The First Six Weeks: Building Trust
This is the first in a series of posts about how to use the first six weeks of school to build a platform for more in depth cultural responsive teaching throughout the year. I had my first class last night. For the second year, I am teaching the Foundations of...
Are We Ready for the Browning of Public Schools?
Tis’ the season. Backpacks, pencils, and PD. That’s why this post is two days late. On back-to-back days, I found myself in front of a room full of eager teachers who were genuinely excited to be back. A few days before in between my prep, I came across an article...
Word Wealth for Young Children of Color Begins With Word Consciousness
Last week I asked if we have oversold reading aloud to young children as the primary strategy for preventing achievement gaps from beginning once they begin school. When I was training to be a teacher and taking my first reading theory class, my son was a...
The Culturally Responsive Mindset: 7 Quotes to Teach By
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ---Marcel Proust This quote by French...
Have We Oversold Reading Aloud to Parents of Young Children?
A note to everyone. Beginning today, I will be adding a weekly post about literacy and reading development in addition to writing about CRT. So look for my literacy post on Thursdays and culturally responsive teaching posts on Mondays. Ok. There. I said...
Culturally Responsive Teaching versus the Pedagogy of Poverty
It’s almost August. That means we are beginning to think about how we are setting up our classrooms. We start thinking about the details and the technical parts of lesson planning, classroom decorating, and other mundane stuff. It’s at this time of the year that it’s...
Three Fun Ways to Build CRT Background Knowledge This Summer
Yesterday I started noticing the ads for Back-to-School shopping on the radio and couldn’t believe it. But then I remembered that last year they started advertising Christmas stuff in October. Does that mean our opportunities for summer learning are over? Summer is...
Teaching from a Pedagogy of Promise
“A vision without a plan is just a dream. A plan without a vision is just drudgery. But a vision with a plan can change the world.” – Old Proverb It’s testing season. I know because it always brings out teachers’ angst. I showed up recently for a coaching...
Thoughts on Holding High Expectations
Re-set. Reboot. These are key words for the New Year. I am doing my own reboot in this blog space. My last post was in May 2013. My apologies for dropping off the face of the Internet, but that was the month my mother-in-law, Leonia Hanson passed away. Over the...
Teaching for Social Justice Can Jump Start Cultural Responsiveness
Sometimes trying to understand and implement culturally responsive teaching in a systematic and comprehensive way feels like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time -- hard. Both require focus and coordination. And honestly, it takes awhile to...