Culturally Responsive Teaching

What is culturally responsive teaching?

Culturally responsive teaching involves using students’ own customs, experiences, and characteristics as tools for better classroom instruction. This practice requires teachers to be very intentional and authentic and requires one to bring their whole person into the teaching situation. Both the teacher’s and the students’ cultures and values are important to recognize to create an environment in which students feel comfortable being curious, asking questions, and participating in academic discourse, which some believe traditional education in the US has not accomplished.

For outcomes-based education, this practice may seem like a massive change, but it is about disposition and mindset, not changing everything teachers do in their classrooms. It is about how instructors approach what they do and how they approach students. If teachers are aware of their own cultures and realize their culture will be the dominant one in the class because, like it or not, the teacher is the head of the power structure in the classroom. Once that is deconstructed, the power becomes shared in a way that allows people to authentically be themselves. Culturally responsive teaching invites students to bring their whole selves to the classroom and the dialogue or topic.

At times, student demographics may make a classroom seem like a fairly homogenous environment, but implementing this practice quickly reveals there is still diversity in terms of culture, family background, and more. When the classroom values an openness and understanding of other cultures and other traditions, it becomes more conducive to effective learning.

Culturally responsive teaching is not the same thing as anti-racist teaching and is often confused as such. The two issues do overlap, but anti-racist teaching differs as it is specific to proactively responding to racist situations or to prevent them from happening. Culturally responsive teaching can be a part of being anti-racist, but it really is a separate issue as well.

Reflection is needed to enter this culturally responsive space.

Why it matters?

Culturally responsive teaching offers many benefits to the classroom such as:

• Building curiosity and confidence between and among students and the teacher.
• Creating a safe space for teachers and students to show they care about each other as people.
• Modeling that an awkward attempt or bad attempt is better than no attempt as it relates to classroom discussion and also assignments.
• Conveying to students that it is acceptable to make mistakes and learn and grow from them.
• Engaging everyone in the discussion because they feel valued as individuals.
• Focusing on the value of differences through emotional engagement sets the groundwork for academic learning and growth.
• Sending the message that the teacher and the school respects differences, thereby eliminating barriers for academic and personal disconnects that occur in traditional education.
• Creating ownership over the subject matter by sparking curiosity.

Culturally Responsive Teaching: How to do it?

Provide opportunities for self-reflection

Some teachers worry that teaching diverse topics can create uncomfortable situations for students, but we must remember that many other students have felt marginalized by NOT addressing such topics. This is why self-reflection is so important.

If it is the instructor who is most uncomfortable with these topics, one suggestion is to simply lay a foundation that acknowledges students as whole people and encourages them to bring the entirety of themselves to the subject.

Polling is a great way to help students identify what they bring to the class. Anonymous polling is even better because it allows the teacher to impose a question and analyze honestly where a person falls on different issues. This is a low stakes way to let students be vulnerable and have their voices heard. It is key to do this early to establish that we can discuss hard things, and your classroom is a place where learning occurs. Simultaneously, students see that in order for learning to happen, they may not always feel comfortable.

Incorporate more writing assignments

Writing is another way to allow for students to share about themselves in a low stakes way because students do not have to speak publicly and are sometimes more comfortable sharing with just the instructor.

Create your own professional development

• Read formative books on this topic
• Review classroom materials to ensure diverse materials
• Watch TED Talks and programs such as The Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man series with Emmanuel Acho
• Use a variety in teaching methods

Examples of some formative books include: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, White Fragility and Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria

Adapt new standards for your own classroom behavior

There are many ways to adapt your own behavior which students will observe as a model. To do this, create opportunities to listen to students and learn from their experiences.

• Go on a listening tour and meet with a variety of students and faculty in different programs
• Schedule lunch with students for a less formal conversation venue
• Talk with colleagues from different backgrounds and learn their view of the institution and classroom
• Analyze what you assume is normative. How does this potentially make students feel “other” and how are you altering that to make their experiences equally valid?

Go slow to go fast

How can you meet students where they are without compromising learning expectations? Try spending the first few days of class getting to know the students. For p-12, meet parents and speak to them. Learn about families in any way you can. The offer and invitation opens a space for the parent and the teacher is seen as a partner in learning, even if they do not take you up on your offer to talk or meet.

Plan with colleagues

Meet with colleagues and think about the true power standards that you are going to cover. That is the priority. Then, you can assess the social and emotional needs of the students to adjust.

Cross the Street with Students

Look for how students are resourceful and meet them there to guide them into where they need to be. By determining the students’ challenges, strengths, and expectations, teachers can walk with them towards the ultimately course goals.

Challenges

One of the challenges of culturally responsive teaching is taking time to focus on who we are and what we are rather than what we are doing. We have to address our own biases with this process. Students will be fully engaged and transformed by the classroom process because the classroom becomes a safe place and the students then are not the only ones growing and being impacted by the process.

Implementing this kind of teaching cannot be done with a checklist. It’s not a straight line; it is messy. But students will benefit.

Another major challenge to being culturally responsive is doing this in a state where these discussions about identity are against the law. Dr.Martin and Professor Rutledge maintain storytelling as a strategy works well. If the conversation is student-initiated, then it is not against the law, according to Dr. Martin. Encourage students to tell stories and listen to them. If something comes up, you can then ask guiding questions from those stories. In general, using multiple modalities to teach provides a higher level of student discourse.

Teaching online does not provide as many opportunities for personal discussions, but distance education can be culturally responsive. Tell students you want them to use their whole person to do the work and then structure assignments to allow for that. For instance, a teacher can reconsider their discussion posts and give a video option for responses on the discussion boards. Author Kevin Rebel encourages offering students choice for how they respond to an assignment such as reflective assignments where students go into the world and do something and reflect on it. Balancing the types of assignments you require is a good practice in general.

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Edited by: Symphonie Swift