If you want to know what an organization prioritizes, examine its budget. If you want to know what educators care about, look at their curriculum.

Curriculum is perhaps the most concrete representation of educational values.

Students’ day-to-day experiences are rooted in their direct engagement with this bundle of lesson plans, materials, and assignments. We package these bundles into units that, in their finest form, have the emotional heft and narrative arc of good stories.

The stories our curricula convey have a huge amount of power in terms of how students learn to think and navigate the world. A culturally responsive curriculum seeks to ensure students think appreciatively and critically about themselves and others. And that they see themselves as positioned to make the world a better place.

Culturally Responsive Practices

Culturally responsive practices (CRP) are the best way we know to create equitable educational systems and develop critical consciousness in all of our students. We’ve highlighted four themes from the research literature:

1. Be transparent and intentional about culture.
2. Take an appreciative stance.
3. Provide mirrors and windows.
4. Educate about and for social justice.

Let’s take a look at a couple of units to see how these themes show up in well designed, culturally responsive curricula.

Equity, Identity, and Art

Christie Nold teaches 6th grade social studies at Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School in South Burlington. She designed a unit that centered social identity. It culminated with students working with teaching artists to express their learning.

She designed the unit based on standards, starting with an appendix to the C3 standards which include the expectations that students can “Explain the social construction of self and groups.” And she relied heavily on the Social Justice Standards from Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance).

Above all, Christie intentionally positioned this unit at the beginning of her curricular sequence so that students applied their learning throughout the school year.

“I find it’s really important to start by knowing ourselves…it was important to me that students have this opportunity to dive pretty hard into who they are and how that informs the way they see the world before they then started looking at other aspects of parts of our world.”

Early in the unit, Christie introduced tools that would allow students to tackle challenging topics and discuss them in a mutually brave space. Learning and dialogue about race are supported by the agreements and compass from Courageous Conversations (See the page on community building at the NMAAHC Talking About Race site if you are interested in checking out those tools.)

1. Be transparent and intentional about culture

The entire unit is based on social identity. Cultural identity is an aspect of social identity in so far as cultural markers show up as part of who we are.

For example, in the video one of Christie’s students explains the cultural iceberg. And she does this without looking at  notes or props. In essence, she did it right off the top of her head. In effect, her grasp of culture and social identity outpaces that of most adults. And that’s because of the intentionality of the unit design.

2. Take an appreciative stance

Educators show trust in their students when they engage them in complex and potentially challenging learning.

As students explored their identities in this unit, they learned to appreciate different facets of those identities:

• Those they were born with.
• Parts they had the power to choose.
• And the way society shaped and viewed facets of their identities.

When they shared (what they wanted to) with classmates, it was in a context of mutual appreciation for each others’ differences. As a result, the underlying theme was that diversity is a collective asset.

Students learned that the unchosen aspects of their identities make them no better or worse than anybody else. Taking an appreciative stance means uplifting every part of identity or culture that is supportive of equity, inclusion, and love.

So for example, while white racial identity may be connected to a history of oppressive acts, students learned about ways to build an anti-racist white identity. Students can critically examine how their identities are positioned within society while choosing to leverage and lean into the most positive versions of those identities.

3. Provide mirrors and windows

Christie used literature to expose students to a diverse array of identities. Over the course of the unit she used two readaloud texts, Refugee and Ghost Boys to expose students to central questions about identity and equity.

Additionally, Christie taught students directly about the windows and mirrors concept. Then, students filled out influencer charts about the books they read and the relationships they had.

And finally, Christie was mindful of her own identity and the fact that most teachers are also white women.

“The impetus for the project was really to allow space for students to engage with who they are as people in the world and what that means and also to engage with folks closer in identity to them or farther in identity from them but either way don’t often represent the trajectory of educators that they have in their lives.”

The teaching artists who worked with students at the end of the project brought their whole human selves to the work.

4. Educate about and for social justice

Christie’s students explored, discussed, and applied powerful concepts such as bias in advertising, the pyramid of hate, and systemic oppression.

In the culminating project, students influenced the world through art. Students used poetry, storytelling, or visual art to express their learning about their own identities and/or the change they hoped to see in society.

As students reflected on the unit, their commitment to social justice came through loud and clear.

• “It was great to learn about who I am and where I fall in this society and how I can affect others with what I do.”
• “We are the next generation of adults so we have to move our world into a better place.”
• “Since we are young we should know about this right now.”

Yeah, these students are verifiably awesome. And intent on changing the world.

Health for all

In another powerful example of culturally responsive curriculum, Lindsay McQueen, a health educator at Edmunds Middle School, in Burlington VT, used the equity literacy framework to transform a 7th and 8th grade health unit. The original unit was about personal choices and health. But Lindsay’s revised unit critically examined health disparities, along with the systemic conditions that lead to them.

Unit questions:

• To what extent is health determined by individual choices and behavior?
• Factual: What is the difference between health equity and inequity/disparity?
• Conceptual: Why do health disparities exist?
• Actionable: What is important to teach our community about health and equity?

Using the Health Rainbow and carefully planned instruction, Lindsay moved her students from focusing on individual factors and behaviors impacting health to the social, economic, and political factors impacting health. Certainly, this is a powerful reframing and one that incorporates all four of the themes of culturally responsive practices.

1. Be transparent and intentional about culture

By moving from individual factors to social factors, Lindsay challenged the assumption of cultural sameness. She  intentionally named and examined different cultural experiences.

For example, living and working conditions, public services and infrastructure, and social, economic, and political factors all combine to create social determinants of health. As a result, students looked closely at systems of privilege and systems of oppression and how they impact cultural groups.

2. Take an appreciative stance

Lindsay deliberately named the social systems and structures that either foster health or promote illness. In doing so she shifted blame for poor health from individuals to systems that disproportionately over-serve some and under-serve others. This curricular shift moved Lindsay and her students away from a deficit approach. It helped them better understand systemic inequities that lead to poor health outcomes. Thus, instead of judging the choices of individuals, especially marginalized individuals, they examined societal factors limiting personal choices and exacerbating health issues.

But in addition to using a strengths-based approach to frame the content of the unit, Lindsay extended an appreciative stance to her students by engaging them as problem-solvers and engaged community members. Then, students chose areas of interest and created PSA’s or took action to educate their communities about health disparities.

3. Provide mirrors and windows

Lindsay reports that most health curricula focus on individual behaviors: diet, exercise, substance abuse prevention, and stress management. But she asked students to consider that our choices are not made in a vacuum. Instead, they happen in the context of widely varying environmental and cultural conditions. Lindsay shares: “We watch this short video and really identify that health disparities are avoidable and unjust, and they are differences in health among groups of people.”

Instead of assuming everyone has the same conditions as themselves, students examine conditions experienced by others. For example, how close is the nearest supermarket, or how many e-cig ads are you exposed to?

Specifically, her students examine the systemic conditions relating to health for various cultural and identity groups. Moreover, her instruction asks students to step into the shoes of those whose lived experience is different from their own. Finally, they consider the health outcomes of such experiences.

4. Educate about and for social justice

A critically conscious approach often begins with essential questions. Lindsay’s unit questions asked students to consider issues of justice. Classroom activities like Unfortunate or Unjust encouraged students to use a justice lens to think deeply about health. As a result, the dialogue allowed students to practice applying critical consciousness to different topics. Lindsay says:

“There was some really interesting conversation among students. It’s not necessarily at that point in time that we say this is definitely unjust, but it allows for the conversation to happen where some say, well, that’s just too bad, but someone has to. Not really understanding how communities are intentionally placed. Not understanding yet that where landfills are built or power stations is intentional.”

And so some of that again is just sparking that raising that critical consciousness around what they’re thinking. Why sometimes some of the unjust statements would actually start off as kids thinking that they’re unfortunate.”

And finally, returning to the health rainbow allowed them to put it into the context of oppressive systems like racism and sexism.

“Kindness Kits” for the win

One group of 7th graders interested in the impact of gender inequities on health created “Kindness Kits.” Each kit includes menstrual pads and they are available to anyone who needs them. Other students created slideshows and video PSAs. Here is what students said about their learning:

• “I would hope that it would help open a conversation about gender equity.”
• “I hope that from my PSA, people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community will ask for help when needed and can talk to anyone and feel more comfortable around anyone.”
• “It will help raise awareness to racism because it’s not talked about enough.”
• “I think the main idea was to educate people on this issue [mental health and the criminal justice system] because it is not talked about enough.

How might you make your curriculum more culturally responsive?

In conclusion, critically examining units of study can be a first step to developing culturally responsive curriculum. As a result, you can revise and reframe your instructional plans like Lindsey did. Or adapt commercially designed curriculum materials. Or you might be starting from scratch. Whatever your starting point, we hope these questions will guide you as you work towards more just curricula.

Be transparent and intentional about culture

• What cultural perspectives are represented in your instructional materials? Is there a singular perspective or are diverse points of view included?
• Do you name dominant cultural narratives or traditions rather than assuming they apply to all and thus reinforcing them as the norm?
• Does the curriculum present diverse ways of knowing and being?

Take an appreciative stance

• Who, individually or collectively, play leadership roles or have agency? Who is portrayed as powerless or as a victim?
• Are cultural strengths from different identities and groups highlighted and celebrated?
• Who feels empowered and affirmed? Who feels disempowered?

Provide mirrors and windows

• Who is represented in the materials you use? Who isn’t? Are you being transparent about representation with your students?
• Does the unit or curriculum include visual images? Will every student see people like themselves? Similarly, will every student see people different from themselves?
• Are the experts and examples you cite diverse and representative?

Educate about and for social justice

• What critical questions focus the unit? How does the unit explicitly challenge the status quo?
• Are there opportunities to examine and question systems and structures that oppress or elevate some groups and not others?
• Do learners have opportunities to take action to make their community or the world more just?

Consider checking out these Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecards for an even deeper dive. And let us know how you are making your curriculum more culturally responsive, we’d love to learn with you!

This post is the third in a four-part series. In part one we identified four aspects of culturally responsiveness: cultural transparency, an appreciative lens, windows and mirrors, and a focus on social justice. In part two we used these four aspects to explore culturally responsive learning environments. In part four we use the four themes to look at instruction and assessment. The series is co-authored by Jeanie Phillips and Life LeGeros.

Imagine a place where every person can be their authentic whole human selves. A culturally responsive learning environment is a place where everybody belongs. The posters and images on walls, books and materials on shelves, the furniture and flow of the space all radiate belonging.

These tangible items convey important information: what is valued, prioritized, and yes welcomed in this space.

The culturally responsive learning environment encompasses way more than the visible. It also includes the dynamics of a space. Consider:

• Whose voices are heard in this space? (And whose aren’t?)
• What rules or expectations are stated? (Or unstated?)
• Who is empowered? (And who isn’t?)
• Who has a sense of belonging? (And who may not?)

We must ask these questions of our spaces as we strive toward making them truly welcoming. Orleans Elementary School teacher Andrea Gratton gives us a way to frame this work:

“I think a lot about the students that I have, but also the students that I may someday have. And making sure that whoever walks in my door can see themselves in my classroom and know that they feel welcome and included when they come in.”

Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogy, like teaching itself, isn’t a destination but rather a practice.

We’re using it as a framework to make some of these equitable practices more visible. At the same time, we certainly don’t want to give the impression that there is a set of tricks that can be added to a toolbox.

"Culturally responsive teaching isn’t something to 'do.' You cannot & should not attempt to engage in CRT or any practice without understanding its history, building deep knowledge of its meaning, & practicing the work on your own." @JamilaDugan https://t.co/PS7UIVM22d pic.twitter.com/yMo3Sidkry

— EL Magazine (@ELmagazine) March 5, 2021

We are committed to continuing to do the ongoing self-work that is part and parcel of this practice, including:

• Examining our own biases.
• Interrogating our complicity in inequitable systems.
• Seeking feedback to help us understand and disrupt our assumptions.
• Working in loving accountability with others to help us grow in our understanding of racism and oppression.

This self-work is forever necessary but never sufficient. And it’s with this in mind that we share concrete examples of culturally responsive practices to illuminate what is possible in terms of action.

1. Be transparent and intentional about culture

Schools are cultural spaces, and when we assume they aren’t we center dominant culture. As individual educators, we bring our own values to our classrooms, and often these values need to be investigated. Dr. Kathleen Brinegar spoke about re-examining her practice on a recent episode of #vted Reads. She reminds us that with teaching, every day is a new opportunity for a “do-over”.

Cornelius Minor shares some additional values we may unintentionally bring into the classroom in this interview.  For example,

“In most academic spaces, there is a silent pact that teachers make with students: I will agree to teach you well if you demonstrate to me that you are thankful for it. And if you do not demonstrate to me that you are thankful for it, I will withhold quality teaching from you… We expect students to show up with gratitude because we do our jobs.”

The problematic dynamic of teachers (implictly or explicitly) expecting student gratitude is complicated by the fact that gratitude itself is shaped by culture.

Culturally responsive educators surface the cultural elements they are bringing in the door with them. They challenge themselves to make sure they are aligned with the goal of teaching ALL students. Further, they get to know students well enough to welcome and see the strengths in students’ cultural values as well.

Co-create class values, expectations, and agreements with students

One way to make culture intentional and transparent is to co-create classroom expectations *with* our students.

However, it’s not just about creating them. If all we do is co-construct norms then they might as well be wallpaper. It’s also important to use them, revisit them, and revise them.  Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School teacher Christie Nold demonstrates the power of leaning on classroom agreements in order to do challenging work.

Be careful! Students may just tell you what you expect to hear based on their experiences “doing school”.

Shelburne Community School teacher Meg O’Donnell reports that COVID has helped her reconsider asking students to create norms in multiple classes, leading to norm fatigue.  Rethinking Schools shared a thoughtful piece on making classroom norms that really engage students in what they need to learn well.

Solicit and engage student voice

Listening, really listening, to students’ voices is crucial in a culturally responsive classroom environment. Dr. Emily Nelson calls it a matter of justice, that students have a right to be heard and to inform their education.

One way to engage culture transparently and intentionally is to ask your students for feedback. It’s crucial, however, that we not only solicit feedback but that we act on it! Here is one way to scaffold feedback from students:

• First, ask your students what is working *and* not working about class. A Google Form or anonymous survey can help them be honest with their feedback.
• Then, process their feedback: sort and make sense of the data. Are their common threads? What might you learn from outliers?
• Finally, share the data, and your next steps, with your students! Show them that their feedback matters by acting on it publicly, with humility and grace.

Kim Dumont, 4th-grade teacher from Ottauquechee School, shares another way to center student voice and feedback in order to create a culturally responsive classroom environment.

Then, Warren Elementary School’s Elizabeth Tarno shows us centering student voice can look like in a 5th-grade math class.

And finally, the Cult of Pedagogy provides a roadmap for soliciting and responding to student feedback.

2. Take an appreciative stance

By honoring students’ strengths, we seek to close the divide between home and school. Culturally responsive learning environments recognize and appreciate the strengths students exhibit in the classroom. And acknowledge the assets and inclinations students show outside of school.

Note that taking an appreciative stance does not necessarily mean that every single aspect of students’ identities and cultures are worthy of being lauded. While diversity valuable in and of itself, it must is bounded by an overarching ethos of love and justice. We needn’t uplift aspects of culture that aren’t fundamentally affirming of belonging.

Culturally responsive learning environments invite us to think beyond traditional ideas of what makes a “good student.” It compels us to define learners in ways that don’t limit or marginalize students just for being different than the norm.

Flexible seating

Few things are more starkly “school” than the inflexible expectations of sitting still in assigned uncomfortable desks.

Flexible seating is an important strategy for creating an asset-based learning environment. At Proctor Elementary School, in Proctor VT redesigned classrooms flow. In contrast to desks and rows, the unconventional furniture encourages students to explore movement as an organic part of their learning. Proctor Elementary School teachers reported more pride in their classroom, greater kindness and generosity between students, and an overall increased sense of community.

Another set of examples expands the concept of student-centered physical space to include not just seating (though there are some great examples there too), but also “schedule” and “spangle.” For schedule, we see instances where educators build from what kids naturally need and do well – time for movement, meditation, fresh air, and goofing off.

“Spangle,” you ask? Well, that refers to covering your classroom walls with student work. What better way to honor their thinking than to use it to envelop your community? It is a powerful message of trust.

Now is the time for courageous conversations. How do you feel about race – in 6 words. #racecardproject #bsdvt #emsvt pic.twitter.com/HthIfUkM36

— Laura Botte (@NiaLearns) January 23, 2015

Advisory & community meetings

Advisory time allows teachers to lean into connection and playfulness. Playing games, sharing personal stories, and just reveling in being together as humans are hallmarks of advisory. Advisory serves as a distinct, non-academic space where students (and teachers) can just be together.

Community meetings serve similar purposes but usually involve a larger group, such as one or more grade levels. Ideally, students run these meetings.

White River Valley Middle School developed an entirely student-led advisory. Students lean into and actively create rituals to feed their own mini-culture.

It might not be obvious that playing “would you rather” or telling a few jokes could have such a profound effect, but carving out spaces and routines that are purely appreciative of togetherness is crucial.

High expectations

Another concept that comes up in CRP is the idea of high expectations for students. We appreciate the strengths and potential of students insofar as we communicate that we truly believe they can achieve great things.

Some educators accuse critical pedagogies as lacking rigor because it rejects the idea that school must mold students to traditional expectations. Vermont’s focus on Transferable Skills de-emphasizes memorization of vast amounts of content or command of a traditional canon. Students can and should be great communicators, collaborators, problem solvers, and community members, even though these skills are complex and messy. (See a thoughtful treatment of the rigor question here.)

Rather than quizzes and tests, culturally responsive learning environments strive to be feedback-rich environments focused on higher level skills. Assessment processes are student-driven and asset-based. For example, students may gather evidence of learning and share appreciative reflections on growth with families through celebration-centered student-led conferences. Classrooms do important, meaningful, and impactful things together like service-learning and critical project-based learning.

Culturally responsive learning environments ensure that every student’s potential is highly appreciated, frequently fulfilled, and shared with the world.

3. Provide mirrors and windows

Every student has a right to see themselves reflected in your classroom. And every student deserves to see those who are different from themselves reflected in the environment as well.

Classroom walls

What is on your classroom walls? Might there be space for posters that include windows and mirrors, such as those from Amplifier?

It may not be enough just to hang things on the wall, but it sends a signal, a beacon of inclusivity.

… I have always felt that these posters held power AND it wasn't until they became "real" for my students that I've seen their true influence.

It has me rethinking the idea, "put something up" to really doing so with meaning and intention & making it part of the curriculum.

— Christie Nold (@ChristieNold) March 5, 2021

Centering mirrors *and* windows  (.pdf) in your classroom serves as a reminder and a promise to also center them in your curriculum. Perhaps it may even spur you to invite your students to create images, representations, and posters that serve as windows and mirrors for you and for themselves.

Windows and mirrors on your bookshelf

Your bookshelf is another prime spot to engage in culturally responsive practices. Be thoughtful about how you curate books, making sure that all students can see themselves in the literature you provide.

Importantly, don’t just consider covers and titles, but look at the context of these stories. Are you providing stories about black and brown joy and excellence? If all of your stories about marginalized peoples are about struggle, that too is a problem. All students deserve to see themselves in a variety of contexts. Students use these contexts to frame their understandings of others. Check to make sure you are not contributing to single stories.

4.Educate about and for social justice

Social justice is in the air in CRP environments. Students interrogate injustices, both local and global. Students participate in ways of being together that provide alternative possibilities that center equity and belonging.

Who are your upstanders

In a culturally responsive learning environment, educators and students interrupt acts of cultural harm as soon as they arise.

Luckily, there is a great resource available to help prepare and practice how to react. Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) developed an approach called Speak Up At School: How to Respond to Everyday Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Bias.

The approach involves four strategies for responding to incidents: interrupt, question, echo, and educate. Learning for Justice provides professional development modules, background information, and materials to use with students.

At Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School in South Burlington, a group of Students Organized for Anti-Racism (SOAR) have learned about Speak Up strategies. Eventually they moved to sharing them with other students and even faculty. One of the adult mentors for the group, 6th-grade social studies teacher Christie Nold, wrote about SOAR’s origin story. She noted important structures that had been put in place to support the group, including racial affinity spaces and established protocols from Courageous Conversation about Race.

It takes proactive intentionality to create an environment where injustice is not tolerated.

Restorative justice

When harm is done, even if quickly interrupted, it is important to address it in order to learn from it and repair harm.

At Randolph Union High School, students in a project-based learning class developed a student-led restorative justice program as an alternative to the traditional disciplinary process.

In the video below, students emphasized how the power dynamic is transformed when they are empowered to solve their problems and address harm together rather than relying on adult authority for punishment.

Early evidence on restorative justice in schools suggests that it has the potential to improve school climate, decrease bullying and harassment, and increase compassion and mutual respect among students. By participating actively in the restorative process, students simultaneously experience, model, and create a social justice environment.

Addressing tough topics and challenging moments

Students should be engaged not just in interrupting and addressing injustices in the immediate environment, but also in discussing and acting on injustice outside of school. CRP involves analysis and disruption of oppression at the systemic as well as interpersonal levels.

Culturally responsive learning environments are places where conversations about issues related to social justice, no matter how controversial, are the norm. Discourse undergirds equal participation in a pluralistic democracy, which is a key goal of CRP. As Kathy Cadwell, a philosophy and history teacher at Harwood High School in Duxbury, put it:

“Dialogue is the heart of democracy. Civil discourse is the heart of community. …Why we engage in the art of dialogue, it’s not only to develop those personal skills but to develop the skills of citizenship and engagement in community.”

CRP thoughtfully scaffold and constantly reinforce the foundations for having these often challenging conversations.

Humans experience the world through the lenses of our identities. Students are situated in their cultures as they try to make sense of big moments such as historical events or unexpected collective trauma. In culturally responsive environments, the baseline assumption is that all students will be supported in processing these fraught moments, considering various perspectives and impacts, and ultimately learning from them together.

Consequently, culturally responsive learning environments are spaces where students can expect to address social justice on a daily basis, especially on those days when it may be most difficult to do so.

What are your next steps for creating a culturally responsive learning environment?

If teaching and cultural responsiveness are both practices, it means every day is an opportunity to do better.

How might you move forward, day by day, in creating a space that welcomes every single learner?

This post is the second in a four-part series. In part one we identified four aspects of cultural responsiveness: cultural transparency, an appreciative lens, windows and mirrors, and a focus on social justice. We used these four aspects to explore culturally responsive curriculum in part three and instruction and assessment in part four. The series is co-authored by Jeanie Phillips and Life LeGeros.

Equity. In Vermont and beyond, educators and administrators are talking about equity. But what does equity look like in practice? Most importantly, how do we stop talking about it and start doing it? Culturally responsive practices are a concrete way to do equity work in the classroom.

So what are they and what do they look like?

What we are calling culturally responsive practices (CRP) come from an array of research and pedagogies:

• culturally relevant teaching;
• culturally responsive pedagogies;
• and culturally sustaining pedagogies.

To name a few.

In the 1990s, Gloria Ladson-Billings, one of the leaders in this movement, studied eight teachers who were positively impacting academic achievement among African American students. Her profound findings inform the work that continues to influence us today.

At the heart of CRP is this truth: education is not a culturally neutral practice.

Naming this forces us to reckon with reality: when we fail to acknowledge culture we are silently but powerfully endorsing dominant cultural narratives and sustaining the status quo.

4 aspects of culturally responsive practices we’ve identified from the research literature.

These themes will guide us as we move towards more equitable classrooms.

1. Be transparent and intentional about culture.
2. Take an appreciative stance.
3. Provide mirrors and windows.
4. Educate about and for social justice.

Let’s look at them one by one.

1. Be transparent and intentional about culture.

Randy Bomer defines culture as “a group of peoples’ way of life”. It includes patterns of communication, values, behaviors, habits of being, and ways of belonging and interacting. The default, in schools and beyond, is dominant culture. In the United States that means white, middle class, heteronormative, and able-bodied.

The problem isn’t culture itself, it is assuming that everyone shares the dominant culture. If we assume dominant culture is THE culture, we alienate some students from our classrooms.

This lack of belonging is a precursor to the school-to-prison pipeline. As a result, when we foster a sense of estrangement for some students we are unintentionally sending a message.  That message is that some people don’t belong, are not intelligent, or that school has no relevance to their lives.

CRP asks us to name culture, talk about it, and make it plural rather than singular.

Culturally responsive classrooms embrace diversity as an asset. As a result, they welcome cultural strengths from all students. They move from monocultural to multicultural by naming cultural perspectives. They make it clear that there are many ways of being, doing, and understanding the world.

CRP forces us to acknowledge all students’ lived experiences by planning learning experiences that are personally meaningful and relevant. We must build on their cultural understandings.

2. Take an appreciative stance.

Learners come to us with so many strengths from their lived experiences. As a result, we can only begin to understand these when we seek to know students and their communities well. This understanding becomes the foundation upon which to build new skills, knowledge, and understandings. As well as strengthening the skills, knowledge, and understandings that are a part of their cultural heritage.

It’s important to note that relationships are at the core of a culturally responsive classroom. Being in genuine relation with our learners and their communities is complicated.

For instance, it means seeing their assets and strengths, not their deficits. Griner and Stewart talk about this as closing the divide between home and school.

“CRP builds bridges of meaningfulness between home and school experiences as well as between academic abstractions and lived sociocultural realities” (p. 589).

For educators, this often means we must acknowledge and confront the stereotypes we hold about our learners in order to see them in all of their glory! An appreciative stance allows us to appreciate what they know and can do while moving them towards their next steps for learning.

3. Provide mirrors and windows.

Rudine Sims Bishop gave us the metaphor for windows, mirrors, and sliding doors when thinking about literature. Books serve as mirrors when they allow us to see our experience represented in their pages. They become windows when we see the lives of others come to life on the page. And sliding doors help us build common ground across differences.

Sims Bishop says,

“When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part. Our classrooms need to be places where all the children from all the cultures that make up the salad bowl of American society can find their mirrors.

Children from dominant social groups have always found their mirrors in books, but they, too, have suffered from the lack of availability of books about others. They need the books as windows onto reality,  not just on imaginary worlds. They need books that will help then understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in, and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans” (p. 1).

The metaphor of windows and mirrors has salience beyond the books we share.

In short, all learners should see themselves in the curriculum, environment, and instruction in their classroom. And all learners should see perspectives different from their own in these areas as well. If our goal is to prepare our students for participation in a diverse democracy, we should be providing windows and mirrors from the moment they enter our schools.

4. Educate about and for social justice.

CRP seeks to support students’ immediate success while also providing them with the tools to make a positive impact on their communities and society.

From the inception of Critically Relevant Teaching, Ladson-Billings identified sociopolitical awareness as a central component, alongside student learning and cultural competence. Yet in the recent book Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World, Django Paris and Samy Alim observe that “critical consciousness is the neglected component of CRP.”

CRP is often used as a proxy for good teaching, but without systems analysis and active anti-oppression, it is more of a bandaid than a long-term solution.

Further, Paris and Alim bring us back to the need for CRP in a pluralistic democracy:

“Robust learning environments must address goals beyond cognitive skills alone [and also focus on] the problems of sustaining a democracy, resisting stereotypes, engaging in activism for that which is just, and learning to be resilient in the face of changing and evolving sources of threat.” (p. 270)

In CRP classrooms, students learn how to critique and dismantle oppressive systems. They have the opportunity to make immediate impact in their communities. Furthermore, they can make connections to the long-term project of transforming society so that inclusion and justice for all is the norm. They are not just learning how to be successful individually, they are learning how to live and grow collectively.

Culturally responsive practices are for all students

Ladson-Billings developed Culturally Relevant Teaching for Black students. The concept and practices have evolved for the primary purpose of supporting students who are marginalized inside and outside of schools. As white authors, we are sensitive to the danger here of centering whiteness and appropriating ideas into spaces that they aren’t designed for.

One strategy is to make sure we are clear about where the ideas and research originally came from. That’s why we will be quoting and citing extensively in this series.

Gholdy Muhammad makes it clear that these pedagogies are for ALL students in her book Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy.

“One fallacy is that criticality is only for Black and Brown people, or others who have been oppressed across the world… Perhaps the people who need criticality the most become those who share identities with the greatest oppressors of the world. But in truth, given the complex identities of youth, all students and teachers need culturally and historically responsive education” (p. 121-122).

Similarly, in a review of research, Equity and Cultural Responsiveness in the Middle Grades, editors Kathleen Brinegar, Lisa Harrison, and Ellis Hurd emphasize that culturally responsive approaches need to extend to white students as well:

“Two questions to guide this work might include: Does the middle grades concept sustain all aspects of students’ identities? And does it prepare students with dominant identities to be critically conscious? Given that its founders began the middle grades movement to create more equitable schooling experiences for young adolescents, it is time to revisit those activist roots” (p. 343-4).

Educating for and about social justice is for all students, and CRP is the best way we know of to get there.

A note on culturally responsive pedagogies in predominantly white schools

In Vermont, most schools serve predominantly white students and communities. We think that culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies are an important tool for furthering equity in these schools.

But we want to keep a few things in mind:

• Our Black, Indigenous, and Students of Color (BISOC) deserve CRP in all educational spaces. This applies to predominantly white institutions, perhaps especially so. For example, Vermont is often referred to as a “white state.” This framing erases our BISOC students and their educational needs. Yet 10% of our students identify as BISOC – that’s more than 8000 students! And we know they have less access to opportunity and are harmed more by punitive policies than their white counterparts. Even if there is only one BISOC student in a classroom or school, that student has the right to fully inclusive and effective education.
• White students have cultures too. Being transparent about culture means interrogating whiteness and also going beyond race and ethnicity. A white student may participate in youth culture, Vermonter redneck culture, sports cultures, etc. Like heritage cultures, these cultures can provide curriculum relevance, broaden perspectives, and strengthen identity and self-awareness. They are deserving of both honoring and critique.
• White educators need to start with themselves. The “cultural excavation” work of white teachers, as Paris and Alim put it, is especially important since the pervasiveness of white culture makes it even more difficult to see. This is ongoing work of unlearning and learning history, interrogating whiteness, and recognizing biases in beliefs, perceptions, and actions.

The cultures and identities of students, educators, and their communities must be kept front and center.

We hope you join us.

In future posts, we will look at three aspects of schooling one by one: the learning environment, curriculum, and pedagogy. For each, we will apply the four themes that we’ve explained in this post. We will share practices and examples that can make CRP in Vermont and rural schools as concrete as possible.

How are you enacting or promoting culturally responsive practices?

This post is the first in a four-part series. We use the four aspects (cultural transparency, an appreciative lens, windows and mirrors, and a focus on social justice) to explore culturally responsive learning environments in part two . We use the four aspects to take a look at culturally responsive curriculum in part three and instruction and assessment in part four. The series is co-authored by Jeanie Phillips and Life LeGeros.

References and further reading

• Bomer, R. (2017). What would it mean for English language arts to become more culturally responsive and sustaining? Voices from the Middle, 24(3), 11–15.
• Brinegar, Kathleen, Lisa Harrison & Ellis Hurd (Eds.). (2019) Equity and cultural responsiveness in the middle grades. Information Age Publishing.
• Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
• Gorski, P. C. (2017). Reaching and teaching students in poverty: Strategies for erasing the opportunity gap. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
• Griner, A. C., & Stewart, M. L. (2013). Addressing the achievement gap and disproportionality through the use of culturally responsive teaching practices. Urban Education, 48(4), 585–621.
• Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491.
• Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: A.K.A. the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84. DOI:10.17763/haer.84.1.p2rj131485484751
• Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (Eds.). (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. New York, NY: Teachers College Press
• Sims Bishop, R. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3). https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf

It’s not you; difficult conversations are a lot right now. While it’s fair to say that the history of the world consists of “being a lot” at regular intervals, right now is a moment where multiple unlikely catastrophes have collided, exposing deep rifts in conventional society. A lot of people we know and love hold diametrically opposed viewpoints, and they aren’t afraid to defend them.

And that’s where you come in, dear educators. Because a lot of those people with those viewpoints are the students in your classes. And you want to talk with them about what’s going on, and how it’s affecting them as learners. How they can affect the situation themselves, as participating members of this society. But how? Is it even possible to have those conversations? And what happens if something goes wrong?

Why address controversial issues?

Every Vermont teacher interviewed for this blog post came back to the same reason for addressing controversial issues in the classroom: for the sake of our democracy. Kathy Cadwell, a philosophy and history teacher at Harwood High School in Duxbury, got right to the point:

“Dialogue is the heart of democracy. Civil discourse is the heart of community. …Why we engage in the art of dialogue, it’s not only to develop those personal skills but to develop the skills of citizenship and engagement in community.”

Kate Toland, social studies teacher at Peoples Academy Middle Level in Morrisville VT, added that in a democracy we ned to engage in collective problem solving.

“Real problems require deep thought and deep thought requires being able to swim around in a topic instead of trying to build a wall that builds your point…who does that benefit? Thinking deeply with many people who see an issue differently or from different perspectives is where many solutions can lie and practicing being in discussion like that is I think what we want students to be doing and helping each other do.”

In her Open Letter to a Parent Afraid of Anti-Racist Education, English teacher and equity expert Christina Torres pointed out that this is not something new. “Teachers don’t just teach ‘content.’ We never have. For generations, we have also taught our students to listen, share, and be empathetic. Teachers don’t just help students understand themselves and the world around them, we also model how to have constructive discussions with one another.”

In a world of polarized politics and abundant hot takes, these difficult conversations may be more important now than ever. “Today, students are already inundated on social media with this stuff, so it is important to provide them with a space to explore these issues deeply in structured, safe ways.  It is also important to begin combating digital tribalism and echo chambers as early as possible,” noted Paul Kramer, who teaches Humanities at the Harwood Community Learning Center.

Middle School too? A big yes

Students should start delving into controversial topics as early as possible. We know, for example, that teaching about race and racism should begin as soon as students start attending school. They are already forming their ideas and without guidance those ideas will reflect the misinformation, biases, and white supremacist ideology that permeate our society.

Middle school is particularly crucial, in part because students are becoming naturally more aware of the world. As Meg O’Donnell, 7-8 grade Humanities teacher at Shelburne Community School, in Shelburne VT, noted: “It’s all around us. These topics are what kids hear in the news and see play out in social media. It is so important to create space to talk about these things.”

Young adolescents are more exposed to the world and actively working to formulate their identity. This combination puts them in a unique and in some ways ideal position to learn how to engage in dialogue.

Kathy Forrestal, 7th grade Humanities teacher at Lyndon Town School (Lyndonville VT) put it this way: “They are starting to question the world. They are noticing the world around them in slightly more mature ways. They are questioning who they are and how they fit into the world. Looking at who they are at home. And realizing that they are allowed to have a thought about it.”

For the sake of our democracy, students need to discuss and learn about controversial issues. And we need to get serious about this in middle school. Because they will be talking about these issues anyway.

Outside of the classroom

Research shows that children and teens worry about political issues. This anxiety may manifest in many ways, and when you throw in the social dynamics sometimes it can get ugly.

Lucia Johnson, Spanish teacher at Lyndon Town School, has seen and overheard some troubling examples this year:

I’ve had third grade students start a ‘Build the wall!’ chant while walking to computer class, sixth grade students declaring ‘I speak Taco Bell’ or ‘I speak American,’ and 7th graders ‘speak Spanish’ by putting on an exaggerated accent and making up fake words. Often they don’t understand the full impact that these words have, or the full context behind the issue.

Lucia noted that when she talked to students involved in these incidents individually, “about 75% of the time they didn’t understand what they were saying or how it could be interpreted.” She saw these conversations as crucial: “If you don’t talk with them and offer context and other perspectives, a massive opportunity for change is lost. These conversations are happening among even very young students, with or without the guidance of teachers.”

Gina Ritscher agreed. As a math interventionist she works with students across Lyndon Town School. “Teachers should address these issues because kids are already hearing about them and thinking about them. Sometimes in biased versions.”

The same logic of talking about race and racism can be applied more broadly: in the absence of purposeful instruction, youth are left to form their ideas largely on the basis of confusing and often problematic messaging from society.

Outside events entering the classroom

When big stuff is happening in the news, teachers are forced to decide whether and how to explicitly address it in the classroom. When those events have a partisan charge, or relate to something that is personally affecting, it can complicate a teacher’s calculus.

The recent Presidential election was a good example. Many schools and classrooms that had mock elections in the past skipped it this last round. Some teachers cited the fact that with everybody already stretched thin by pandemic schooling, the focus was on maintaining community and supporting social emotional safety. They didn’t feel up to inviting the divisiveness of the outside world into their classrooms.

Andrea Gratton and Kyle Chadburn addressed the election in the grade 5-8 Humanities classes they co-teach at Orleans Elementary School. Before the election, they mostly focused on the basics of the electoral process. They also helped students connect learning they had done about personal biases to the presence of bias in media sources. Afterwards, they used classroom time to hold space for students to ask questions and process their reactions.

One question that often comes up for teachers is whether to reveal their own views in the classroom. All teachers interviewed for this post tended to keep things close to the vest. Kate Toland captured this approach well:

My advice to myself at the beginning of the year is to relax and realize there is absolutely no need to convince anyone of anything. It is not our job to create a particular set of political beliefs; it is our job to help students find their voices and express their thinking respectfully and to use and explore reliable and trustworthy evidence to make our decisions about issues.

This view aligns with what unabashed anti-racism educator Christina Torres noted in a recent interview on the Have You Heard podcast. She drew a sharp distinction between the way she approaches tough topics with adults versus her students. She noted that in her classroom the emphasis is on skill building: “’Here’s what a lot of people think, what do you think?’ I don’t present my own views. I’m not going to say what a 13 year old is doing is racist. I’m not saying they can’t be racist, but I’m not going to name it that way usually. Because I want them to come to realize that themselves.”

Even when current events are partisan and complex, and perhaps especially then, teachers are in a position to provide students with the space and skills to navigate the world.

Spontaneous classroom discussions

In many cases, students bring up controversial issues at times and in ways that teachers aren’t expecting.

Kathy Forrestal shared a recent example where a student brought up Black Lives Matter.

It vaguely related to the topic at hand but the classroom was quickly embroiled in a passionate conversation. Students expressed that they wanted to talk about racism and inequity in the context of current events more often.

Kathy asked them why.

• “Because we are the next generation”
• “We’re the generation that is going to be in law enforcement and government when you’re like 80”
• “This generation is growing up with [conversations about racism] and knowing what’s going on is important”
• “People are not addressing issues because they’re not knowledgeable about them – so we need to be knowledgeable so we can find solutions that are mutual”
• “Adults are uncomfortable talking about this stuff because their parents were uncomfortable talking about this stuff, so if we talk about this, we won’t be”

Students get it.

Meg O’Donnell shared a different sort of example, where the class learning was focused on politics, but the conversation went in a direction she hadn’t anticipated. Students were looking at historical polling data that showed the large extent to which views on various issues had become polarized. After a few minutes of introducing the data, Meg noticed that a contentious discussion had blown up in the chat related to one of the issues on the list.

“It’s like when you are stuffing the Thanksgiving bird and the skin rips. I realized that the norms I thought were established in my class was more of a thin veil. They weren’t tightly woven as I thought, or integrated into daily practice. … When we were tested we didn’t have a strong enough scaffold.”

Meg noted that the norms in this classroom were particularly tested by external stressors and by the online environment. “There’s something about this moment. This interface. This child would have never said that in person.”

It can be tough when things go sideways

But Meg, as a consummate professional, simply redoubled her efforts. She reached out to colleagues to process the experience and for advice on how to reinforce norms and scaffold discussion skills on a daily basis.

This recent incident has reminded her of something she’s always known:

“Norms can’t just be a cover, they need to be a foundation. Norm setting is not something you do in a day and move on, but something you hit every day, every opportunity. How to ask a question, how to respond to something when it lands hard on us. How to understand the speaker and the perspective but not just shout louder.”

So what do we do?

We have to be intentional about having tough and timely conversations in classrooms. We may still overhear stuff that needs addressing. And students will surely keep surprising us by bringing up topics when we least expect it.

But every situation will go more smoothly if we’ve scaffolded the art and skills of dialogue.

Laying the ground rules for the hard stuff? Starts with the easy stuff.

As we mentioned in our post about online communication, the late great Ned Kirsch, longtime educator and Vermont superintendent, used to insist that digital citizenship is just citizenship, but online.

From day one, you’ve worked with your students on learning who they are, where they come from, and what matters most to them. As a learning community, you’ve built norms for interacting. These likely cover everything from seating choice to restroom breaks, device check-out and unlimited testing re-takes.

In case they don’t also cover face-to-face (or mask-to-mask as the case may be) communication, here are three sets of norms to consider in creating or revisiting conversational norms.

3 sets of conversational norms:

1. The Craig Ferguson Route

Three simple rules:

• Does this need to be said?
• Does it need to be said by me?
• And does it need to be said by me right now?

2. Four Phrases for Kindness

Perhaps the most powerful phrases in any language are:

• “Please.”
• “Thank you.”
• “I’m sorry.”

and

• “If I’m understanding you correctly…”

Those first three might seem overly simple, but in the heat of conversations about emotionally charged topics, these phrases can be key in dismantling tension. Especially if as a group, you all are used to using them.

Especially that fourth one.

Let’s take a moment:

“If I’m understanding you correctly…you just stated that you believe aliens have landed in Bellows Falls and replaced all our regular coffee with Folger’s Decaf? Is that correct?”

While we’re all going to be extremely lucky if decaf-bearing space travelers are the 2020 topic causing conversational mayhem, the key here is that you can use this phrase to do two things in the discourse: 1) slow it down, and 2) ask for clarification. Both these approaches can be life-savers.

Sometimes, we misunderstand people.

Sometimes, we don’t hear everything they’ve said because of background noise, a lag in our speech-to-text device, a momentary distraction or because what we think we hear the person saying has whipped up our emotions to the point where they’re difficult to manage.

Additionally, the rise of social media has created what Kathy Forrestal refers to as “Tik-Tok understanding”: the idea that we can fully grasp nuance and context from social media soundbites. They’re so short! So easy to make! So easy to consume! And yet, without rigorous online information safeguards, they can also be misleading, biased, or flat-out wrong.

Social media in general can cause us to speed up or gloss over our comprehension in actual, real-life conversations, whether online or in-person. As Meg O’Donnell put it: “They have the soundbites, the kernels, but don’t always have the historic thread or the depth beyond the soundbite. They have the retort, but not the wisdom behind it.”

Building background knowledge using a range of sources can help. Regardless: there will be points where it’s time to throw the handbrake.

“If I’m understanding you correctly…” is your handbrake

When you use it, what you’re doing is creating a space in the discourse to focus on one sentence, or one idea, and ask for additional detail. You’re creating a space where you can connect with the speaker more directly by establishing a feedback loop. That feedback loop, in turn, can help the speaker understand if what they said came out right.

Oh, we have all been there.

Perhaps what they meant to say came out wrong. Perhaps their own emotions overwhelmed them during the discourse. Now they have a chance to connect with their listener (or listeners; this absolutely works in a group setting) and clarify.

Even if (and this is key), in those few seconds where they hear their own ideas repeated back to them, they realize that they’d like to retract, or amend their statement.

Give them that opportunity. Give them that grace.

Breathe in, breathe out. Listen well. Accept retractions, amendments or apologies in the name of preserving or re-establishing community.

3. Would you say it to your mother?

Part of learning is the importance of recognizing context. Again, during conversations where emotions are running high, it’s easy to get carried away, that’s why we’re all here in this article. But if students already have a known and used norm of thinking about whether they’d make a certain utterance to a specific loved one, that can slow down the derailment.

Let’s unpack, just a little. First of all, we’re going to recognize that the mother example will not just not work for every student, but can, in certain cases, be traumatic for students for whom their mother is a traumatic figure. That’s absolutely something to negotiate and work around.

The key aspect of the strategy deals with the idea that when our emotions carry us away from staying present and focused on who we’re speaking to, it’s helpful to have this norm which encourages us all to identify and re-presence one individual, one particular person in our lives whose opinion we respect, and to whom we always try to present our best selves: our mother, our beloved grandfather, our cousin serving in the Navy, our priest, etc.

This We Believe:

Now, that all said, part of your classroom norms discussion inevitably covers what’s up for discussion, and what’s not. Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy, authors of The Political Classroom, refer to these as “open” vs “settled” issues. (We love this NPR interview with them.)

As a community, you and your students sat down and decided on items that are established facts and firm beliefs; they are not up for discussion.

Black lives matter. Climate change is real. COVID-19 is not a hoax.

These are things that you can decide are simply not up for debate. They are settled issues. Instead, what could be up for debate are questions such as what to do about anti-Black police brutality, how to solve climate change, and what science says about preventing the spread of COVID-19. Those are topics that you can (and likely should) discuss.

When things go wrong (because they will)

Despite our best intentions, conversations will go awry. We’re all a little frazzled, we’re all 300% done with Zoom meetings. We’re all sad and scared and anxious and unsure. And while we’re all doing our best, we are in a situation where a lot of improbable events have congregated in one place and are cha-cha-ing all over our mental health. At the best of times, we all sometimes mis-speak or get carried away. And these are not the best of times.

Someone’s going to say something that hurts someone else.

Pause.

That is the crux of miscommunication. As communication seeks to build connections, miscommunication severs them. So then the task we want to address is rebuilding that connection.

Let’s look at a couple ways to do that.

Learning to accept the consequences of your own actions, especially when they’re not always perfect, is a hard skill. Hard but necessary.

Rabbi Danya’s Guide to Repentance

Apologizing is a skill. And like other skills, you have to learn it. At the heart of every true apology lie two things: a recognition that you caused injury, and a focus on how you are going to atone for doing the injury.

Sounds simple. Too bad human emotions tend to get in the way.

Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone puts it this way: “No matter where it took place — in the workplace, the street, on Instagram or in someone’s DMs — if you hurt someone, you need to make it right.”

What makes a good apology?

Choose your venue: should you write it out on paper and share it with the injured party? Should you call them? Should you apologize face-to-face with authority figures involved? Does a text cut it?

First of all, the feelings and safety of the injured party are paramount. What feels safest to them? What would make them feel heard and attended to? And above all else, what will make sure to not compound the original injury?

Rabbi Danya Rutenberg has a thought-provoking thread unpacking teshuvah (תשובה), a process of forgiveness, atonement and repentance.

I want to distinguish between "atonement," "forgiveness," and "repentance," which are three different concepts in Judaism. The critical one, in my view, is repentance, where the real work is on the person who has done harm.

— Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR) July 24, 2018

She focuses in her argument on how there is a large amount of very specific work for the injuring party to do, both on themselves, and in their community. How can your existing classroom and school norms support working through personal growth? If a communications breakdown occurs, what resources can your school bring to support examining the root cause of the utterance?

Calling in, rather than calling out

The prevalence of online communications, with its unfettered approach to crowd discourse, has given rise to a tendency to call people out on their utterances.

Instead: what does it look like for someone to misstep in a conversation, and for us to recognize that not only does the listening community need support in processing the impact of the hurt done, but that as we value every member of our community, we also need to attend to the hurt experience by the speaker that in fact causes the utterance?

We call people in, rather than out.

There are a number of educators doing amazing work around restorative justice in schools. At Randolph Union High School, in Randolph Center VT, students manage the school’s restorative justice system (video), which includes restorative justice circles.

But it’s worth it.

Students need to be able to engage in productive discussions about complex and controversial issues. They’ll be learning and talking about these things whether we address them in our classrooms or not. But with guidance they can build crucial skills in communication, problem solving, critical analysis, conflict resolution, etc.

We are obligated to “go there” for the sake of our democracy, but there are some short term benefits as well.

At the Harwood Community Learning Center, for the last several years teachers have set aside time in the daily schedule to talk about current events. Paul Kramer is amazed at how much students grow over time.

Students begin each year tentatively – not volunteering topics, passively listening – but as time progresses, we do see a change; students begin looking for content to share and engaging with each other using probing questions … it becomes a strong bonding experience for the group … I have actually come to view these discussions as a behavior support for my classes. They provide such an important outlet for some kids.

The world is a scary place. But when done well, delving into the controversies in our society and making sense together of the mess of misinformation can be hugely compelling for students.

“What is the implication for how we understand ourselves and each other in reference to our racial identities? And if we are dissatisfied with the way things are, what can we do to change it?”

–Beverly Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

This is not the post we originally planned to publish this morning.

We have been so inspired, lately, by Vermont educators and families and students, all making this strange and challenging pandemic learning work for students as best they can. We have been so inspired by everyone’s creativity and flexibility in making this pandemic situation work on any level.

But this is not the pandemic learning work we’re talking about today.

This is the other pandemic learning work.

The pandemic of white supremacy and racism.

It’s work on a pandemic that’s been raging for centuries, one that has infected all levels of American education and society. This pandemic has long infected our government, and our social infrastructure.

It infects us.

As an organization, we focus on personalized learning that honors student identities, and their lives and learning outside of school. Their communities. And for Black students, and students of color, those identities and communities continue to come under attack. Those lives have been, and continue to be, under attack.

The current political situation has emboldened white supremacists to violence at every level. We’re all seeing the news reports, and the twitter feeds.  So the question becomes: what do we do?

Before anything else? We admit we’re going to get things wrong because of privilege.

First off, an admission: the writers of this post, personally, are going to get things wrong, in a way that hurts Black educators and students. We will bumble through and try to fix things with imprecise helping hands and accidentally make things worse and then have to start over with those same hands. Because the authors of this post are both white, while we are committed to being anti-racist, the way we try and make things better will likely be blind to some realities. We welcome feedback on this post, either in the comments down below or via our contact form. 

But while we get things wrong, we still have to try.

We can begin by acknowledging the decades of hard work done by BIPOC — Black, Indigenous, People of Color — educators, writers, activists and thought-leaders.

We commit to reading and learning from BIPOC work in this area and beyond. White educators, students and community members need to learn and unlearn the true history of this nation, and listen to BIPOC people about issues of race, racism, and history.  

Then we as white educators get to work, holding explicitly anti-racist work as a constant goal.

1. Honor student identities — and protect Black students and BIPOC students. This might look like making sure you create an intentional educational space for students of color to feel safe, valued, and important. This will take work of building trust, calling out and calling in students and staff, and creating a loving community that can openly discuss hard topics and plan action.
2. Honor student lives and learning outside of school — especially those of Black students and BIPOC students.  Schools have often valued a limited way of being for learning.
3. Honor student communities — especially those of Black students and BIPOC students. Student communities encompass the full range of communities any given student exists in: their family, their peer group, their place of worship, their service organization. How can we support and validate the learning done in those communities when the communities of Black students are under attack from white supremacy?

With a focus on the needs of BIPOC students, educators can develop a framework for personalized learning that responds to the pandemic of white supremacy. Paul Gorksi’s Equity Literacy Framework (.pdf) is an excellent tool for this work.

What can this look like in action?

Honor student identities

Scan the curriculum:

Let’s do a diversity audit of our school and classroom libraries. Whose voices are represented? Whose voices are missing? And are we interrogating the conventional literary canon? Are we reading about Black experiences? Are we reading about the experiences of other people of color? How are we centering Black voices? How are we centering Indigenous voices? How are we centering the voices of all marginalized students as we negotiate that curriculum?

Check on students and their experiences

But beyond that, how are we providing direct support to Black students and others as they negotiate our schools? We know that BIPOC students are on the receiving end of hundreds of micro-aggressions in their lives. How are we constructing spaces in our classrooms where we work towards having everyone understand a) what micro-aggressions are, b) why they are actual violence against students of color, and c) how we repair the damage in our constructed communities when they occur?

How are we building restorative justice systems for our classrooms that center Black students and mitigate those violences?

How are schools handling:

• Hats, hoodies and other unequal dress codes
• Display of the Confederate flag in any form outside a textbook
• Policies affecting anyone’s hair at any time
• Disciplinary rates that affect Black students and students of color disproportionately.

The list goes on; ask your students and they can fill that list out for you.

…But they shouldn’t have to.

Instead: negotiate school policies with students and their families, and your colleagues, in a way that centers and protects BIPOC students. Provide students with the support and means and the structure to negotiate and design more equal schools. Open that door, and be the educators and administrators who listen, who advocate, and who pro-actively create anti-racist spaces and structures in your schools.

Honor student lives and learning outside of school

We need to ask ourselves how school currently provides a way for students to get credit for the work they do outside of school. For their work with Girl Scouts, or their mosques. For the work they put into family businesses, and the work they do looking after siblings. The work they do showing up to protests, organizing action and doing protest support.

And then we need to figure out how to dismantle systems that block students from getting that credit. We need to examine those policies for assigning credit for out-of-school learning and dismantle any piece that upholds ongoing racial inequity.

Honor student communities

Center Black voices and Black community organization. Support Black families. Hold a space for them to share their knowledge of their students, for them to share their experience — uninterrupted. Listen to Black students when they share who those communities are, and how valuable those communities are in informing and supporting their learning. Then go listen to those communities some more..

In conclusion:

As an organization, we are going to get things wrong about race, and about educating about racial equity.

And again, the writers of this post, personally, are going to get things wrong, in a way that hurts Black educators and students. We will try our best not to make things worse, and we will take responsibility for our actions and try again.

But we are committed to this work.

The point is always the starting over and the doing again.

Because if we were silent, we would do even more damage.

Our silence would be a form of violence. We are not satisfied with ourselves, and our organization’s work, when racial inequality and violence continue to plague Vermont’s education system.

We are in no way experts on equity, but we know that we and everyone else need to focus on equity — hard and consistently, in-house and beyond — in order to be anything like effective in whole school change in Vermont.

There is so much we have to do, right now. There is so much work to get stuck into, fighting this particular pandemic.

But we have always known the work is worth it. We are not here for white supremacy. We are here for Vermont’s Black educators and students, and their families and communities. Black lives matter.

Please note: The original version of this post featured an image of a plain black square. It has been brought to our attention that that image has been recently used in ways that are hurtful to the Black Lives Matter and activist communities. We deeply regret this error, and will use the moment to think through better guidelines for image choice in all blogposts moving forward, and will post those as part of the editorial guidelines we’ll make publicly available on this site. Photo credit: Elly Budliger, age 13.

The middle school movement has been a powerful force for positive change. It’s rooted in progressive education, with special attention to the developmental needs of young adolescents.

In Vermont, we are ahead of most other states in implementing middle school systems and associated student-centered practices. That’s a good thing. Relative newcomers to this place, like me, should give big props to so many educators here who have championed innovative learning environments.

Yet there is a flaw at the heart of the middle school movement.

In the fervor to be maximally responsive to the developmental needs of young adolescents, it has downplayed the individual identities and complex contexts of our students.

For middle school educators who look to the movement for guidance, we may be missing the trees for the forest. And this is causing us to miss out on fully apprehending the strengths of our students. Or giving them them the guidance they need to meet challenges and to thrive. For middle school movement equity, we must strive to combine the developmental with the cultural to create an approach that is more authentically personal.

Engagement for whom?

While there is consensus that student engagement is paramount, we can’t truly put students at the center without being very specific about who they are.

In an editorial titled “Engagement for Whom?” in AMLE’s Middle School Journal, Lisa Harrison, Ellis Hurd, and (Vermont’s own) Kathleen Brinegar posed this key question. As a team of editors, they asked us to support every young adolescent “by shifting the conversation from focusing on middle school organizational structures in general, to contextualizing them within broader social, cultural, and political contexts.”

If we look at the Vermont context, we see glaring inequalities. As catalogued in the report Education Matters: The Impact of Systemic Inequity by Voices for Vermont’s Children:

• The school-to-prison pipeline is flowing – Students with disabilities, Black students, and Native American students were suspended up to three times as often as their counterparts. They were also more likely to be referred to law enforcement by school staff.
• Opportunity to learn gaps persist – The average standardized test score gaps are 18 percent by race and 25 percent by income. Schools graduate marginalized students on time at significantly lower rates.
• Schools are not safe spaces for too many students – Students of color and students who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBTQ) are two to four times as likely to miss school because they don’t feel safe there.

In middle schools specifically, we continue to have too many students from marginalized backgrounds who are don’t feel valued or like they belong. This is despite the fact that structures such as advisory programs and teaming are fairly widespread.

We simply can’t assume that by changing school structures and improving instruction generally, we will achieve equity.

Beyond generic engagement

In the past I believed that if we could raise the overall quality of our systems and instruction, that equity would take care of itself. For example, take my blog post from 2016, Equity begins with engagement. I argued that educators could tackle systemic inequality by “lighting a spark” in every student. In effect I pointed to personalized learning as a panacea that could battle inequity in all its forms.

Now I recognize that personalized learning is limited if it doesn’t focus on dismantling oppression.

And that means we need to do the hard work of truly centering the identity of each of our students, in all their complexity and cultural depth.

Middle school movement equity at the moment isn’t as helpful as it should be in reorienting us to active anti-oppression. But there are a growing number of scholars and educators trying to change that.

“Middle School Movement Phase II”

The editors of the Middle School Journal have called publicly for the middle school movement to shift its focus to equity.

“If middle level education wants to remain relevant and truly embrace education as a tool for empowerment, then we must focus on researching and sharing middle level practices that work to disrupt the status quo. This includes racism, classism, xenophobia, religious discrimination, heterosexism, ageism and other forms of oppressive structures within society.”

I interpreted this as a provocative challenge: if we are all about equity, then let’s fight for it directly. We don’t need to rely on entry points like engagement. Our middle school movement equity needs to actively promote equity both instructionally and institutionally.

Just as we must avoid over-relying on engagement as an entry point, we must come to terms with the limits of developmentalism. The middle school movement’s focus on early adolescence as a stage of life may have caused us to lose sight of knowing the individual students in front of us.

This is why the Middle School Journal editors call for a course correction. They argue that in Phase II of the movement:

“While we need to celebrate and be responsive to the unique characteristics of early adolescence, we cannot do so without recognizing and celebrating the unique identities and lived experiences of every young adolescent who enters our schools. When we do, we are recognizing that our job as middle grades educators is to empower each student to transform themselves. Such empowerment has the potential for youth to become critically conscious, which in turn supports their development as producers of knowledge and transformers of society.”

Let’s get radical

Critical consciousness is an ambitious goal.

In Critical consciousness: The key to student achievement, Aaliyah El-Amin and others describe critical consciousness as “the ability to recognize and analyze systems of inequality and the commitment to take action against these systems.”

Paulo Freire popularized critical consciousness 50 years ago. It is a key component of many asset-based pedagogies, including Culturally Relevant Teaching, developed by Gloria Ladson-Billings.

Yet some people may be alarmed by the idea that middle school education would seek to teach students to dismantle systemic oppression. This is why the push for Phase II is a big deal. It is unabashedly anti-oppressive. Though it is not partisan, it is political in the sense that it seeks to redistribute power to fully support students from marginalized communities.

Getting serious about middle school movement equity will indeed challenge the status quo. And that’s never an easy fight.

Revisiting our beliefs

The middle school movement intended to challenge the status quo from the beginning. When This We Believe dropped in 1982, it represented forceful advocacy for ideas that had been swirling around for at least a decade. The document challenged the junior high school model that was dominant at the time. What young adolescents needed were radically different and very much in line with the values of progressive education: lots of socialization, student choice and voice, and real world relevance.

I have personally found This We Believe incredibly helpful and have used aspects of it to drive professional learning numerous times. Yet recently I have become more acutely aware of flaws in this foundational document.

It’s time to talk about race

Let’s consider how race is addressed in This We Believe. And just as importantly, how race is not addressed.

Starting with a race-focused critical lens is important and instructive for many reasons. First, racism is arguably the primary oppressive force in this country. Second, studying the way racism operates and how to fight it informs all other anti-oppression efforts. And third, racism is really difficult to talk and think about. So if we don’t start with race then we are unlikely to go there naturally.

Using critical race theory, Christopher Busey systematically analyzed what is said and unsaid about race in This We Believe. He concluded that the text upholds two problematic narratives:

1. There is no story about race.
2. Racial difference as deficit.

For the most part, race is not an issue for young adolescents. But when it is, it’s a problem.

“The heartbeat of racism is denial”

The title of Ibram X. Kendi’s opinion piece in the New York Times is applicable here.

Ignoring race doesn’t make racism go away. Quite the opposite. Per Busey: “This We Believe’s colorblind ideology is complicit in constructing a racial reality of disproportionate discipline, culturally desynchronized curriculum, and hostile learning environments for early adolescent children of color.”

Color-evasiveness (often referred to as colorblindness) is problematic and has demonstrably racist impacts. Race impacts everyone, even if some white people don’t realize it or perceive impact in their own lives. When somebody says “I don’t see race,” they are not acknowledging the racial realities of people of color. When teaching students of color, color-evasiveness is a barrier to curricular connection and harmful to relationships.

Alternatively, a deeper understanding of how race operates allows us to be critical of the systems of inequity in which we participate. We may be able to start to understand how schools privilege certain ways of acting and learning that unnecessarily disadvantage many students. And we may be able to take steps to move from deficit- to asset-oriented mindsets that help middle schools become places where all students can thrive.

Busey offered three belief statements in opposition to This We Believe:

• We believe race is central to identity development.
• We believe smartness is a racialized construct; racial difference is not a cognitive deficiency.
• We believe race matters in creating positive school environments and subsequently, socio-emotional and psychological development.

These crystal clear belief statements directly address racial equity. If we don’t say this stuff out loud and commit, equity won’t happen organically. Busey’s statements leave less room for accidentally perpetuating racial inequity.

It’s about impact, not intent

Racism and other oppressive systems do not require overtly bad intentions. Impact is what matters. The authors of This We Believe, while they were mostly white men, meant for the document to align with equity. But as Stephanie P. Jones put it in her recent article Ending Curriculum Violence,

“The notion that a curriculum writer’s or teacher’s intention matters misses the point: Intentionality is not a prerequisite for harmful teaching. Intentionality is also not a prerequisite for racism.”

In that spirit, I must recognize that my reliance on the ideas birthed in This We Believe has made me complicit with racism and oppression.

It hurts me to say this.

But once I’ve recognized this as a problem I need to put my energy into fixing it.

Beyond developmentalism

Seeing our students as young adolescents is not enough to be responsive to their needs. We must seek to understand race and other social forces that impact their lives and their learning.

As Bettina Love put it even more pointedly in her Education Week commentary Dear White Teachers: You Can’t Love Your Black Students if You Don’t Know Them:

“Let me be clear: I do not think White teachers enter the profession wanting to harm children of color, but they will hurt a child whose culture is viewed as an afterthought.”

We must center the aspects of identity that are most important to each student. In some cases that is race. In other cases and moments it may be gender, class, sexuality, and the intersections thereof.

Simply put:

“Middle level educators must realize that culture and identity often matter more than age in shaping the experience of young adolescents.”

The above statement appears in Chapter 1 of a recently published book called Equity & Cultural Responsiveness in the Middle Grades (edited by Brinegar, Harrison, and Hurd). It compiles research from twenty some scholars delving into the themes of this blog post.

This straightforward statement represents a call for recalculating the weight of developmentalism in the middle school equation.

Where does cultural responsiveness (or the lack thereof) play out in middle schools?

Consider how important considerations have been left out of the mainstream discussion of the three major areas of adolescent development.

• Physical Development
  • Emphasizes traditional Eurocentric standards of beauty
  • Emphasizes heteronormative understandings of gender and sexuality
  • Minimizes the impact of food and housing insecurity on physical development
• Cognitive Development
  • Lacks culturally responsive pedagogies
  • Fails to recognize the limitations of monolingualism and benefits of multilingualism
  • Overrepresents culturally diverse students in special education
• Social-emotional Development
  • Downplays or ignores the influence of cultural identity on belonging
  • Uses predominantly color-evasive approaches, particularly by white teachers
  • Fails to pay attention to the importance of creating affirming spaces for students with historically devalued and marginalized identities

If we aren’t sufficiently aware of the social-historical forces operating on layers of identity, we are in danger of seeing differences as deficits.

We are more likely to see deviations as bad or abnormal when adolescent development is framed in general terms. We need to connect developmental and cultural responsiveness.

And the first best thing we can do is to broaden our understanding of identity. We need to deepen our understanding of students so that we see can clearly see their assets. The middle school movement helped shine a spotlight on the positive potential of young adolescence. Now we need to commit to being equally responsive to cultural and social aspects of identity.

The way forward

If we are willing to do the work, we can draw on any number of well established asset-based approaches. These are deep pedagogies that require attention to self and systems.

… engaging in social justice work requires the acknowledgement that equity frameworks such as culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 2014), cultural responsiveness (Gay, 2000), culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, 2012: Paris & Alim, 2017), equity literacy (Gorski, 2017) and reality pedagogy (Emdin, 2011, 2016) are not just lists of practices or strategies, but philosophies or ways of being and thinking. There is no list of silver-bullet strategies that make us equitable, transformative educators or that make our curriculum socially just (p. 1).

We can continue to celebrate and cater to the developmental characteristics of young adolescents. We also have the opportunity to more fully honor the assets that students bring with other aspects of their identities.

In practice, taking into account the complex array of characteristics for any given student boils down to seeing them as an individual. Not just in a “celebrating diversity” sort of way, but recognizing that each student’s individuality has a context. Each student carries an intersection of identities and many of those identities are culturally situated.

If we can create learning environments that validate, affirm, draw upon, and sustain those identities, our students, schools, and communities can thrive.

Always, always, start with ourselves

Lest our own blindspots and biases get in the way, it is incumbent on educators to constantly critically analyze our beliefs and practices. This is especially important for educators such as myself who carry privileged social identities. Whether looking at my internal blind spots, my external mistakes, or the impacts of systems and organizations in which I participate, I resolve to stay committed in the face of inevitable pushback.

I am also excited to work with others who are trying to bend existing and emerging systems to the equity task at hand.

Middle school structures such as advisories, curriculum integration, and teacher teams continue to have a lot of student-centered potential. And in Vermont there is much change afoot via promising personalized learning strategies like Personal Learning Plans, Flexible Pathways, and proficiency-based learning.

We need to make sure that anti-oppressive education is the driving force of systems change rather than an add-on or assumed byproduct. We need to build on the work of educators and scholars of color who model how to make equity our primary unapologetic orientation.

In essence, we need to develop our own critical consciousness so that we can (1) instill it in our students and (2) disrupt inequity in our systems.

So let’s get critical, get conscious, and get to work.

How will *you* contribute to middle school movement equity?

References

Brinegar, Kathleen, Lisa Harrison & Ellis Hurd (2018) Becoming transformative, equity-based educators, Middle School Journal, 49:5, 2-3, DOI: 10.1080/00940771.2018.1524253

Brinegar, Kathleen, Lisa Harrison & Ellis Hurd (Eds.). (2019) Equity and cultural responsiveness in the middle grades. Information Age Publishing.

Busey, C. (2017, April). Arrested development how This We Believe utilizes colorbind narratives to neglect the racial realities of early adolescent development and middle grades education. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Antonio, TX.

El-Amin, Aaliyah, Scott Seider, Daren Graves, Jalene Tamerat, Shelby Clark, Madora Soutter, Jamie Johannsen, and Saira Malhotra (2017) Critical consciousness: A key to student achievement. Phi Delta Kappan 98 (5), 18-23. https://kappanonline.org/critical-consciousness-key-student-achievement/

Emdin, C. (2011). Moving beyond the boat without a paddle: Reality pedagogy, Black youth, and urban science education. Journal of Negro Education, 80(3), 284–295. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Moving-Beyond-the-Boat-without-a-Paddle%3A-Reality-Emdin/74f96fcd6843eadbc1619f47492dcb995934806a

Emdin, C. (2016). For White folks who teach in the hood… and the rest of Y’all too: Reality pedagogy in urban education. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Herder & Herder.

Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Gorski, P. C. (2017). Reaching and teaching students in poverty: Strategies for erasing the opportunity gap. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Harrison, Lisa, Ellis Hurd & Kathleen Brinegar (2018) Middle school movement phase II: Moving towards an inclusive and justice-oriented middle level education, Middle School Journal, 49:4, 2-3, DOI: 10.1080/00940771.2018.1490569

Kendi, Ibram X. (January, 2018). The heartbeat of racism is denial. New York Times Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/opinion/sunday/heartbeat-of-racism-denial.html

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: A.K.A. the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84. DOI:10.17763/haer.84.1.p2rj131485484751

Love, Bettina L. (March, 2019). Dear white teachers: You can’t love your Black students if you don’t know them. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/03/20/dear-white-teachers-you-cant-love-your.html

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97.

Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (Eds.). (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Voices for Vermont’s Children. (2016) Education matters: The impacts of systemic inequity in Vermont. https://www.edequityvt.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Education-Matters-report-2016.pdf