How to Approach Testing Season as a Culturally Responsive Educator
It’s testing season again. Much of my work with teachers has slowed down because they’ve turned their attention to getting ready to administer the state achievement test. Even in my house, we are not immune to the realities of testing season. Recently, a notice came...
Can Ability Grouping Ever Be A Good Thing for Equity?
Turns out ability grouping - once identified as a key source of the achievement gap - is making a comeback. Well, in reality, seems that as a classroom practice, it never really went away. When I read the headline of a recent EdWeek article, “More Teachers Group...
Managing the Dynamics of Difference
I was working with a group of teachers recently around building their culturally responsive toolkit. One teacher was having trouble thinking about how to manage all the different cultures in her classroom. “I have at least 13 different cultures and languages...
The Neuroscience of Call and Response
In my last post, I talked about call and response as the first tool in our instructional CR toolkit. Whether you use call and response for academic review or to promote thinking, it is important to understand the neuroscience behind the tool so that it doesn’t seem so...
Using Call and Response to Deepen Thinking, Part I
Because of the growing emphasis on social-emotional learning in education, the focus has been on using culturally responsive (CR) techniques to get students motivated and engaged by creating a classroom community that is affirming and validating. This is where many...
Mindfulness as Path to Reduce Unequal Discipline
“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way -- on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. Jon Kabat-Zinn Last week I joined a group of educators interested in mindfulness as a tool in the classroom. Our group leader,...
What We Can Learn From Jeopardy About Identity Safety
This past week two things crossed my desk that didn’t seem to have anything in common -- a new study about the merits of self-affirmation for Latino students and an update on a recent episode of the game show Jeopardy. I saw this blurb in EdWeek about the...
Four Things to Definitely Do in Black History Month
In the last post I offered five things to stop doing during Black History Month. Even though we are more than half way through the February, there’s still time to use this month to deepen cultural responsiveness in both your content and practice. Here are four things...
Five Things Not to Do During Black History Month
Well, it’s February again. And you know what that means…Yep, it’s Black History Month. Folks are asking if we should even have a Black History Month. That's neither here nor there. What I do know is there are some things we will want to avoid if it's to have any...
I am Because We Are…Thoughts on President Obama’s Inauguration and the Power of Community
Like many who made a resolution to get healthy, this Sunday I took myself to the gym and jumped on the treadmill. As I walked in place I had my headphones on jamming to Beyonce tearing up Crazy in Love, an oldie but a goodie. Then I looked up at the T.V. mounted on...