For Teacher Educators

Villegas and Lucas' Educating Culturally Responsive Teachers is the pre-eminent text for teacher educators who wish to develop culturally responsive teachers. In this book, they list six dispositions of culturally responsive teaching that you could use to develop yourself, your teachers, and your staff. Just as with teachers, there is no "easy as 1-2-3" method for developing culturally responsive dispositions,  but see below for actions you take with your teachers and your staff.

Stevona Rogers (MTLD, New Orleans) and the Teach 4 Liberation Network

Words From Stevie

"Teach 4 Liberation is a group of educators in the Greater New Orleans - Louisiana Delta region that I have the pleasure of coaching around Culturally Responsive Teaching. T4L is devoted to answering the question of what it looks like to truly put students and families at the center of our theory of change. We see the classroom through the eyes of our students and create curricula that teach the following: self-love, solidarity, and self-determination in and beyond designated grade levels and subject areas. 

As a network we educate our students in ways that help make visible the ecological, social, and community issues that will shape their lives and futures. We have made a commitment to constantly use an indigenous perspective to understand and work against educational inequity. Embodying respect and humility, we believe that in order to directly provide the type of education our students’ deserve, we must be fully engaged participants in the cultural practices of the communities in which we serve. 

This network is especially important in a setting like New Orleans where many education pundits’ point to this city as the model for what education reform should look like for Black and brown communities. While many institutions are proving that significant gains can be made academically, we believe there has to be a deliberate building of our student’s cultural competence and critical consciousness simultaneously. I have lost nine Black male students to gun violence and seven of them were in college. With that being said as educators we have to talk about educating children holistically. We have to talk about a curriculum that gives students critical hope. We have to push more models that teach students to transform their communities and not transport from them." 

What are T4L Teachers Doing?

  • Nelda Dafinis (10th Grade World Geography) and Sam Battan (9th Grade World Geography) has started an awesome series called “Freedom Fridays” where community scholars visit their classes and have critical dialogue w/ their students, going deep about a particular pertinent issue to their lives via media. Baakir from Blackstar Cafe and Books in New Orleans recently addressed her class, discussing the untold history of Africa, and taking responsibility for your own education. Apparently, they hung on his every word! 
  • Katrina Hertz (7th and 8th Grade Math) taught her students about Moziah Bridges and the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921 to learn about the power and potential of Black businesses. She also connected this to a social justice-oriented math lesson where students created a business from their personal interests, using percentages and ratios to calculate overhead costs.
  • Brett Zimmerman (8th-10th Grade Social Studies) led his students in a lesson analyzing progress for African American people in respect to the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom using an infographic from the Huffington Post and other resources. One question his students discussed was why so many disparities between Blacks and Whites still exist, even though the 10 times more Blacks graduate from college today compared to fifty years ago. Taking it one step further, they discussed what they could do to change these disparities using their own education. This was critical dialogue at its finest. 
As a network we are aware that in order to witness transformation change we must first liberate ourselves. Throughout the year we will: 

  1. Deeply explore the many cultural assets that contribute to the vitality and robustness of people native to New Orleans & our part in sharing an accurate narrative.  
  2. Continuously learn and apply the tenants of Culturally Responsive Teaching. 
  3. Use asset based thinking to analyze w/ community partners how the difficulties facing our students can be more effectively remedied w/ cultural capital both in and outside our classrooms.

Our hope is that together our efforts will decolonize and provide critical pedagogy in order to better provide holistic learning opportunities for dispossessed youth of color to respond to the dehumanizing conditions on their communities and the world.

More About T4L

Developing Yourself

Tara Harrington, Director of Teacher Leadership Development in South Dakota, offers her reflections on developing her own culturally responsive perspective. Listen to her reflections about navigating the cultural difference between her and the community in which she lives, and the ways that listening to other people's realities has allowed her to develop her own perspective.

Developing Teachers

Designing Learning Experiences
 for Culturally Responsive Teaching

Tara Sumrall, Manger of Teaching and Learning in New Mexico, has spent the past two years thinking about ways to help her CMs be more culturally responsive. Some of this has been in session development, while some has been in thinking about the way she coaches CMs. This year, CMs have participated in several sessions on culturally responsive teaching, which has informed her development of a scope and sequence for program that has culturally responsive teaching at the center of CM development.

 These materials are under perpetual construction as Tara refines her own knowledge, skills and perspective on culturally responsive teaching, and feel free to reach out to Tara at tara.sumrall@teachforamerica.org for more information. 
  • Scope and Sequence Draft: This is a draft of the New Mexico CM development scope and sequence, with builiding the dispositions for culturally responsive teaching at the center of CM development. The "Horizontal Alignment" tab is most helpful to check out. 
  • CM Session on Identity and Planning: A session that guides CMs through a reflection on how their identity influences the curriculum they plan.
  • CM Session on Constructivism and Pedagogy: A session meant to build knowledge and skills related to constructivism.

Coaching Culturally Responsive
 Teachers in Phoenix

Phoenix MTLDs Angela Dimler and Anna Lisa Caraveo have offered hands-on, directive coaching on culturally responsive practices with a small group of teachers. They have found that one-on-one support and tight cycle feedback are very effective strategies in leading teachers to implement culturally responsive teaching in their classrooms. Also, ensuring time and space for adequate reflection are absolutely necessary to pushing teachers beyond their comfort zone and into a place where they authentically engage with their students in a responsive way.

Angela's reflections on this work, and examples of their coaching work with their teachers:

Developing Teams

Courtesy of Elizabeth Ayala Harris, Director of Design for Teach For America (elizabeth.ayala@teachforamerica.org)

We can draw from Villegas and Lucas’ six strands in Educating Culturally Responsive Teachers to lead teams with a culturally responsive orientation. Inclusive and welcoming teams operate free from norms and archetypes of successful leadership associated with any dominant cultural group. Instead, they empower and enable their team members as change agents by constructing their group culture and practices around the people who make up the team and the constituents with whom the team works. Culturally responsive team leadership requires the following practices:
  • Develop your own and your team's sociocultural consciousness. Check out an excerpt from Andres Tapia's The Inclusion Paradox to get started.
  • Deeply understand the current reality behind your team's inclusion and culture. Check out this Team Culture Diagnostic Survey to get started. 
  • Know the people on your team, the constituents with whom your team works, and embrace a constructivist view of knowledge, teaching and learning.
  • Examine and revise team practices in response to the above:
    • Operational and communication norms
    • Team systems and structures for communication, collaboration, and accountability
    • Leadership opportunities, career support, and partnerships for growth and collaboration
    • Development opportunities and learning experiences