Culturally responsive pedagogy affirms, values and draws from children’s cultures, and actively support s and maintain s children’s cultural identities and practices. ... December 18, 2020 As the year comes to a close, we wanted to thank you and wish you Happy Holidays. Given that research, test data, and anecdotal evidence repeatedly confirm that culture plays a significant role in teaching and learning, student diversity challenges us to explore ways to bridge cultural differences and develop culturally sensitive teaching practices that recognize and accept these differences. Culturally responsive teaching is focused on making content relevant to learners and connected to their prior experiences. In the beginning, our nation was primarily the home of Native Americans and other indigenous groups representing more than 400 languages, Africans from a wide range of different regions, and Europeans of mostly British heritage. Selectivity restricts the knowledge of students regarding the varied perspectives that may apply to a range of holiday celebrations. Have an approach that is academic and not devotional. Culturally responsive teaching begins with teachers and school leaders! Each card contains a description of the activity and an example of how to use it in your classroom. Focus on the awareness of religions rather than acceptance of any one religion. You may be asking how and why? Think heroes, holidays, and “equity sticks”. Homepage illustrations ©2009 by Rafael López originally appeared in "Book Fiesta" by Pat Mora and used with permission from HarperCollins. These hidden aspects of culture can cause misunderstandings and cross-group conflicts; they can impact teacher-student and student-student relationships, and create hard-to-identify barriers to academic content matter. How Are You Approaching Holidays with Sensitivity in the Classroom? 7 Tips to Implement Culturally Responsive Teaching Tuesday, 29 Sep 2020 With a growing and increasingly diverse population of English Language Learners (ELLs) entering US classrooms each year, it is critical to learn more about individual students and their cultures to provide them with the support they need to succeed in school and into adulthood. Culturally responsive teaching - "Teaching and leading in such a way that more of your students, across more of their differencing, achieve at a high level and engage at a deeper level, more of the time, WITHOUT giving up who they are." Together, these two frameworks provide a powerful recipe to improve the outcomes for all involved. Ask each of your students to collect their favorite dessert recipe. Culturally Responsive Teaching Sharing Holiday Traditions in the Classroom Finding simple ways to celebrate different holidays in the classroom can create a … Culturally responsive teaching - "Teaching and leading in such a way that more of your students, across more of their differencing, achieve at a high level and engage at a deeper level, more of the time, WITHOUT giving up who they are." In addition to actively learning about students’ backgrounds, teachers also need to … Serving and Supporting Immigrant Students, Bilingual & Dual-Language Education: Overview, Schools and Families: An Important Partnership, Meaningful Multicultural Education in a Nation of Immigrants, The December Dilemma: Acknowledging Religious Holidays in the Classroom, Teaching the Holidays: The December Dilemma. The 7 principles of Culturally Responsive Teaching - … Please complete your order now! Take on the great outdoors with friends and colleagues with seasonally themed activities such as sledding, skiing, and hiking. By providing options and opportunities for our kiddos to take the experience into their own hands, we are helping to build expert learners and happy, fulfilled kids! The First Amendment Center, in coalition with the AFT and a number of other organizations including the NEA, have issued a guide for educators on such issues called "Finding Common Ground." Take America at the turn of the 20th century — that's when our country experienced one of its major influxes of newcomers, and waves of immigrants made their way to our shores. Here are 25 culturally responsive teaching activity cards that will help you engage and involve all students in your classroom. Besides, holiday celebrations are about more than decorations and tasty snacks—they are opportunities for us to come together, learn, and instill acceptance in our students. Being truly culturally responsive means that all holidays and cultures are represented equally. The Supreme Court decided that schools could not receive public funding if they engaged in religious instruction. Culturally responsive projects will be super open-ended and truly driven by student interest. It's important to know what your purpose is in bringing up religion — most often, teachers intend to foster tolerance for other beliefs and faiths, and one of the best ways for teachers to do this is to plan ahead and to consult with informed sources, colleagues, parents, and the community. Despite the many challenges of 2020, there have been silver linings. specific questions about culturally specific views is one way to learn. Culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) encourages teachers to observe the cultural and ethnic make up of the students in their classroom for the purposes of incorporating practices, language, and texts from those cultures and ethnicities to both affirm these students and positively educate other students. Note: This article was originally written for the American Federation of Teachers. Whether nationally recognized or not, holidays and special events offer great opportunities to infuse cultural significance in the classroom. … It is a great opportunity to connect with your students by creating one and sharing yours too! Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) is the educational movement of the moment. Other aspects of CRP … Consider trying these four culturally-responsive activities in your classroom. For accessibility purposes, encourage learners to identify local stores where ingredients can be purchased. Collect all of the recipes and create a recipe book and distribute it to everyone in the class! Culturally responsive practices … Below are the culturally responsive teaching activities included: -Call Facilitating student-centered culturally relevant projects that invite family participation is an example of a first step teachers can take toward creating a culturally responsive pedagogy. With a global economy in place and our technology moving at a rate faster than we'd ever imagined, every teacher needs more help meeting the needs of and being culturally responsive to his/her students, many of whom now have roots in places like Mexico, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, Somalia, Croatia, and Jordan. A fourth culturally responsive strategy, perspective taking, has been defined as the capacity to understand another’s thoughts, feelings, or internal states (DeBernardis, Hayes, & Fryling 2014). But this work is largely external in terms of the teacher’s role. How do teachers approach such issues as textbook content, values education, controversial issues, and religious holidays? I knew of a school where Santa came every year … Sponsor study about religion, not the practice of religion. As district leaders, how are we modeling the kind of world we claim to be preparing students to lead? Digital storytelling can be a very cool way for students to share a piece of themselves through images and some Spanish dialog ( WeVideo is a simple, free tool for this). All of these recommendations are in line with the standard that officially guides states and schools on this issue — the "Lemon Test," named after the 1971 court case of Lemon v. Kurtzman. Stream a movie live for everyone to chat and watch together or read independently and set up a time to discuss the book over Zoom. Get training for global citizenship. For example, Christmas celebrations often focus on the commercial aspect by asking “What do you want for Christmas?”, when in reality 1 out of 5 children in the US live in poverty. We recognize the obvious cultural differences such as foods, heroes, holidays, arts, and clothing — differences that, much like the tip of the iceberg, are clearly visible above the water. So promoting diversity among the faculty and staff really helps send a positive message to the student body. This post from Edutopia shows how several educators are doing just that. The article offers suggestions that teachers can use throughout the school year, as well as when observing cultural and religious holidays and celebrations. Unfortunately, many of the resources surrounding Thanksgiving … See more ideas about teaching, responsive classroom, teaching strategies. Less visible are the different ways in which our cultures influence our understanding of the world and how we interact with others. This can be done in a few simple ways: When it comes time to highlight specific cultural holidays, how do you pick the right culturally responsive materials? The culturally responsive educator should reflect on the fears, stereotypes, and biases that they have about individuals that are different from them. Along with these we also observe and recognize Martin Luther King Day, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, Kwanzaa, Labor Day, the Jewish holidays, and many others. These practices should not only occur in the classroom on holidays or heritage months. It’s almost impossible to ignore that K-12 classrooms in the U.S. are filled with students from increasingly diverse cultural backgrounds: race, nationality, religion, economic, etc. Cultural differences and classroom management go hand-in-hand in awareness. Culturally Responsive Schools: Observing Cultural Holidays at Your School. 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