Culturally responsive teaching is a 

research-based approach to teaching that recognizes

culture is central to learning. It connects students’ cultures and life experiences with learning in
school. It plays a role in how information is communicated and received and shapes the thinking
process of groups and individuals. Culturally responsive teaching values and reflects the assets of
all students. By doing that, it raises academic expectations for all learners. It also sends the
message that multiculturalism is an asset. It focuses on the assets students bring to the classroom
rather than what students can’t do. It raises expectations and makes learning relevant for all
students. Our brains are wired to make connections. It’s easier for our brains to learn and store
information when we have a hook to hang it on. That hook is background knowledge. Students
bring this knowledge to the classroom every day.
According to the reading, there are six characteristics that would prepare teachers to be
culturally responsive. 1. Socio-cultural consciousness: A teacher’s own way of thinking,
behaving, and being are influenced by race, ethnicity, social class, and language. It allows us to
step back and look at who we are as a person and as a teacher. We may not want to admit it, but
all human beings have certain stereotypes and biases that may have been shaped by our
upbringing, peers, education, or personal experiences. 2. Attitude: A teacher’s affirming attitude
toward students from culturally diverse backgrounds significantly impacts student learning,
belief in themselves, and overall academic performance. Lack of awareness about our biases can
impact our actions, such as being unfair when grading student papers or judging students based
on how they dress, where they’re from, and how they act. 3. Commitment and skills: A teacher’s
role as an agent of change confronts barriers/obstacles to those changes and develops skills for
collaboration. 4. Constructivist views: A teacher’s contention that all students are capable of
learning requires building scaffolding between what students already know through their own
experiences and what they need to learn. 5. Knowledge of student’s life: A teacher’s learning
about a student’s past experiences, home and community culture, and world in and out of school
helps build relationships by increasing the use of these experiences in the context of teaching and
learning. Our efficacy as teachers also comes from engaging our students’ families and
community. Family engagement is more than getting their signatures, having them volunteer in
the classroom, or having them attend school meetings. 6. Culturally responsive teaching: A
teacher’s use of strategies that support a constructivist view of knowledge, teaching, and learning
assists students in constructing knowledge, building on their personal and cultural strengths, and
examining the curriculum from multiple perspectives, thus creating an inclusive classroom
environment.
Effective teachers recognize the importance of students’ cultural identities and how it
shows up in their learning. When thinking about data use and equity in the classroom, CRT
(Culturally Responsive Teaching) is a critical part of that equation. According to the reading,
there are five qualities that distinguish effective teachers: 1. Hold high expectations for all
students and help all students learn. Teachers should encourage students to draw on their prior
knowledge to contribute to group discussions, which provides an anchor to learning. 2.
Contribute to positive academic, attitudinal, and social outcomes for students. Teachers need to
work to build relationships with their students to ensure they feel respected, valued, and seen for
who they are. Building those relationships helps them build community within the classroom and
with each other, which is extremely important. When you have a mixed classroom, you want
those in the minority to feel like they are experts. You want to draw from their experiences and
don’t want to cross a line and make the minority student feel like he/she needs to speak for all
minority people by putting them on the spot. 3. Use diverse resources such as tie lessons from
the curriculum to the students’ social communities to make it more contextual and relevant. 4.
Contribute to the development of classrooms and schools that value diversity and civic
mindedness. Beyond your classroom library, consider the posters you display on your walls and
your bulletin boards, too. These are all small changes you can make to your classroom to be
more culturally responsive. 5. Collaborate with colleagues, administrators, parents, and
education professionals to ensure student success. Conferences, phone calls, and brief emails are
ways to bond with parents or guardians. These interactions should start early, prior to any
problems that may occur, and they should be used simply as a means of getting to know your
students and their families.
Teaching and learning are redesigned in culturally responsive classrooms so that students
collaborate with their teacher and one another to raise their performance. Teachers must
genuinely care about all their pupils' academic progress and be willing to tolerate nothing less
than exceptional performance from them. Teachers should be able to demonstrate their content
knowledge by anticipating student misconceptions and can explain the content in a variety of
ways. To create culturally inclusive classroom communities, both teachers and students build
relationships with each other. Students are motivated by teachers they respect. Teachers show
genuine care and concern for students by holding them accountable and by acknowledging their
good work.
The teacher's understanding of cultural diversity must go beyond simple awareness,
respect, and general acceptance of the reality that other groups have different values or express
similar values in different ways to match instruction with learning style. Teachers need to
become well knowledgeable about the unique cultural characteristics of the individual
populations they teach. Culturally sensitive teachers are aware that, even though learning styles
provide insight into how certain students interact with the learning process, they should not be
used to assess students' intellectual prowess. Culturally sensitive educators gain knowledge of
the internal organization of ethnic learning styles, which have at least eight crucial components.
The eight crucial components are as follows: 1. Preferred content; 2. Ways of working through
learning tasks; 3. Techniques for organizing and conveying ideas and thoughts; 4. Physical and
social settings for task performance; 5. Structural arrangements of work, study, and performance
space; 6. Perceptual stimulation for receiving, processing, and demonstrating comprehension and
competence; 7. Motivations, incentives, and rewards for learning; and 8. Interpersonal
interactional styles.
To prevent bias and foster a classroom environment that is sensitive to cultural
differences, teachers must be deliberate. Each of us carries prejudices that affect the way we
communicate with and interact with students and coworkers. Six tactics are recommended by
research for instructors to use to foster an environment where every child has an equal
opportunity to learn. The six tactics are: 1. Teachers acknowledge their own biases and
inequitable actions when they participate in professional development on harassment and equity
issues; 2. Teachers try to learn about their students’ cultural backgrounds when they plan
classroom activities that help students learn more about their cultural backgrounds; 3. Teachers
examine curriculum and learning materials for bias when they ask, “Does the curriculum provide
for a balanced study of world cultures?”; 4. Teachers build caring, cooperative classroom
environments when they create a safe, comfortable classroom environment in which students feel
comfortable talking about harassment; 5. Teachers build relationships with families and
communities when they create a representative team of school administrators, teachers, school
counselors, parents, and students to guide and implement approaches to prevent harassment; and
6. Teachers identify curricular bias by looking for these practices: Invisibility, Stereotyping,
Imbalance or selectivity, Fragmentation or isolation and Linguistic bias.
The ideas in this text remind me of the movie called “Stand and Deliver”. By the way this
is one of my favorite movies of all time. The movie is about Jaime Escalante is a mathematics
teacher in a school in a Hispanic neighborhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he
adopts unconventional teaching methods to help gang members and no-hopers pass the rigorous
Advanced Placement exam in calculus. At a tough school, someone had to take a stand...and
someone did. Together, one teacher and one class proved to America they could...Stand and
Deliver. There was a quote from the movie, Stand and Deliver, by Jaime Escalante “there will be
no free rides, no excuses. You already have two strikes against you: your name and your
complexion. Because of those two strikes, there are some people in this world who will assume
that you know less than you do. *Math* is the great equalizer... When you go for a job, the
person giving you that job will not want to hear your problems; ergo, neither do I. You're going
to work harder here than you've ever worked anywhere else. And the only thing I ask from you is
ganas which means desire.”
I learn my students’ names and learn to pronounce them correctly. Our names are our
identities. Students feel valued and acknowledged when teachers and other school-related adults
take the time to learn their names. Setting aside time for relationship housekeeping allows me to
allow students to ask questions, share brief short stories of their lives, and just check in and
transition into the new class period. Since moving to a new school district, I have had to learn a
new language to connect with many of my students. I give the students who are bi-lingual to help
me translate information given in class as well teach me their native language. These are some
ideas I use in the classroom to make my students feel welcomed and loved.
You don’t need to become an expert on all cultural groups and languages. But you do need to
understand your students’ cultural identities to build a positive classroom culture and create
relevant learning opportunities. Learn about your students’ cultures, whether that’s a country on
the other side of the globe or a neighborhood down the street. Culturally responsive teaching is a
shift in mindset that will not happen overnight. It requires a willingness to learn, be vulnerable,
be flexible with instruction, and reflect. The path to culturally responsive teaching is a journey,
but with practice and patience, it will benefit you and all your students.