Discover effective culturally responsive teaching strategies to create an inclusive and engaging classroom. Learn practical tips to honor diverse backgrounds, foster equity, and support every student's success. Dr. Deonna Smith, author of Rooted in Joy: Creating a Classroom Culture of Equity, Belonging, and Care is here to show us how.
What is culturally responsive teaching?
According to Dr. Smith, culturally responsive teaching is simply just good teaching. Culturally responsive teaching means that you as a teacher understand that you are bringing your own culture and your own frames of reference into the classroom and your students are doing the same.
It’s a way to understand that our students’ funds of knowledge and cultural experiences are valuable and have a place inside the classroom. We can make sure we are responding to the needs of our different learners by understanding what it means to respond to those cultural frames of references, while being aware of our own.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls
Many of us mean well but it’s easy to miss the mark when it comes to celebrating another culture. “Your intent is not always the same as your impact,” Dr. Smith tells us. Sometimes our good intentions will land differently with people.
When we are working to honor different cultures, there is a fine line between appropriation and appreciation. Dr. Smith cautions us that if we feel we might be heading towards appropriation and we’re not sure, to make another choice. There are many different ideas and activities to choose from.
When we wear ceremonial clothing or play into stereotypes about a culture, we can do more harm than good. Even if it is a positive stereotype, generally speaking stereotypes can be problematic. Often we might even use cultural items and regalia in a way that is culturally inappropriate because we are not familiar with the culture.
If you are generally interested in learning about other cultures, that’s amazing. Dr. Smith does not wish to scare anyone away from learning and celebrating cultures. She just wants to remind us that our students will be emulating what we are doing so we should be cautious on how we are presenting ourselves.
Where to Start with Families
Dr. Smith likes to send a letter home at the beginning of the year stating her intentions about the importance of culture in her classroom. Her letter tells families that she was trained in culturally responsive teaching strategies and that she plans on working with them to support their child and that she believes all of our students’ diversity in the classroom is a strength, not a weakness.
A good place to start is a celebration and welcoming of cultures.
Ways to Celebrate Cultures
Dr. Smith reminds us that November is Indigenous Peoples’ Heritage Month and a great time to look for museums or events put on by local Indigenous People. If you cannot go on a field trip, there are many virtual field trips.
The National Museum of the American Indian in New York City has many online exhibits. Offering students credit to attend a cultural event is a great way to have students explore your community events without having to have an official school field trip. “There are lots of cool things out there,” Dr. Smith reminds us. We just have to look for them. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is another great resource.
Many leaders of these events in our communities are also happy to come visit schools for an assembly for free if you ask. Others may charge a small fee.
When it comes to culturally responsive teaching strategies, it’s important to remember to start with your own internal work. Even though you might not have had anti bias training or the privilege of unpacking your identity, what you are bringing to the classroom is another great place to start.
Learning to Enjoy Our Classroom Space
This year there seems to be a dismal vibe spreading across classrooms in America. As Dr. Smith shares with us, the negative press, bad news, and demoralizing laws and regulations around what we’re aloud to teach can be really demoralizing and frustrating for teachers.
“Teaching is one of those careers where everybody has a lot to say about how it’s done.” Many people equate being a student with understanding what it means to be able to teach. Dr. Smith equates it with being a doctor and being sick. Just because you’ve been sick before, doesn’t mean you should make rules about how a doctor does their job.
We really have to learn to just shut our doors and fill our classrooms with positivity. “A joyful classroom starts with the teacher,” Dr. Smith tells us. “It’s going to be really hard for you to run a joyful classroom if you are feeling kind of abysmal every day.”
Learning to Be Joyful Ourselves
Teachers should really be pouring into themselves and filling up their own cup. This should go beyond the commercial self-care of bubble baths and relaxation but rather making the changes you need in your life for you to feel good. Next is understanding that you can only do so much inside your classroom. You might not be able to change things like the district’s standardized testing, but there’s a lot of things you can do inside your classroom to make it feel good for yourself and your students.
Social-Emotional Learning
A lot of people have been struggling with things like seasonal depression, anxiety, and long term lingering impact of the pandemic. Personally we have to learn to connect back to that joy. It will be hard to run a joyful classroom if you are not feeling joyful yourself.
Our students that were born and bred in the pandemic era are having a harder time with that connection piece and engagement in general. The strategies that we were doing before might not be working anymore. “Some of it too is relearning and rebuilding a set of skills to meet the needs of our students that really struggle with connection, who need to learn explicitly how to be social creatures. Who need to be engaged differently because their attention spans are dramatically, dramatically reduced.”
We now need to rethink how we move about the classroom and teach. How do we build up our students to build one another up in turn? Dr. Smith believes in explicit focus and explicit engagement of social-emotional learning. As a former middle school teacher, Dr. Smith encountered many colleagues stuck on “should.” For example, thinking the students “should” be able to do this or “should” know something they didn’t.
Whether students should or should not know how to communicate with each other, or should or should not be able to pay attention, or should or should not know what respect looks like in a classroom - they don’t.
It falls on us as teachers to provide explicit skill building and lots of modeling and making connections to characters in literature.
The Framework for Joyful and Inclusive Schools
Dr. Smith has a 4 part framework to create joyful and inclusive schools. First, is the statement, “I am joyful.” Are you, the teacher, getting what you need to be able to show up as your best self on a daily basis? This could be things like mental health days written into your contract or notes of appreciation.
Next, “our community is a joyful place to be.” This means that the school community understands it’s not just about reading, writing, and arithmetic. It’s about having fun together and laughing. It’s about the fun experiences like field day and school plays that bring a connection and feeling of belonging.
The third component is “our students are joyful.” You can’t be joyful unless you are able to express your true and authentic self. This is the cultural responsive piece. In this component schools should be focusing on creating spaces where student identities are welcomed, celebrated, and uplifted. Students feel seen, loved, and heard.
The final component is “I enjoy learning.” This is the piece that focuses on instructional practices that motivates reluctant learners and moves students from dependent to independent thinkers.
Proactive strategies are what bring about long term change. “If we can create this really healthy, thriving classroom community, you’re not even going to need to know how to respond to student behavior because their behaviors are going to be dramatically reduced.”
Scheduling Joy
As silly as it might sound, Dr. Smith recommends in order to start having more joy it’s important to schedule it. She says to start by finding moments of joy in your planning. Ask yourself these questions:
Where am I seeing moments of joy?
Where am I seeing connection?
Where am I seeing laughter?
Where am I seeing community building?
If you don’t see it, start building it in. It can be as simple as having one moment of joy each day such as playing heads up, seven up at dismissal.
Start small. If you teach multiple subjects, maybe just start with one subject. Then start adding more fun. If you’re feeling stuck, remember you don’t have to stay there. You can find lots of resources out there to help you.
Get a special joy FREEBIE just for Shared Teaching listeners (or readers).
Connect with Dr. Deonna Smith:
Dr. Smith's instagram - @deonnasmith
Dr. Smith's book, Rooted In Joy
Dr. Smith's website - Deonna Smith Consulting
Dr. Smith's YouTube - That's Just Good Teaching
Related Post: Joy in the Classroom with Dr. Deonna Smith