Teacher Leadership 5 Reflection: Establishing a culturally inclusive learning climate that facilitates academic engagement and success for all students.

Standard 5 Reflection: establish a culturally inclusive learning climate that facilitates academic engagement and success for all students.

Background

As our schools become more diverse in race, religion, economics, sexual orientation, and language, we as teachers need to be prepare our students with “knowledge, attitudes,

and skills needed to function in a diverse world” (Banks, 1996, pg. 42).  In order to accomplish this my teaching practices have changed and as a result I have established a more culturally inclusive learning climate that facilitates academic engagement and success for all students. For example, over the last few years my teaching practices have changed drastically due to the expectations from the Common Core Standards and TPEP (Teaching/Principal Evaluation Program).  As a result, I think I have become a better teacher who meets more of the needs of our students. I have implement GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) strategies, PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Systems) strategies, no-opt out questioning, student talk, clear learning targets with success criteria, Socratic Seminars, classroom circles, and multiple levels of scaffolding into my teaching practices.  Additionally, in my most recent position as our Future Ready Librarian I have increased the number of books that were written by people of different cultures and perspectives into our school library this year.

I teach in a school that is not only becoming more ethnically diverse, but also has the highest percentage of low-income students in the district.  Through the leadership of our principal we have embraced that this is an opportunity instead of a problem. We are in the process of trying many of things that Howard suggested in his  article As Diversity Grows, so Must We.  A couple of  years ago we did a similar exercise to the workshop he discussed where educators looked at their race, gender, religion, etc. and asked what they would be willing to give up.  As we did this is was interesting to hear what people were willing to give up and why they choose it. As a PBIS school, we are constantly working on promoting respect, kind word and actions, as well as providing clear expectations for all of our students.  In our departments we have been looking at data to redesign or tweak our curriculum to help all of our students make more than a year’s worth of growth. We have done a good job over the years with our level one and

two students, but not so much with our level three and four students.  One of the ways we have done this is by providing more choices for students to show us their knowledge. Although I believe we are heading in the right direction, I think we need to have those tough discussions to address the inequities both past and present of non-White and include our community more as we make decisions and address these issues.

Learning and Applied Practice

While taking my Culturally Responsive Teaching class I realized that looking at the

contributions of others is a great start, but at some point we want to get our students to take social action based on their learning.  When I was an Ancient Civilizations teacher at the middle school level, I taught about contributions made by a variety of cultures to our world. As I went through this course I have realize although this was a great start, I needed to go further.  Prior to taking this class I used Socratic Seminars and Document Based Questions to help my students to look at events from a different perspectives as was suggested by the Project in Intergroup Education group that was discussed in the article The Intergroup Education Movement.  But, after taking this class I realized I also need to help my students make the connections between the curriculum and current events so they could take a stand against injustice.  I also realized that by giving students opportunities to make a difference through social action, not only are we empowering them, but taking some of the load off of ourselves. It is exciting to see our students passion as they have addressed issues at our school as well as around our country.

Another thing that was reinforced as I took this class was the importance of  building relationships with our students, their families and our community to help students grow.  As a secondary teacher I think we have a lot to learn from our elementary counterparts in this area.  Through building relationships and by letting them tell us their stories we are, not only learning about our students and their backgrounds, but also showing they are being valued which was the goal of the Multicultural Education Movement we read about in Bank’s book.

Issues Encountered/Problems of Practice Addressed

As I said in my autobiography for my Culturally Responsive Teaching class,  I came from a white-middle class family and I need to remember that as a result I had privileges that I didn’t realize I had.  At the same time, I think my upbringing and experiences have helped me to make sure that all students have access to common experiences and feel included since we don’t have a choice of what family or race we are born into.  It has also caused e to have empathy towards those who did not receive the privileges I did as a white middle-class child. I also realize that I need to listen to my students’ stories to learn more about them and see where I can help them to be successful and what I can learn from others.  

Another issue, is that 90% of our teachers in Washington State are Caucasian even though in most the our communities in which we serve,  less than 90% of our students are Caucasian. This is for a variety of reasons. One is that those who are non-Caucasian rarely, if at all had a teacher who was of their race.  Therefore, they didn’t even think being a teacher was a possibility. For other it had to do with finances or family expectations. Recently, the Washington State legislation approved a law to “ease requirements for teacher preparation programs” (Bazzaz, 2019) to respond to these concerns.   This is one barrier that hopefully will help us to diversify our teachers staffs, but we also need to step out of our way to be welcoming and encouraging  to staff that is of a minority of our school since it is difficult when you are the only one, or one of a few who look different on your staff. Not only do we need to establish culturally inclusive learning climate for our students, but also as a staff if we wish to see academic engagement and success for all.

How Establishing a Culturally Inclusive Learning Climate that Facilitates Academic Engagement and Success for All Students is Supported by Research

In the United States 80% of the teachers are Caucasian and even more than that are women while our classrooms are more diverse in ethnicity and gender.  This makes it difficult for us to connect to our students. Yet, there are things we can do to make this connection and value the perspectives they bring to our classroom.  Below is a list from the article, Welcome One, Welcome All: The Culturally Inclusive Classroom:

1. Use open-ended questions to engage students. (i.e., “Would anyone like to share a different perspective or another opinion about that?”)
2. Establish clearly defined rules for your classroom as to what is and what isn’t appropriate. (e.g., Be respectful of others and their ideas, Be open to perspectives and opinions that are not like your own, etc.)
3. Express your commitment as an educator to understanding cultural differences and your desire to have a classroom where culture is valued and respected.
4. Share details about your background, upbringing and other personal information with students to inspire them to do the same.
5. Replace ethnocentric terms with more inclusive ones. (e.g., Use ‘Winter Break’ as opposed to ‘Christmas Break’)
6. Encourage all students to think about things from a perspective other than their own.
7. Promote open, honest and respectful class discussions whenever possible, even if it is uncomfortable. (Most growth comes when we’re pushed beyond our comfort zone.)
8. Avoid making assumptions. When in doubt, or better yet, as a general rule: Ask first. Find ways to get to know students on an informal level, through out-of-class activities, after school office hours, between classes, etc.
9. Practice positive and welcoming non-verbal communication with students. (e.g., Smiling, eye contact, posture, gestures and physical proximity)

If we start with these simple steps we can make a difference and help our ALL of our students be successful, not just a few.  And as a result hopefully it will encourage our non-Caucasian students to go into the teaching field to be examples for future generations.
Additionally, in the article, As Diversity Grows, so Must We, Howard suggests that as we see the increase in our schools’ diversity as an opportunity instead of a problem.  In order to do this we need to re-exam our teaching practices and be “looking honestly at outcome data and creating new strategies designed to serve the students whom instructions in not reaching” (Howard, 2017, pg. 10) and meet “students where they are at and build on that” (Howard, 2007, pg. 11). As we do this we we need to make sure all students,   their families, and our staff members feel connected and respected. We also need to build curriculums where all cultures are honored and meet the diverse needs of our students. Lastly, we also need to hold our all of our students to high expectations.

Overall Impact

As a result of being in my Masters in Educational Leadership program, I will continuing to fight to give more choice to students to show their learning as one way to establish a culturally inclusive learning climate that facilitates academic engagement and success for all students. Unfortunately, because of Common Core Standards, we currently have students show their learning through writing paragraphs or essays in most subject, but, that is not the only way to assess what students have learned and by giving students choice we can meet them where they are and can play to their strengths.   I hope to change others’ mindset so students are also being assessed through their participation in Socratic Seminars, being able create a poster, slideshow or game to teach others about an given topic. To help support this effort in my position as the Future Ready Librarian I have been creating websites with resources which will help teachers provide these opportunities.  I have already created three, two for social studies (6th, 7th) and one for science.

I have also had the chance over the last two years to reflect on how my teaching practices have been influenced by my culture and how that has helped or hindered me to create a classroom where all can learn about themselves, appreciate others, and speak up against injustice.  Through the stories of others I feel I am more prepared to and inspired to “create a school culture that empowers all students” (Banks, 1996, pg. 338), parents and staff members.

Lastly, in my position as Future Ready Librarian one of my major jobs is to administer our STudents REaching Toward new CHallenges (STRETCH).  During the first semester of this program we teach students traits of successful middle school students, financially literacy, and about choosing and get them ready for a career that will support the lifestyle they wish to have in the future.  During the second we give them a chance to explore a couple of different electives. This gives out students an opportunity to try things they may have never thought of doing before. Additionally, we have members of the community come in a share their careers with our students during a Future Ready Day which I facilitate.  This program helps us as a school district provide a culturally inclusive learning climate that facilitates academic engagement and success for all students.

References

Banks, J. A. (1996). Multicultural education, transformative knowledge, and action: Historical
and contemporary perspectives. New York: Teachers College Press.

Bazzaz, D. (2019, April 28). New law may make it easier for people to become teachers in Washington state. Seattle Times. Bergant, D. (2005). Welcome, One and All. America, 192(13), 47.

Chaparro, E. A., Nese, R. N. T., & McIntosh, K. (2015).  Examples of engaging instruction to
increase  equity in education.  OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral
Interventions and Supports.

Edutopia Follow. (2015, June 04). Teacher Tested Strategies for Differentiated Instruction.
Retrieved August 11, 2018,

Hattie, J., & Zierer, K. (2018). Ten mindframes for visible learning: Teaching for success. London:
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Howard, G. R. (2007). As diversity grows, do must we. Educational leadership, 64(6), 16–22.