The Things We Carry
How Our Past Impacts Our Classroom
Mark Janda
The Harker School
markj@harker.org
Needed Norms
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Speak your truth
Protect student privacy
Honor the safety of others
Be willing to take a risk
Share openly and honestly
Practice reflection
Desired Outcomes
• A new understanding of the
barriers and invitations to building
supportive student-teacher
relationships
• Develop an awareness of our own
backgrounds and how it impacts
the lens through which we
experience the world
• Reflect and build on what we
learn and what we have already
experienced.
Why is this an issue for me?
• Experiences in my first 10 years
– Students told me to do this
• Study of the achievement gap
• District and National Leadership
• Listening to and watching students
• Realization that you can’t be
passively not-racist, I have to be
actively anti-racist
Why are our backgrounds important?
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They are the fundamental building blocks of
relationships
Both teachers and students carry backgrounds
around like luggage, often unconsciously
They are subtle, powerful and culturally loaded
Our background and experiences directly impact
our values, beliefs, and behaviors.
We bring these values, beliefs, and behaviors into
the classroom with us each and every day. Our
students come to us with their own unique set of
values, beliefs, and behaviors.
To make the most of the opportunities we have to
interact, it is essential that we reflect upon and
openly share these belief systems.
- Half the curriculum walks through the door when
the students do. – Emily Style
Why are relationships
important?
• Characteristics of Resilient People
– Have experienced people who care for them
– Have a vision of the possibilities
– Have a sense of autonomy
• Easier to be successful if you want to be
• Learning requires vulnerability – which
requires trust
• It is a student’s primary concern in the first
two weeks and key to everything else
How do we form relationships?
• Make it your focus at the beginning…
– Early in the year
– Early in every day/class
• Let yourself be vulnerable within your
comfort zone.
• Invest in them, let them invest in you
• BUT…it’s easy to destroy the work it
takes to build relationships
Investigating Micro-aggressions
• One of those many sudden, stunning, or
dispiriting transactions that mar the days of
women and people of color, often triggered
automatically or unconsciously.
• Like water dripping on sandstone, they can be
thought of as small acts of racism.
• An experiment…
Think about the first thing that
comes to mind…
Marine
Priest
Police
Single Mom
New York Times
Social Worker
Fox News
Homeless Male
Think about the first thing that
comes to mind…
African-American
Rastafarian
Puerto Rican
Mexican
Ethiopian
Korean
Vietnamese
Pakistani
Southerner
Midwesterner
New Yorker
Stages of Intercultural Sensitivity
Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. (Bennett, 1993).
• Denial-”I don’t have any
negative racial thoughts.”
• Defence-”I may have thought
that, but…”
• Minimization-”It doesn’t play a
big role…”
• Acceptance-”I believe everyone
has these thoughts.”
• Adaptation-”I will raise my
awareness and respond…”
• Integration-”I will address this in
my classroom…”
• Where are you?
http://www.awesomelibrary.org/multiculturaltoolkit-stages.html
Activity
Debrief
Observations and Responses
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How did this make you feel? Were you comfortable?
What did you observe?
Surprises?
What might you have learned?
What did every single prompt have in common?
Observations and Responses
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What happened the first time I did this
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What happened the first time I did this in a huge
group
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Number Line; they were colleagues
Wanda
George
Using one to make a point to others
Doing it with students
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Included some adults
First Steps
• Begin with the personal
– Examined assumptions,
Privilege Walk
• Investigate your impact on others
• Integrate new learning into the
classroom setting
Classroom Impact
Culturally Responsive Teaching
Creates a successful
learning environment for
children of all
backgrounds and
cultures.
Defining Cultural Responsiveness
• “Cultural responsiveness is the ability to learn from and relate
respectfully with people of your own culture as well as those
from other cultures. It includes adjusting your own and your
organization’s behaviors based on what you learn. Cultural
responsiveness is not something you master once and then
forget… cultural responsiveness is not about trying to change
others to be more like you. It is about cultivating an open
attitude and new skills in yourself. Cultural responsiveness
involves exploring and honoring your own culture, while at the
same time learning about and honoring other people’s
cultures.”
•
Excerpted from Empowering Skills for Family Workers: The Comprehensive Curriculum of the New York State Family
Development Credential (1996). Christian Dean. New York: Cornell Empowering Families Project.
The National Center for Culturally Responsive
Educational Systems (NCCRESt), a project
funded by the U.S. Department of Education's
Office of Special Education Programs
To Be A Culturally Responsive
Teacher, You Need To:
 Be willing to reexamine your teaching
pedagogy and make it relevant to your
students.
 Be someone who deeply cares about
your students.
 Be a student-centered teacher, which
means taking an interest in your
students’ community and making
positive contact with their parents.
 Be willing to learn about cultures other
than your own.
Expectations
• When these students walk in, what do we
anticipate?
• What are our plans to help this student
succeed?
• Do we have high expectations for each of
them?
• Is a C for one as good as an A for another?
• How do appearances affect our
expectations?
Culturally Responsive Teaching
is…
• Validating
– Incorporates multicultural
resources embedded in curriculum
and instruction
Culturally Responsive Teaching
is…
• Validating
• Comprehensive
– Recognizes the importance of
maintaining cultural identity and
heritage
Culturally Responsive Teaching
is…
• Validating
• Comprehensive
• Multidimensional
– Involves every element of the
classroom experience for student
and teacher
Culturally Responsive Teaching
is…
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Validating
Comprehensive
Multidimensional
Empowering
– Enables students to be better
human beings and successful
learners
Culturally Responsive Teaching
is…
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Validating
Comprehensive
Multidimensional
Empowering
Transformative
– Recognizes cultural gifts as
contributions to collective learning
and promotes student reflection
and decision-making
Culturally Responsive Teaching
is…
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Validating
Comprehensive
Multidimensional
Empowering
Transformative
Emancipating
– Makes authentic knowledge
accessible to all students
Real tangible ideas
Artifacts
Why are you here?
Shake hands
Speak to every one of them
How are you?
Begin with concern for them
Smile, say hello
Be real
Tell them what you think
• Know their activities
• Attend their games and plays
and concerts
• Visit their restaurants
• Know something about pop
culture
• Ask questions
• Self-deprecating humor
• Be open, let them like you, be
vulnerable
What works?
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Clear directions
Increased wait time
Vocabulary, 12 verbs
Praise, You’re better…
Model the Tests
• Validation and relevance
• Use what’s there
• Simplify – but do not dumb
down
• Make it Personal…no one
cares more
• Have a strong sense of selfidentity and be willing to share
it
What works?
• High Expectations, but
kids must know you care.
• Encouragement is more
important to minorities
and lower-quartile
students than demand,
but encouragement must
be made explicit.
• Teachers must be clear
that they are willing to
help – and will enjoy it.
They must want to help
and like it.
• We have to practice both
mastery and effort; we
must help and encourage,
but demand success
–
Ronald Ferguson
What works?
• Want the work done?
– Do it in class.
• Difficulty reading?
– Read to and with them
• Highlighting and notetaking?
– Model it.
• Inner-Reading voices
– model it and be honest
• Help kids overcome their
backgrounds and avoid
situations in which one
background will have an
advantage.
– Are we flexible enough to
accommodate kids’ needs?
What works?
• Classrooms with high achievement and small
gaps, kids say my teacher…
– Provides help and encouragement
– Makes learning enjoyable
– Provides multiple explanations
– Is available after school (or some other
additional time) for extra help
– Sends out monthly letters to parents
• Ronald Ferguson
What works?
• Kids in rooms with high achievement and small gaps
say…
– My teacher likes it when I ask questions.
– My teacher is nice to me when I ask questions.
– My teacher is happy to help me with my work.
– In our class, it is very important to get
everything correct.
– In our class, getting the right answers is very
important.
• Ronald Ferguson
What works?
• To get high achievement from previously lowperforming students we need to…
– 1. Scaffold learning on prior knowledge.
– 2. Present organizing schemas & frameworks.
– 3. Make key connections—don’t assume
students will discover them on their own.
– 4. Apply concepts in multiple ways and varied
contexts to increase the number of possible
connections.
– 5. Teach children how to think and learn.
• Ronald Ferguson
What works?
• Larry Bell says we must keep this in mind…
• 7+ Common Mistakes of loving, caring Teachers
– They discipline some, punish the at-promise
– They teach the way they learned or like best
– They think different means wrong
– They don’t help students overcome poverty
– They don’t explain why the content is
important
– They think teaching all backgrounds is not
important
– They show little humor or passion
– They accept mediocrity
– They are in denial
What works?
• Teach resilience
• Resilient people:
– Have experienced people who care
for them.
– Have a vision of the possibilities.
– Have a sense of autonomy, “cando-it-ness.”
• WE have to be this and we have to
teach this
What works?
• Gloria Ladson-Billings says…
– Teaching all well means…
– All can learn
– Treating them like they’re competent and
they will be
– Scaffolding
– The classroom focus is on instruction
– Real education is about extending students
thinking and abilities
– Effective teaching involves in-depth
knowledge of both the students and the
subject matter
– The key is effort in context of high
expectations
– Having socio-political consciousness
– Having an investment in the public good
What works?
• Gloria Ladson-Billings says…
– Student Learning/Teacher Success
depends on teachers having…
• High Academic Achievement
• Strong Cultural Competence
• Socio-Political Consciousness of their role for
closing the gap, improving society/community, and
making a difference
What works?
• Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum says…
– Explicitly explain that intelligence
is fluid, subject to effort
Closing Thoughts…
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"What the best and wisest parent
wants for his own child, that must
the community want for all its
children. Anything else is narrow
and unlovely."
– John Dewey
• “I tried to coach each player
as if he wanted to marry my
daughter.”
– Eddie Robinson, legendary
Grambling football coach
• "We can whenever and
wherever we choose
successfully teach all children
whose schooling is of interest
to us. We already know more
than we need in order to do
this. Whether we do must
finally depend on how we feel
about the fact that we haven't
so far."
– Ron Edmonds
• Teach them like they’re
somebody’s baby
• Our task is to
provide an
Closing Thoughts…
education to
• The Mediocre
the kinds of
teacher tells.
kids we have,
• The Good teacher
explains.
not the kinds
• The Superior
of kids we
teacher
used to have
demonstrates.
• The Great teacher
or the kids we
inspires.
have in our
– -William Arthur Ward
dreams.
– Eleanor Rodriguez
Resources
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Lisa Delpit’s Other Peoples’ Children: Cultural
Conflict in the Classroom and The Skin That
We Speak: Thoughts on Language and
Culture in the Classroom
Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All The
Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?
and Other Conversations About Race
Gary Howard’s We Can’t Teach What We
Don’t Know: White Teachers, Multiracial
Schools
Larry Bell’s Closing the Achievement Gap,
Education Leadership, December 2002
Peggy McIntosh, “Unpacking the Invisible
Knapsack”
www.msanetwork.org
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Julie Landsman’s A White Teacher Talks About
Race
Pamela Perry’s Shades of White: White Kids and
Racial Identities in High School
Dr. Sampson Davis, Dr. George Jenkins, Dr.
Rameck Hunt and Lisa Frazier Page’s The Pact,
Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a
Dream
Dr. Belinda Williams’ Closing the Achievement
Gap: A Vision for Changing Beliefs and Practices
Bonnie Davis, www.a4achievement.net/
Ronald Ferguson, The Tripod Project
Marva Collins
Glenn Singleton, Pacific Educational Group
Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu
Larry Bell
The Education Trust, www.edtrust.org
Thank You!
Questions? Email me at
markj@harker.org or
mindthegapjanda@gmail.com
and join a conversation at my blog,
http://letsimproveschoolsnow.blogspot.com/
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