bias still exists within us even as we continue to fight for liberation from such hatred.
These tests measure an individual's bias against various identity markers like race, gender, sexuality, body size, and others. Taking these tests frequently reminds me that I have much more introspection to do and holds me accountable for the various negative stereotypes and feelings I hold. To the right are the results of two of the many tests I have taken over the last few years, Skin Tone IAT and Disability IAT. The results indicate that I have a slight automatic preference for people with lighter skin tone and able bodies, respectively. Instead of punishing myself for these results, I see them as a learning opportunity to engage more meaningfully as to why I hold these subconscious biases so that I can continue working to dismantle them from within. Through continuously holding a CRT mindset, I know that my biases are ever-evolving and that I continue taking steps to further investigate myself in order to make growth.
IAT Disability.pdfIAT Skin Tone.pdfCreating Sustainable CRT Goals
Creating Sustainable CRT Goals
As seen in my CRT reflection and my implicit bias test results, I knew it would be imperative to commit to continuing the process of ongoing reflection by setting the following goals:
Advocate for the chance to engage in deeper professional development training around anti-racism and rigorous academic content so that I can interrupt my own biases and ensure equitable access to grade level content for all of my scholars.
Create a racially inclusive learning environment by putting up more signs of cultural celebration in my classroom, and using unbiased language. Further, I will add a themed section of my library each month to honor a different demographic group (ability, race, gender, LGBTQIA+, etc)
Incorporate daily mindfulness at the start of each lesson to ground students in themselves and the humanity of our learning space before beginning our lesson. Students should not have to check themselves or their experiences at the door to be considered a scholar.
Professional Development Opportunities
Professional Development Opportunities
I am fortunate to work at a school that works hard to interrogate the ways in which white supremacy culture shows up in ourselves and in our work to create an anti-racist, abolitionist, and liberating school environment. Returning from over a year away from brick and mortar learning, Triumph and Aspire Bay Area remained committed to providing welcoming, culturally responsive, and well equipped learning environments where students could make sense of the trauma Covid-19 escalated and make progress toward grade level content standards. As such, our school community comes together every few weeks for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) professional development trainings as well as quarterly region wide DEI trainings with affinity groups. It is important that our entire staff align around what culturally responsive teaching looks like in our school community to ensure liberation, critical thinking, and a sense of belonging among our scholars and families. Together, we have engaged in affinity spaces, book studies of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, How to Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi, Onward by Elena Aguilar, and Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain by Zaretta Hammond, and come together to ensure meaningful cultural celebrations for holidays, heritage months, and Pride.
For example, at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, our principal set up a training with Seneca (our counseling partner) to train our staff how to best support transgender and queer youth. As debate over "don't say gay" policies and critical race theory bubbled up all over the country, our school worked to ensure that we are meeting the needs of some of our most vulnerable scholars. This training provided meaningful information about the LGBTQIA2S+ community as well as clear examples of ways to explain gender, sexuality, and puberty to students.
After the training and initial lesson about gender identity and sexuality, for which I read aloud the book It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity by Theresa Thorn, I was so overwhelmed by student questions that I knew our school had to respond. In February 2022, I sent out an email to school staff (seen below) to discuss the possibility of creating a safe space for upper elementary scholars to talk about gender, sexuality, and puberty with trusted adults. As a result of this communication, a partnership with Kaiser Permanente was formed to teach an inclusive sexual wellness 3-day long course to our students. While I believe we still have a long way to go, it is evident that professional development trainings can have a ripple effect and inspire our school community to move closer to greater acceptance.
Email verification of the Transgender and Queer Youth professional development session as well as an infographic we were given to share with students in an identity lesson plan for morning meeting.
Above is an email thread I initiated that resulted in a sexual wellness and education program at our school for the first time.
In my journey toward greater self-awareness and goal setting, I have sought opportunities to attend webinars, conferences, and other events that encourage me to make instructional decisions that align with CRT practices. During the start of 2022, I shared with my principal that I found an extremely exciting conference through UnboundEd happening on the west coast in the spring. The conference was an entire week and took place during the first week of my spring break. Once we were able to secure funding, I had the distinct pleasure of attending Standards Institute with my partner teacher in Las Vegas. During our coursework with the upper elementary ELA and math cohorts, respectively, we learned how to scaffold up so all students can access grade level content, engaged in rich conversation about privilege and the ways our identities show up in our work, and the importance of holding high standards.
This conference remains one of the more impactful learning experiences I've had when it comes to CRT implementation. I came to realize the ways in which my well-intentioned ideas of "meeting students where they are" is coded language for keeping them away from standards aligned, rigorous learning opportunities. What I thought was supportive was actually watering down my curriculum. Returning to school, I had the chance to speak to the entire ELA team about what I learned and I continue to engage my entire team in this learning as the lead teacher.
Proof of my completion of the UnboundEd Standards Institute training in 2022.
Building_Fluency_Unbound_A_Guide_to_Grades_3_5_ELA_Standards_v140047.pdfUnboundEd Standards Institute materials I still use in my planning.
Ongoing Commitment to Anti-Racism Work
Ongoing Commitment to Anti-Racism Work
On a personal note, I firmly believe that educators can only show up for their students as well as they show up in their own lives. Though this balance is certainly not always easy to strike and requires a lot of effort to maintain, I believe that paying my privilege forward to fight for the rights of others is an important piece of being my best self. In my opinion, this reflection, learning, unlearning, and discussion cannot end in the school building. It is rather still expanding through podcasts, film, art, literature, music, and community. For example, my membership in organizations like SURJ (Showing up for Racial Justice or White People for Black Lives in Los Angeles), Jewish Center for Justice, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, helps me to engage in community building, actionable steps, protest, and learning that continues to shape and transform my understanding of self and other. Further, my ongoing volunteer work at Creative Growth, an adaptive art studio for adults with disability is an active step I take to unlearn many of the inherit biases I possess for disabled individuals. These small examples will never be "enough," but CRT isn't about numbers, metrics, or comparison. I commit to doing my best and showing up as my best for my students and community daily because frankly, they deserve the best.
An email exchange with a director at Creative Growth, an adaptive art studio for adults with disability in Oakland. In the Summer of 2022, I volunteered at their studio and Beyond Trend fashion show to support the incredible, accessible arts education right here in my backyard.
Classroom Planning and Authentic Relationship Building
Classroom Planning and Authentic Relationship Building
While my inward reflection and unlearning remains an ongoing practice, I wanted to continue taking steps toward achieving my CRT goals above by creating a classroom learning environment and daily routines that are student-centered and assets based. To plan and execute meaningful learning experiences and spaces that represent student background, interests, and identities, it was first important to intentionally deepen my relationships with students and their families. My first year of teaching during the 2020-2021 school year stamped the importance of building strong partnerships and authentic connections to students as a prerequisite for any other work to come. As a white female and as a culturally responsive educator, I cannot suppose to understand or know my scholars without doing the important preparation to develop trust, a sense of safety, and honesty with my classroom community. To do this, I intentionally created BOY (Beginning of the Year) surveys for families and students, respectively, to share their interests, concerns, and goals ahead of the year. Additionally, I called each family at the start of the year to determine the best mode of communication, invite families to join Class Dojo, and generally welcome families into our classroom community. Finally, I hosted a getting to know you activity and engagement block as part of our Back to School Night.
Student Profiles Analysis
Student Profiles Analysis
During distance learning, I had a very literal view into student lives outside of school as I was Zooming with them from their family homes. Attending to unique student needs during my first year of teaching meant forming very close connections to students and families alike to ensure that students were getting what they needed to access learning from material need like meals, wifi hotspots, and Chromebook support to socio-emotional needs like trauma, safety, mental health, and loss. My close communication and relationship building strategies developed in my first year of teaching informed, and continue to inform, the methods I use to engage families now. In planning for the upcoming 2021-22 school year, and my first year of in-person instruction, I relied heavily on my Student Profiles for Effective Practices II course for guidance. By centering my highest needs scholars, I am able to implement UDL and support strategies for meaningful engagement that would support all scholars.
In exploring the areas of challenge and experiences of students in my first year of in-person teaching, I was able to refine and adjust my routines and procedures accordingly. Further, the interviews I held as part of this assignment helped illuminate trends of where families would need additional support, points of communication, and engagement in our classroom for the following school year. Further, it helped inform my decisions to promote access and advocacy in our classroom as it was apparent that our families and student community suffer tremendously due to the impact of a dual pandemic of racism and Covid-19.
Once completing and reviewing the student profiles assignment (included to the right), I was able to more accurately identify student and family needs. Having a deeper understanding of student background and experiences allowed me to appropriately meet their needs through a culturally responsive lens.
StudentProfiles_AbberNatalie (1).docxAbove is my Student Profiles assignment for JHU's Effective Practices II.
Building Community Through Back to School Preparation
Building Community Through Back to School Preparation
Unlike my first year of teaching, our Back to School Night celebration would be in person and focused on building rapport with students rather than trying to teach families to navigate Google Classroom and Clever pages. It continues to mean a lot to me that I made connections with families right away and set a precedent for clear, open communication early in the year. For this reason, I intentionally plan to introduce myself to each family who attends the event in person to understand their interests and goals for their scholar, establish a preferred form of communication, and discuss classroom expectations for the year. If a family is unable to attend, I ensure that I call to accomplish these same goals. Whether a family is able to come in person or not should not be a barrier to entry into their scholar's learning, so it is paramount that I make access as feasible as possible. To support with this, our school staff worked closely to ensure we provided Spanish translations for each grade level to create an inclusive space where all families could access the content.
As seen in this presentation to the right, families and students had the opportunity to meet their teachers and support staff to get to know schedules, and gain understanding about classroom policies, universal scaffolds, and opportunities for family engagement. These supports ensured we were culturally competent by providing translations, clear information from the start, and genuine interest in supporting families.
Above is my back to school slides from the 2022-23 school year. I have continued refining and improving this deck to ensure information is clear, accurate, and user-friendly.
Above is a spreadsheet used at the start of the 2021-22 school year to track family correspondence and make notes of family preferences for communication at the start of the year.
To support families at the start of the year, I wrote a letter that includes key information relayed at Back to School Night such as Class Dojo sign up codes and a brief overview of our classroom rules and routines. With the support of our ELD Coach, I translated this message into four different languages to ensure I was reaching each family equitably. Above, you can see examples in English and in Spanish. I also include gender pronouns to set the precedent that our classroom is an inclusive space and places individual identity at the center of our work.
Representation in the Learning Environment
Representation in the Learning Environment
When I first became a teacher, I had lofty ideas about what our classroom should look, sound, and feel like...with a strong attention to the "looks." Of course, my first classroom ended up taking the form of Zoom, Google Classroom and Clever. As someone who really values design and personal spaces that feel inviting, warm, and emblematic of who I am, it was challenging building community and celebrating student work publicly in a digitally confined space. There is power in togetherness, in building shared spaces, and in honoring classroom values through the structure and flow of a room.
While I gave my best effort to incorporate diverse literature, imagery, and relevant discourse in the Zoom year, I came to understand that identity representation in the learning environment means far more than symbols and virtue signaling posters. Though these are also important pieces of creative an inclusive space, I found that keeping my Zoom room open as a safe environment to get to know one another, build authentic relationships, and celebrate student interests was just as impactful. Teaching on Zoom expanded my view of what it means for students to see themselves in their classroom environment and continues to inform the way I utilize student need, opinion, and creativity in designing our shared space.
At the start of the 2021-22 school year, our entire staff spent two weeks of professional development training to plan for the year and resurrect the classrooms that were left suddenly vacant in March 2020. In planning this space, I knew I wanted it to be dynamic and flexible so that students can access learning, each other, and staff equitably. I knew that I wanted it to be colorful with student art, student learning experiences, and easily accessible materials. I knew that I wanted it to feel like a reflection of my teaching ethos and personal beliefs about the power of education, while remaining fluid overtime to ensure that it is not MY space, and rather OUR space. From a gender inclusive pride flag to a Black Lives Matter section in our library, flexible seating options to a designated Peace Corner, a space for Civics work and our shared Class Charter, I continue to edit and change our classroom to feel like a space that is truly by and for my scholars.
LGBTQIA2S+ Pride
Abolitionist and Affirming Libraries
Civics Work to Honor Student Identity
Establishing Sustainable CRT Routines
Establishing Sustainable CRT Routines
An important part in planning for a culturally responsive classroom is taking into account the whole child. Coming out of a year and a half away from brick and mortar school, I anticipated that there would be a high need for clear socio-emotional supports and systems in place. As I mentioned previously, our school community experienced high incidences of adverse childhood experiences and trauma long before the youth mental health crisis that Covid-19 produced. By creating sustainable routines into my practice, I support students in learning how to handle conflict, take care of their human needs, and practice empathy in a prosocial manner.
In 2021, my students returned to the classroom as 4th graders after leaving halfway through 2nd grade. I intentionally planned to use culturally relevant strategies and supports to ensure that I was responding to the needs of my scholars in a sensitive, thoughtful manner. I began to incorporate three key practices into my role as a culturally responsive educator:
In addition to SEL learning on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I would begin each ELA lesson with a mood meter check-in so students are able to name their emotions, practice social awareness, and set goals for how they will "shift or stay" in their emotional state.
To create a true classroom culture of learning, I would need to prioritize building strong relationships with students and families continuously, and especially at the start of the school year.
If and when conflict arises, I will strive to practice restorative justice and dialogue. I want to actively resist the over-policing of young people while also supporting them in facing challenge in healthy, safe ways.
While implementing these strategies was certainly not a panacea, these intentional steps represent my sincere effort to allow students to be their most authentic selves as a part of a larger, diverse learning community.
What is the Mood Meter?
What is the Mood Meter?
In 2019, Aspire Bay Area adopted the RULER curriculum created by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. At the core of our school site's effort to promote rigorous socio-emotional learning (SEL) opportunities, is our emphasis on culturally responsive teaching practices.
Every week during planning, I designate time to internalize the SEL lesson for the following week to find opportunities to bring it to life and engage my scholars more meaningfully. While I only teach SEL formally twice a week, I have made it my personal goal to engage students in leveraging the Mood Meter, the cornerstone of RULER's instruction, in a daily practice. The Mood Meter is divided into four key quadrants, as seen on the right, which represent levels of energy and positive association with feelings. Using this strategy as a part of our daily practice anchors our classroom in self-awareness, social awareness, self-regulation, and empathy. These are emotional skills that will continue to serve them in life beyond school.
Every ELA lesson begins with a slide like those above to allow students the chance to honor the needs, emotions, and experiences in the room.
Plans to Promote Relationship Building
Plans to Promote Relationship Building
During Zoom teaching, I was able to have lunch with my scholars every day. While this was not the expectation for teachers, it meant a lot to me, and to my scholars, that we had a shared space in the middle of the learning day to build real relationships. Coming back into the classroom, I quickly learned the importance of setting healthy boundaries and taking time for myself, too, during the work day. In order to show up for my students in a culturally responsive, calm, and prepared manner, I needed to take care of own human needs. I decided to develop a lunch bunch schedule so that I would be able to ensure every scholar had the chance to eat lunch with me and my partner teacher at least once every 4-5 weeks, if they chose to. During lunch bunch, we answer get to know you questions, play board games, and enjoy a preferred snack from our classroom supply.
Further, I intentionally created groups at the start of the year based on student survey response (more about that on the following page) that would introduce students to other scholars in their grade with whom they don't usually interact. In building a community of tolerance, cooperation, and collaboration, it is important that relationship building not only happen with student and teacher, but with students and their peers.
Lunch bunch and after-school relationship building with scholars.
Restorative Justice
Restorative Justice
Our aligned behavior chart utilizing Class Dojo that is posted at the front of my classroom. Holding high and clear expectations for safe, adaptive behavior is a strong part of trauma-informed, and therefore culturally responsive, practice.
Even with proactive steps taken to support students in taking care of themselves and their community, students are people and people face challenge sometimes. Instead of ignoring challenge or dismissing it as distraction or malicious behavior, our school aligns on restorative justice practices to support staff, scholars, and families work through obstacles. As a lead team community, we came together to develop a restorative follow-up script to ensure our staff feels prepared to engage in courageous conversation. If we want to truly live out our anti-racist vision, it is important that these values show up in our work at all times.
The first step in this protocol is to provide the scholar a chance to voice their needs and express their feelings about what happened. Before we can take steps toward conflict-resolution, it is important to first validate and honor the lived experience of the scholar, a culturally responsive practice. From there, we can collaboratively work with students to think of ways to repair the harm by choosing from a menu of options. Of course, I don't expect this to work as a one-size fits all model, and this tool has been invaluable to our staff in de-escalating individuals and groups in conflict at school. This culturally responsive practice further disrupts the punitive practices associated with the school-to-prison pipeline.
When the 2021-22 school year began, it became immediately clear that we were working through unprecedented behavioral challenges. The youth mental health crisis has plagued our entire country and lifted the important point that our young people are not well. Additionally, it was no secret that there was substantial academic learning gaps and regression as a result of teaching through a pandemic.
To mitigate these challenges, our staff came together early in the school year to develop a student-centered reflection form and aligned on our Class Dojo system (viewed above) for behavioral accountability. The goal of these systems is to provide logical consequences, clear expectations (a trauma informed practice), and opportunities for healing to support students in getting back to their learning. Of course, students are not always ready to reflect immediately after an incident occurred or when they are in an emotionally heightened state. This reflection form serves as just one piece of our school's process in prioritizing student holistic health and planning appropriate supports to ensure each scholar has what they need to succeed in school and life. Having this plan in place has supported my preparation for this current school year to ensure students remain in the learning community and are given the tools, language, and time to work through challenges safely.
Reflect and Restore Form (Buddy Teacher)_Spring 2022.pdfConclusion and Next Steps
Conclusion and Next Steps
Planning for culturally responsive teaching requires a teacher's personal commitment to continuous reflection, analysis of practice, and interest in growth. In order to plan for meaningful student-centered, culturally responsive practices, it was critical that I first be willing to do the work myself. By exploring my own biases, upbringing, privilege, and adverse experiences, I have been able to deeply engage with what needs to be true of a child's learning experience in order for them to feel valued, respected, and successful. Engaging in my own cultural self-study allows me to build authentic CRT routines, procedures, and lessons that seek to produce similar levels of academic ownership, safety, and courageous conversation in my classroom. Having these systems thoughtfully in place at the start of the school year has allowed my classroom to feel more trauma-informed, thoughtfully planned, and safe for young people to explore themselves.
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