This past September, I had the opportunity to work with and hear Mark Perna speak about "Unleashing Passion, Purpose, and Performance in Younger Generations" as he addressed Career and Technical Education staff from all over southeastern Minnesota.  Since then I have had the opportunity to read his new book Answering Why, and I continue to be amazed at the connection between what he talks about in his book, the Rochester Public Schools Graduate Profile, and the opportunities that students at CTECH have each and every day.
 
As a staff at CTECH we are still working hard to establish, develop, and communicate who and what we are to students, colleagues, parents, and the community.  After working with Mr. Perna and reflecting upon our primary goals, it became clear that our curriculum and our instruction focus on three main areas:

1. Purpose  --  we strive every day to ensure that students leave our learning spaces with purpose.  If they complete a course at CTECH and leave knowing that they want to continue to pursue that career pathway we have succeeded.  If they complete the same course and leave with an understanding that the specific career pathway is not for them, we have also succeeded because both students now leave us with purpose.  Too many students move into a career or enter courses at the post-secondary level without purpose and they end up spending time, energy, and money to find out that they want to do something different.
2. Professional Skills  --  Each of our courses emphasizes the importance of learning, practicing, and perfecting the skills of timeliness, communication, collaboration, critical thinking and other commonly referred to "soft skills."  We prefer to call them Professional Skills as regardless of the career or college pathway a student takes, these skills will serve them well.
3. Competitive Advantage  --  The job market changes almost constantly and our students will at one point or another find themselves up against a pool of qualified applicants for a job, scholarship, etc.  We believe that by emphasizing both Professional Skills and industry-recognized certifications our students will leave CTECH with a competitive advantage.  Nursing students who complete their Certified Nursing Assistant assessment can seek employment as a CNA on their journey toward Nursing School, Med School, or any other Health Sciences career.  This certification and experience will give them a competitive advantage over those just entering the field.  Automotive students can now earn Entry-level ASA certifications and Culinary students can earn ServSafe Food Handler and/or Food Manager certifications.  Both of these provide a coveted competitive advantage.

 
I talk at length about these three areas of focus each time I lead a tour of our facility and programs and over the course of this year it has become very clear to me the connection between our focus and RPS Graduate Profile.  Specifically, I see direct correlation to the following domains:

We are very proud of the progress we have made in promoting not only Career and College Readiness, but Purpose, Professional Skills, and Competitive Advantage and we are grateful that these efforts are reflected in the qualities of a graduate that our community has identified as the most important.

This post brought to you by Brandon Macrafic, POSA focusing on Career & College Readiness and administrator at CTECH

To read more about the RPS Graduate Profile in Action, read part I of the series published in December of 2018 and written by Heather Willman. 

As the district wide Equity Implementation Associate, my role is to help support teachers as they both implement equitable (particularly Culturally and Linguistically Responsive, or CLR) instructional practices and reflect on the why behind these practices. This work isn’t black and white. It isn’t easy and teachers have questions. Lots of questions! And to be honest, it makes my heart so happy that there are so many questions. Questions mean that we are taking our work seriously; that we recognize we need to do better, even if we don’t know how to do better…yet!
 
In this post, I wanted to take some time to address one of the most common questions I am asked in regards to Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching: “What’s the deal with these call and response protocols?”
​
I have good news friends…you aren’t the only ones asking that question! There is so much wonderful literature out there that addresses the call and response conundrum.

One of my favorite resources on this topic is Zaretta Hammond’s book,Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. According to Dr. Hammond, the call and response cues the brain that something is going to happen. The novelty of the call triggers our brain’s reticular activating system, or RAS, which tells our brains to pay attention.
 
Culture plays its role, too. Many of our marginalized and underserved students come from indigenous cultures based in deeply rooted oral traditions. Storytelling, songs, rhymes, and poems were how information was passed on through generations. Furthermore, when we consider the historical context in which populations of marginalized people were denied access to the written word, we can recognize that oral expressiveness was imperative for survival.
 
For more on the neurological science behind call and response, here are some awesome resources.

• The Neuroscience of Call and Response
• Attention Protocols in the Culturally Competent Classroom: part I, part II, and part III

Yeah, call and response can most definitely feel strange if you haven’t been raised in a highly verbal setting and let’s face it, we Minnesotans are not a chatty bunch. But let’s move away for a bit to consider other layers of culture, such as youth culture. Walk through any school during passing time, and you will hear variations of call and response everywhere.
 
Another thing to consider is that call and response is just one type of attention signal. Culturally Responsive attention signals, such as call and response, use rhythm or have some sort of cultural relevance. Students have an opportunity to respond and have buy in. The most important thing that makes an attention signal culturally responsive, is when it is used with intentionality. If you are just doing a call and response for the heck of it, without a reason or a purpose, then it isn’t really culturally responsive. The other way an attention signal is culturally responsive is when the teacher uses all kinds of signals-traditional and responsive-to help students practice situational appropriateness. In other words-students need to know how to respond to traditional signals to be successful in school culture. But, when a teacher is only using traditional signals, he or she isn’t being responsive to the cultural behaviors a student brings to the classroom. Similarly, if the teacher is only ever using responsive signals, he or she isn’t being culturally responsive because they aren’t helping students learn to respond in traditional or situationally appropriate ways.
 
According to Dr. Hollie, there are three reasons why we use attention signals.

1. To clarify directions already given or to give further direct instruction.
2. To transition during the lesson.
3. To bring the activity or lesson to a close.

Using a call and response or any attention signal when students aren’t talking is not useful and will most certainly feel awkward. I’ve found that thinking of these three reasons has allowed me to feel less pressure when planning for call and response. If I don’t need to pull a group who is talking back to attention to clarify, transition, or close, I just don’t use it!
 
Finally, if you still feel goofy, have the students make them up! And let them lead them! Use this as an opportunity to give your students some more voice and choice during the lesson.

As I mentioned above, I’ve found it helpful to think of call and response as ONE TYPE of responsive attention signal. We use lots of different ways to get students’ attention. For example, in ENVoY, we use nonverbal signals such as raising a hand or ringing a chime. We don’t always use a call and response to get attention and there are still non-verbal cues that are culturally responsive. Again, it’s helpful to think about the rings of culture and how we respond to certain things because of how we identify within those rings. 

For example, I was raised Catholic, so when I hear a chime, my brain is wired to respond in a certain way. I was conditioned to pay close attention to people’s facial expressions because my parents are very quiet people, so it was easy for me, as a student, to recognize the classic, non-verbal, “teacher face”. Both examples are rooted in various rings of culture.

​We just need to remember that not all of our students’ experiences are the same as our own, so we can’t assume they will know what our different attention signals mean. We need to remember to take the time to intentionally teach our verbal and non-verbal attention signals. We also need to remember that we should be using a variety of attention signals-traditional and culturally responsive-so our students can be comfortable with situational appropriateness.

I know I may sound like a broken record when I say this, but remember, culturally and linguistically responsive teaching is a journey. There will be days where using call and response feels like the most natural thing in the world, and others when it feels painfully uncomfortable. You don’t always have to be using call and response to be culturally and linguistically responsive, but as you start to think about the cultural and neurological significance of the call and response, you may find yourself feeling less awkward. The most important thing to remember on this journey is to keep trying, keep building relationships, and keep reflecting on the layers of culture our students bring to our classrooms each day. 

This post brought to you by Kim Eversman, E-12 Equity Implementation Associate

When we share stories with one another we become bound together in powerful ways. Stories provide hope: they have the potential to shine a light into the darkness and challenge us to change our thinking. Stories matter. Stories are powerful. Each month, the Department of Curriculum and Instruction partners with the RPS equity specialists and American Indian Liaison to share the stories of those in our own backyard who are often silenced.
​ 

A song would get stuck in my head.  I would have to either sing or listen to it in its entirety to stop the broken loop going through my brain.  For a person who can never remember lyrics, I would google the words, play the YouTube video, and sing along to break the cycle.  Yet, the next day, I am back to where I started, every time.  This particular morning, going to work, I find myself singing and remembering most of the words to Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror.  I walked into my assigned high school, planning to discuss restorative practices with a team of teachers.  Our discussion ended.  I walked to the front office and one of my principals cued me in on a situation that happened on social media the previous night.  I heard myself say, “I’ve gotta go see the kids.  Where are they?”
 
In this post, I will explore three questions that address cultural relevancy, encourage sensitivity toward others, and end with tips to create relationship-building.

We spend years training as educators.  Combined with experiences doing the job, we often think we have a response for the implications and results of many educational theories if they are put into practice.  Personally, every time I feel that confidence, I am hit with the process gap called “reality.” 
 
That particular day was a humbling experience.  I had just spent time exploring strategies with teachers on what it means to have a restorative practice classroom so to understand how to provide a collaborative and collegial model for all students.  This particular situation stopped me in my tracks and made me rethink educational equity.  As I am listening to the pain in students’ voices, stories upon stories, I realized they mirror my pain.  I took notes and wondered what does real equity look like?  Many students are waging an uphill battle, be it about the color of their skin, their family history, their cultural heritage, their religious affiliations, their mental and emotional health, their sexual preferences, their gender, their grades, their sense of belonging, mistakes they cannot undo, combined with the fact that they are in their formative years.  One thought ran through my mind: I have not been able to sleep properly for a long time.  These things keep me up at night, dreading moments of reality such as this one.  I am afraid, just like my students are.
 
The school planned for an immediate response to address the issue before a long weekend.  I went home and poured over books because the students were exploring cultural issues that are pervasive in our current lives.  I looked at machine theorists who believe that the privileged few can truly understand the conditions of those who are less privileged.  I considered how combining being privileged and understanding the plight of the disenfranchised can be a humbling experience, leading to sense-making (Marion & Gonzales 2014). 
 
However, the students are right, it is true that some capitalize on the irrational nature of people in decision-making.  Listening to students, asking me how much sense-making is happening in our culture right now, is humbling.  Situations like this make it difficult to have meaningful answers for students.

I re-evaluated Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and what it means.  I keep landing on the fact that students who have experienced trauma, in the culture at large and in our schools, are struggling daily to have the first three levels of their needs met.  Maslow called them “deficiency needs” (Marion & Gonzales 2014). 
 
In my own experience, I learned that we often react to students’ behaviors based on “growth needs” but confused them with “deficiency needs.”  While I support working on the needs which speak to the satisfaction of developing students’ potential, I wish to see us unafraid to confront deficiency needs.
 
I can’t help but think that part of this issue is lack of access.  Helping students get past their deficiency needs toward their growth needs is a process.  However, education is the system that enables human flourishing—not just keeping students afloat and helping them survive but giving them the tools to thrive (Strike 2007).  Student readiness becomes a result of intellectual capital and human flourishing.  Just as we reflect on our practice to improve as educators, we need to create safe spaces for our students to reflect on who they are, what they do, and why they should care.  Because we work in loco parentis, it becomes a moral imperative to explore issues with students that touch on moral values and working at answers to change our culture positively.
 
Two things became clear that day in moving forward: collective impact and collective wisdom.  Maltbia & Power explain that “leveraging diversity is the collective impact of individual and organizational responses to differences in both the workplace and the external environment in pursuit of personal and organizational objectives” (2009). Collective wisdom creates the space for us to hold conversations that matter to build on these objectives.  Brown & Isaacs showed that “people already have within them the wisdom and creativity to confront the most difficult challenges” (2005).
 
This is a lot to digest.   

Because of what I explained in the point one (above), I landed on nonviolence.  I made this shift before any of these issues erupted in our culture and in our schools.  Personal experiences have pushed me over the edge toward nonviolence.  This shift came from a place of hurt, motivated by struggle, but I understood that it cannot be overcome with anger, or hate, or silent frustration.  Embracing nonviolence was the only path through a difficult one. 
 
As Rosenberg explained it, challenges us to give from the heart, from a place of abundance and not scarcity, to replace alienation with compassion (2015).  On that day, nonviolence as a response helped us to align the unexpected under a single cause to make the situation work for the good.
In our attitudes as educators, it is important to remind our students that boldness is not defined by disrespect or a lack of acknowledgment for others’ situations.  Challenging others with divergent views should be based on charitable truth.  Such an approach gives everyone involved a chance to look at their own response and actions, a chance at arriving at the truth, a chance at reaching for and finding compassion.  The same chances we want for and give ourselves.  In this way, we become the ones who work to develop cultural skills and sensitivity with both individuals and groups to advance a collective goal (i.e., here we are, we are all in this together).

In your classroom, don’t be afraid to conduct dialogues from the heart that foster relationship-building.  This practice fits well under the restorative practices movement in schools.  A restorative classroom will help you to be both reactive and preventive when situations occur.  Based on Smith, Fisher, and Frey (2015): 

There are seven steps: “(a) set the context, (b) create a hospitable space, (c) explore questions that matter, (d) encourage everyone’s contribution, (e) cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives, (f) listen together, (g) harvest and share collected discoveries” (Rosenberg 2015).  

This post brought to you by Martine Haglund, an Equity Specialist for the Rochester Public Schools
Feel free to connect with Mrs. Haglund via email

​Growing up, I did not want to be a teacher. School, especially in middle school, was the last place I ever wanted to be. I grew up in north Minneapolis and as a 7th grader I was the only white female student in my grade. Fights broke out constantly, teachers often cried in class, and   it was common for teachers to quit midway through the year. Education was not the focus: school was not a place I associated with learning. 

When I got to high school, it was still a very diverse setting but there were other white students. There were advanced classes where education and learning was actually the focus and the classroom was full of students who were there to learn. I thrived in this environment, learning from my teachers and peers who all had a variety of cultural backgrounds that brought in many different perspectives.
 
For those without my experience, maybe it is best to think about a school lunchroom. The lunchroom in a diverse school is a fascinating place. While in the classroom you will walk in and students of different cultural backgrounds are learning and working together, in most lunchrooms students tend to be pretty segregated. The black students sit with other black students, Hmong students with other Hmong students and white students with white students. There are always a few exceptions, but for the most part this is what a lunchroom looks like in my experience.
 
Once I became a teacher, and was no longer a student who was part of this segregated-by-choice system, I began asking “why?”. Why do we choose this? Why can’t we create the atmosphere--the one so many college pamphlets show when trying to demonstrate their diversity--where all students are friends who are able to cross the barrier of race  to all eat lunch together. Personally, I have always thrived in diverse setting and can see the importance of the different perspectives but have also struggled with the idea that when given the choice we tend to gravitate towards people with similar skin tones and backgrounds when in social setting.
 
The Why
Before coming to John Marshall this year I taught at Fridley High School in Fridley, MN where I was first introduced to Dr. Hollie and his CLRT strategies. It was the first year I was teaching at Fridley, which was very similar to the cultural makeup of John Marshall. I had been teaching for three years when I was introduced to CLRT, and I can honestly say there had not been a college course, a teacher training, or a professional development day that had affected my teacher and classroom culture the way this training did.
 
Dr. Hollie was about to outline the “why” behind the lunchroom conundrum. He explained why my peers in middle school where not interested in the content nor how my teachers were presenting it. He went through our differences, the different rings of culture, how we communicate with one another, and how much we lose when we do not understand the cultures that those around us have grown up in. As a student in north Minneapolis, I was very aware of other cultures. I was invited to and attended many events, family gatherings, and birthday parties that were very different from my own home culture. Even when writing this, I feel it ridiculous that it took this long to truly understand my educational experience as a student and now as a teacher.
 
Using CLRT strategies is so important, especially when working with students with other cultural backgrounds than our own. Creating a space where all students feel you understand, at least a small part of their home culture and that you want them to be able to express themselves in this way, builds a bridge that impacts the relationships you have with your classes as well as individual students in your classes. As a student who identifies with white culture yet grew up in a diverse school setting, it would have been really beneficial to have had teachers use CLRT strategies in my classes because other students would not have always had to code switch into the mainstream traditional teaching strategies that have been typically used in the United States over the last 200 years. The students as a whole would have been more engaged and I would have been able to focus on my education--even in middle school.
 
The How
I have only been teaching in the Rochester Public Schools the last four months and in that time I have talked with teachers in my building who are aware I do quite a bit with CLRT and have said, “I understand why this is important but I just do not feel comfortable, or just do not understand how to even start using some of the strategies.” First, I want to say, I get it. I too was once uncomfortable with the idea of using ‘call and response’ because it felt like it did not fit my personality. However, I would say now that I do not go a class period without using it. Now, I love ‘call and response’. Starting is the hardest part, but once you do you will not go back.
 
Below, I have outlined a few of the strategies I use on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

Call & Response
This is the easiest strategy to use; yet, I think it can be a really intimidating. I did not feel comfortable with this one right away, so I found a way to engage the class in the process that made it feel more natural. I asked students to help create the ‘call and response’. he first one that one of my classes decided to use was “When I say Holla, you say Back!” It was fun because they came up with it and it was specific for that class.
 
As I have become more comfortable with ‘call and response’, I started to come up with them on the spot and students come up with them as well. Together, we might have different ones that relate to the unit we are studying,  others that students know are more serious, and some others that are more fun. It is a full-class engagement tool to use!

​Silent Appointment
I use ‘silent appointments’ a lot when I am trying to get students to have conversations with people whom they do not tend to gravitate to in the classroom. Students must use eye contact to choose a partner. I tell them they have to make an appointment with someone on the other side of the room. They all look down at the floor and when I say, “One, two, three: look up!” They then have some time to make eye contact with someone. Once they have a partner, they put their hand over their heart. If they are still looking after 20 seconds I tell them to put their hand in the air so they last ones can find each other. It works really well!

1-3-6
This is a strategy I use when I want students to get a lot of different perspectives from their peers. They must answer a prompt or begin a compare contrast assignment task independently (that’s the “1”). Then, they move into a group of three to share and elaborate on ideas (that’s the “3”). After a set amount of time, I finally have them move into a group of six to discuss (that’s the “6”) For added learning, I also usually have a full-class Venn Diagram or an example on the board that groups can take turns filling out as they are working in or finishing up their six-person conversations. At the end, we discuss the topic as a whole group. 

**These are all strategies that can be found in Sharroky Hollie binder “Strategies for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching and Learning”.

A Work in Progress  
I am still a CLRT work in progress. The reading strategies still feel foreign and forced when I use them which is why I do not have many listed above. I am still working through them in my classroom. Honestly, I have failed many times when using these in my own class, but part of it is owning the failures. Students are more willing to be real and understanding with you if you do the same with them--that has been proven time and again in my own classroom.
 
It really is fun to shake things up, try a new strategy, and sometimes even fail. I enjoy this work and feel it is really important, especially in districts with a growing diverse population like here in the Rochester Public Schools. 

This post brought to you by Michaela Sperl, social studies teacher at John Marshall High School
Feel free to connect with Sperl via email

Many of us have asked ourselves the following questions at some point in our teaching career:

• How do I engage all my students in class?  
• How do I find what works best for them to learn and to participate in class?  
• How do I get students to stop saying things like: I am not a math person, I have never been good at math, or I don’t know why you think this year would be different?

How many of us, while sitting in meetings or presentations learning about CLR protocols, are left wondering, how do I use these in my math classroom?
 
While there is no quick fix or one simple solution, here are a few things to consider and try in your classroom that will engage your math students and create more culturally responsive learning spaces.
 
Recently, I came upon an article by Mark Ellis (access it here). In his piece, “Knowing and Valuing Every Learner: Culturally Responsive Mathematics Teaching,” he defines the idea of culturally responsive mathematics teaching (CRMT) as, “creating a learning environment focused on mathematical sense making in which each student feels valued for who they are, for their ways of engaging mathematical reasoning, and for their contributions to the collective success of those within the classroom community.” He goes on to talk about how CRMT requires teachers to (re)consider the mathematics learning environment they’ve created and how well it reflects these four elements:

Ellis explains that while “Supporting Deep Learning” is the most straightforward, it isn’t enough to just focus on that quadrant alone. A couple of questions that go with this element are:

• How am I ensuring my students learn mathematics with coherence?
• What connections and relationships will help them to build conceptual understanding?

 
The second element, “Engaging and Valuing Identities,” has these questions to think about:

• How do I learn about the experiences and interests of my students?  
• How do I communicate that these experiences and interests are valued in relation to their learning of mathematics?  

 
When addressing “Sharing Authority,” think about:

• What instructional routines do I use to scaffold students’ engagement in productive mathematical discourse and collaboration?
• Who is given mathematical authority in my classroom? Who is not?

 
Finally when thinking about the last element, “Applying Mathematics”, ask:

• How do I integrate concepts into instruction that are more relevant to my students?
• How am I helping my students to see ways to use mathematics to analyze and address issues within their community?  

In this same article, Ellis goes on to share some examples of what CRMT is not versus what it is, since there are often misconceptions. There are shown below:

You can see Ellis directly discuss the ideas above in this previously recorded webinar.

As I dug more deeply, I found this article by Omiunota Ukpokodu, published in Multicultural Education, which summarizes the types of questions teachers should be asking themselves to be self-reflective.  She states that “culturally responsive mathematics instructional practice must first begin with teachers setting high expectations for all students, holding themselves personally responsible if their students are not achieving, creating motivation by demystifying mathematics as culturally neutral, and scaffolding students’ learning to ensure their success” (53). I liked this idea because it focuses on what I can do as a teacher to help all my students, rather than make excuses for why students are not achieving. Frequently asking ourselves as teachers these self-reflective questions pushes us out of our comfort zones, puts the focus on our students, and helps us become more culturally responsive teachers.
 
These questions include:

• Who is learning math in my classroom and who is not? Why/why not?
• What is my expectation for each of my students in mathematics learning?
• How am I scaffolding instruction for student mathematics learning?
• Do I use word problems that are familiar to my students?
• What social and community issues am I integrating into mathematic curriculum and instruction?
• Do I allow student so contextualize their thinking when practices and solving mathematics problems?
• Am I open to divergent thinking and problem processing style?
• Do I look only for the right answer that I know?
• Do I look to understand students’ strategies and logic when they engage in mathematical problem solving?
• How caring and supportive is the learning context I foster?
• How did each of my students do today?
• How was I responsive to each of my students today?

From: Ukpokodu, Omiunota. How Do I teach Mathematics in a Culturally Responsive Way? 
Identifying Empowering Teaching Practices. Multicultural Education. Spring 2011. 53.

Once teachers have taken the time to ask themselves these self-reflective questions and honestly answer them, then they can start fostering a CRMT classroom.  Ukpokodu summarizes four ways to foster a CRMT classroom with the focus on cooperative learning structures:

So, the next time you find yourself struggling to find ways to get your students participating or learning in your class, look inward before looking outward.
 
To continue to grow and learn more about CRMT, consider follow the following people on Twitter:

• Mark Ellis: @EllisMathED
• Zaretta Hammond: @Ready4Rigor
• Rochelle Gutierrez: @RG1gal  

Also, you’ll likely want to read the book Reimagining the Mathematics Classroom by Mark Ellis. You and your students will be very grateful that you did.

This post brought to you by Jen Coenen, Secondary Implementation Associate and STEM Village Director

One of my best parts of my job is visiting classrooms to see the amazing work our teachers and students are doing.  In the month of December, I was able observe in seventeen different classrooms and what struck me was how I could see our Rochester Public Schools (RPS) graduate profile, our vision for what skills we want our students to possess when they leave us, exemplified in our schools.   

My visits to classrooms in Rochester Public Schools affirmed my beliefs that we are moving in the right direction and that our students are engaging in opportunities that will allow them to be success-ready individuals.  The Graduate Profile is not just a piece of paper that defines where we want our students to be, it is lived out in our classrooms every day.  

This post brought to you by Heather Willman, POSA overseeing Secondary Curriculum, Instructional Coaching, & Staff Development

My best friends when I was growing up—the ones that I kept going back to again and again for support, reassurance, and comfort—were all fictional. It wasn’t so much that I was a nerd or a bookworm per se (although I did grow up to become both), but rather that my day to day world didn’t have in it anyone who looked or acted like me: so I sought them out in books.
 
You see, as a kid I didn’t have any tangible women in my life with whom I really identified—at least not holistically. My day to day life was filled with men—my father, my older brothers, and most of my friends. And then there was my mom: my mom, who was 100% sugar, and spice, and everything nice—while I, on the other hand, was mainly spice. Unlike my mother, I enjoyed changing the oil with my dad, going fishing with my brothers, and shingling roofs with my guy friends. However, I wasn’t ‘one of the guys’ either: I had a Caboodle full of banana clips and Bonne Bell, Yankee Candle was my favorite store in the mall, and I wore Love’s Baby Soft every day of junior high. So, instead, I found kinship in Mallory from The Baby-Sitter’s Club series, in Jo from Little Women, and in June Osborn [Offred] in The Handmaid’s Tale.
 
The thing is, each of these friends were introduced to me by teachers. I met Mallory at Jefferson Elementary when Mr. Vanort pointed out the series to me one day in the Library. I met Jo at Kellogg when Mrs. Ollenberg noted in the margin of one of my journal entries that I might enjoy it. And, I met June at Mayo when Ms. Evans set her own personal copy on my desk and said I should read it over winter break (I still have that copy, by the way: if you’re reading this Ms. Evans, let me know if you want it back).
 
But the other thing is: I’m white and cisgender. I was also born in the United States and raised middle class. These factors made it easier for me to see myself in the books I read growing up. It also made it easier for teachers to put the right books in my hands.
 
Unfortunately, for many of our students, it’s uncommon for them to see themselves reflected in the books they read, and while the diversity we are seeing in children’s and young adult literature is on the rise, it still doesn’t match our student population. It only takes one look at the numbers to realize how true this is:

As BJ Epstein, Ph.D., noted in The Conversation, “we know that children’s books can act like both mirrors and windows on the world. Mirrors in that they can reflect on children’s own lives, and windows in that they can give children a chance to learn about someone else’s life.” Knowing this to be true, then as educators it’s important we ensure students have opportunities to see characters who look like them, share similar backgrounds, and have comparable personality traits. Simultaneously, it important to ensure students are reading books that provide insight into worlds different from their own. 

 
Mirrors
 
Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in her 2009 Ted Talk “The Danger of a Single Story,”  sheds light on how her personal view of how she saw herself and who she could aspire to become someday was inaccurate and thin because of the limited types of novels she’d had access to. In other words, the mirror she had access to—the one she was able to hold in her hands—didn’t give her a clear picture of herself.

Windows
 
Adichie goes on to talk about how the books one reads can also create windows into the lives and worlds different from one’s own. In fact, reading literary fiction helps build empathy.

For me, this was certainly true. My world view expanded greatly through literature. Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God helped me begin to comprehend the challenges of being black, poor, and female in America. Cisneros' The House on Mango Street helped me begin to comprehend the challenges of poverty and immigration. Dorris's A Yellow Raft in Blue Water helped me begin to comprehend the challenges of holding on to one's heritage when one is Native American and/or biracial.
​
No matter our cultural backgrounds and experiences, reading fiction “can usher us into other worlds—it can make us step into other realities” (Elemans).

Resources

When it comes to surrounding students with literary mirrors and windows, one of the first steps is accessing the right titles and then getting those titles into students’ hands. Below are a wide variety of resources that can help you find texts to then share with students. 
 
Book List Resources:

• American Indians in Children’s Literature “Best Books” list
• IRIS Center’s “Children’s Books: Portrayals of People with Disabilities”
• National Public Radio’s “Book Concierge”
  • When applying the filters ‘Young Adult’ and ‘Identity and Culture’ to the 2018 books, this curated list is created.
  • It defaults to the 2018 list, but one can always go back to explore books published in previous years
• The NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) Blog, Literacy & NCTE—specifically these posts:
  • “Build Your Stack: Widening Our Lens by Bringing Books from around the Globe into K-12 Classrooms”
  • “Diversity in Graphic Novels”
  • “Culturally Sustaining and Inclusive YA Literature: Valuing the Knowledge, Stories, and Truths of Adolescent Life”
  • “Book Recommendations for the African American Read-In” (scroll toward the bottom for YA texts)
• We Need Diverse Books’ subsite “Where to Find Diverse Books”
  • Also, explore more suggested titles on Twitter: #WNDB

 
Reading Challenges that Honor Diversity in Literature:

• Rochester Public Library’s “Open Book Challenge”
• MacMillan Publishers’ “Reading Without Walls” challenge

 
Teacher Supports

• The Academy of American Poets subsite “Teach This Poem”
  • Educators can also sign up to receive a weekly email including one poem and supporting resources
• National Education Association’s subsite “Read Across America”
  • Also, explore more suggested titles on Twitter: #ReadAcrossAmerica

 
 
No matter what your role in education, you could be that staff member who hands out mirrors to and opens windows for our students. It’s important that we all work together to guarantee our students are able to see themselves reflected in the books they read and ensure that they’re able to build empathy for those who are different from them.
 
My childhood would have been rough without characters like Mallory, Jo, and June. My worldview would have been much thinner without authors like Hurston, Cisneros, or Dorris. To this day, I am grateful for those teachers who introduced me to these close friends and who showed me more of the world.

These protagonists taught me that being smart and outspoken, being strong-willed and brash was admirable—even if I was a woman. These authors taught me to empathize with others different from myself. Now, imagine what lessons our students will learn if we just introduce each of them to a wider array of books.

This post brought to you by Heather Lyke, Secondary Implementation Associate

Earlier this week, an article from EdWeek came across my desktop, titled “Learning Styles Aren’t a Reliable Way to Categorize Students, Study Says.” As someone who has lived in the world of education research, I giggled a little to myself and mumbled something along the lines of, File that in the ‘old news’ folder. Researchers have long suspected that grouping students into “learning styles” and tailoring our instruction to their particular strengths is not as effective as we once believed. I mused on how I used to survey my students and their parents to get an idea of how I should group my young learners into Gardner’s multiple intelligences and how I planned all sorts of learning activities so each group of students could shine in their particular “intelligence.” I smiled and felt a wave of nostalgia for early-career-Kim and prepared to move on to the next thing on my to do list for the day.
 
And then I had an AHA! moment: perhaps learning styles are not completely bogus, but more likely, we haven’t looked at them through a cultural lens. 

Consider Fazia:*

• She comes to school every day talking a mile a minute about everything from the latest episode of her favorite show to who was sitting next to whom at lunch yesterday. She is bubbly and bright and loves school.
• First hour she walks into a classroom where there are opportunities for her to verbalize her thinking and to work in small groups and talk with her friends about her ideas.
• Second hour, she heads to a different classroom where she is expected to sit quietly and work independently.

 
When it comes to students like Fazia, how often do we ask ourselves why a particular student is a verbal learner?

• What does her home culture value about orality and verbal expressiveness?
• What does her gender group or age group value about it?
• What experiences has this student had that have informed her approach to learning and being in the world?

Furthermore, critiques of a hyper-focus on learning styles point out that we tend to focus on what a student is good at and rarely push them to develop other skills. How do we, instead, intentionally teach students to practice those styles that are perhaps out of their comfort zone, but necessary for academic and real-world success? In the case of Fazia, what skills does she need to grow to be successful in settings where verbality isn’t appreciated, like in her second hour class?
 
As I wandered into the rabbit hole of research on this topic, I found so many articles and studies. (If you want to have a few cups of coffee and talk about it all, give me a call! This stuff is my jam!) But, then I came back to the foundations of the work we are doing with Dr. Hollie. He explains, “Notably, the teacher has to know what is cultural and what is not. Fortunately, research provides ample data…about the commonly accepted cultural behaviors of many underserved students” (103). The chart below helps illustrate those particular behaviors.**

The roots of Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching (CLR) lie in the recognition and validation of our cultural behaviors and how they impact our learning and teaching. Sure, we are learning all sorts of protocols and skills so we can be intentional and proactive in our responsiveness. But, as Hollie states in the intro to his book, Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching and Learning (2018), “CLR is not something you do but something that you have in all that you do.” CLR calls on us to recognize our students as cultural beings and to provide instructional strategies that meet those cultural needs.
 
Yet, we don’t stop there. This work recognizes the importance of teaching all students in all styles so they can practice modes of learning that may not be as comfortable for them, but that they will need to be successful in both the classroom and the world beyond the classroom walls. The power of this work lies in our intentionality and the moments when we see our students as bearers of cultures that may not be validated in traditional school culture. When we come up against those moments of struggles and can say to our students, “I see you and I honor you, and I care about you enough to give you the tools you need to be successful.”
 
And so, as we continue on our CLR journey, we continue to ask ourselves the following questions:

• Is this behavior cultural or not?
• What experiences have my students had that inform their learning styles?
• Similarly, how do my own cultural experiences impact the way I view my students and their learning styles?

And,

• How can I validate and affirm my students’ learning styles and am I providing opportunities for them to practice other learning styles so they can build up their cultural dexterity?

 
If you have any questions or want to talk more about how culture impacts students’ learning, give me call or email me! 

This post brought to you by Kim Eversman, E-12 Equity Implementation Associate

*   This student is a fictionalized version of students we might see in our classrooms each day.
** I want to acknowledge that culture is much more fluid than this particular chart shows, and there is a mountain of research on various ways to consider this fluidity, but for our purposes here, it is helpful to consider cultural behavior in this simplified way. 

I was reading an article recently that talked about the power of partnerships and why sometimes businesses are better together.  One particular sentence really struck a chord with my experience over the past year and a half working with Career Pathways and CTECH.  Paul Parisi, the President of PayPal Canada, said the greatest success comes when “opportunity drives collaboration.”  Where we experience this the most is in our business and industry relationships.  Here are a few specific instances that highlight the positive collaborations that have come about from chance opportunities.

McKinstry Engineering
Sometime last winter Superintendent Munoz bumped into a gentleman by the name of Ed from McKinstry Engineering at a conference.  They began talking about how to engage students in hands-on, real-life engineering and exchanged contact information.  This led to a meeting between Ed and myself during which he explained his story as a student and why he was interested in creating this partnership.  He also mentioned that his hope was to create a partnership template that his company could use in other areas of the country.  Fast forward six months and Ed’s willingness to drive from the Twin Cities every Thursday for a 70-minute class and his ability to secure guest instructors from all over the area have created an unprecedented opportunity for twelve Rochester students, four from each comprehensive high school.  These students come to CTECH once a week and learn directly from Engineers in all different areas of the profession.
 
Firefighter Mentorship
Every year our district partners with the Rochester Fire Department on fire prevention education at the elementary level.  This year a spin-off conversation started about a possible collaboration at the high school level that would prepare interested students for the statewide firefighter certification exam.  Over the course of several conversations we were able to create an opportunity through our existing mentorship program that will allow students to complete the bulk of the learning online and combine that with five days of onsite skills training with the Fire Department.  As a result of this collaboration we are able to provide this opportunity to our students at minimal cost.
 
Chick-fil-A
Just over a month ago one of the owner/operators of the Chick-fil-A Ear of Corn quick serve restaurant accidentally stopped into CTECH as she was looking for the Workforce Development Center located next door at the Heintz Center.  We informed her that we were a public high school facility and that we don’t post flyers, etc. for job openings.  As we chatted and exchanged niceties as typical Minnesotans do, it became clear that an opportunity to collaborate existed.  We ended up scheduling a follow-up and, after a quick email introduction, our Business Education instructors were able to have these franchise owners speak to their students.  Within a month, this chance opportunity provided a learning opportunity for each of our three high school Business programs and even resulted in, at last count, two students receiving job offers from Chick-fil-A.
 

These represent just a few of the many collaborations we have within RPS and there are more in the works!
 
Paul Parisi does a great job outlining the parameters that surround a solid business collaboration and it is my belief that these can be directly applied to the business and industry collaborations we continue to seek as a district.  I encourage all educators to keep your eyes and ears open for possible partnerships and when you recognize an opportunity remember the following:

• Identify the specific challenge you can solve together.
• Think outside the box to find unexpected expertise.
• Start with a shared goal.
• Lean into each other’s strengths.
• Place an emphasis on clear communication between partners.

And always remember that strategic partnerships benefit everyone involved!

This post brought to you by Brandon Macrafic, POSA focusing on Career & College Readiness and administrator at CTECH

​My son just proposed to his girlfriend this summer. He dreamed up a memorable event that included a treasure chest with some silver and a few diamonds in the shape of a lovely ring.  I “hid” behind the bushes at Whitewater State Park and took pictures. It was a sweet, tender moment and I was very happy to be a part of it. 

From Whitewater to the Classroom
Every now and again, I take a class because I like to be reminded of how it feels to be a student. And as soon as I sit down in a desk, the questions start:

• “Will I be clock-watching all hour?”
• “Will I be given clear directions or will I have to muddle through to make my own understanding?”
• “Is this learning relevant—something I can actually use in my life?”

It’s a Metaphor (which is a strategy you can use . . .)
As you consider these two seemingly unrelated stories, there is a theme with one common burning question between them: WILL I BE ENGAGED?

Dropping Out: The Unengaged
​In chapter one of Total Participation Techniques-Making Every Student an Active Learner, authors Persida and William Himmele cite the number one reason for dropping out of high school: BOREDOM (5). These dropouts are disengaged. Further, seventy-five percent of prison inmates are dropouts (5). The deleterious effect of disengagement in the classroom could mean a lifetime behind bars. Of course, this is one of many factors that may lead to incarceration, but it is worth investigating.

We Just Can’t Chalk and Talk Anymore
“If we want our students to actually learn the facts and concepts and ideas we’re trying to teach them, they have to experience those things.... They have to process them. Manipulate them. To really learn in a way that will stick, they have to DO something” ("​To Learn, Students Need to Do Something", Jennifer Gonzalez, 2018).
​
To combat BOREDOM and to truly TEACH our students, we must engage them. ​

This spur-of-the-moment toolbox strategy is great for total participation and something I use to introduce freedom of speech in my government class:

“Thumbs Up if this speech is protected by the First Amendment. Thumbs Down if it isn’t.

• “Burning the flag.” [Thumbs Up]
• “Burning a draft card.” [Thumbs Down]
• “Hate speech.” [Thumbs Up]
• “Falsely yelling fire in a theater.” [Thumbs Down]

While engagement is high, this strategy falls under what the Himmeles call “Low Cognition/High Participation” (15). Everybody is engaged, but what higher-level thinking is going on? If we want “High Cognition/High Participation” (15), we’ve got to level up, but how?

As noted in the blog post "More Strategies for Instructional Dialogue: You Can Never Have Too Many!", Ellen Harford details “The Campfire” from Dr. Sharroky Hollie’s book Strategies for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching and Learning.
 
I have used this strategy in my sociology class as we discussed the very sensitive topic of Rape Culture. Because my students were allowed time to read an article, digest a quote, and respond to a question on their own, our conversation was deeper and richer than a whole-group discussion would have been. Every student participated and every student benefited from hearing the thoughts of those 3-4 around them.

What Else?
There are hundreds of ways to engage students; I highly recommend what I referenced above: Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner.  It's full of quick and dirty methods to engage your students.
 
Now, it’s not WILL I BE ENGAGED? But, HOW WILL I ENGAGE?

This post brought to you by Ann Eldredge, social studies teacher at John Marshall High School
Feel free to connect with Eldredge via email