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Last month, I reviewed Zaretta Hammond's fantastic book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. Now I'm proud to have Zaretta here as a guest writer to share some specific strategies with us.

Culturally responsive teaching. Everybody is talking about it. The big question is: How do you actually make lessons culturally responsive? That comes up regularly when I am working with groups of teachers to improve outcomes for diverse students who are struggling. I remember working with a group of sixth grade teachers on improving learning for their at-risk students. These teachers were frustrated that their students, 95 percent of them students of color and English language learners, were not applying themselves to learning.

I suggested that we explore making lessons more culturally relevant in order to accelerate student learning. I remember the reaction of Janice, the science teacher. "I am not going to be rappin' about the periodic table," she said defiantly as she crossed her arms and sat back in her chair.

I couldn't blame her. Google "culturally responsive teaching" and you can find a dozen videos of well-meaning teachers leading some call-and-response chant about exponents or rapping about the Boston Tea Party while students sit back and giggle. That's because we usually talk about culturally responsive teaching only as an engagement strategy designed to motivate at-risk students to take learning seriously. Or we try to find a race-based connection to the content to make it "relevant" to minority students.

One of the biggest misconceptions about culturally responsive teaching is thinking you have to tie the lesson's content to African American or Latino students' racial background. The common belief is if you mention Africa, Mexico, or famous black and brown high achievers, it will spark students' attention. Then they will be motivated to participate.

In reality, culturally responsive teaching is less about using racial pride as a motivator and more about mimicking students' cultural learning styles and tools. These are the strategies their moms, dads, grandmas, and other community folks use to teach them life skills and basic concepts long before they come to school and during out-of-school time.

Culturally responsive teaching leverages the brain's memory systems and information processing structures. Why? Many diverse students come from oral cultural traditions. This means their primary ways of knowledge transfer and meaning-making are oral and active. It's a common cultural tradition that cuts across racial groups: African American, Latino, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islander communities all have strong oral cultures. Each of these cultural groups uses the brain's memory systems for turning inert information into useable knowledge. They use memory strategies to make learning sticky, like connecting what needs to be remembered to a rhythm or music (that's why we still know the ABC song) or by reciting it in fun ways like a poem, riddle, or limerick.

I asked Janice what area of learning she wanted to help her kids improve. She said science vocabulary; they weren't learning the weekly words and it was getting in the way of their understanding of key concepts. She was frustrated and at the end of her rope. I asked how she was teaching it. She used the typical approach: On Monday, she listed the words on the board. Students copied them down and were required to look each word up and use it in a sentence. On Wednesday, there was a vocabulary test.

I suggested that we design word study to be more culturally responsive by making it more like the students' own cultural learning process. She was open for trying something different.

I offered her these three tips for transforming any lesson into something that looked and felt more culturally responsive to diverse students, something that would allow them to engage more and process the content effectively.

Games are the power strategy for culturally-grounded learning because they get the brain's attention and require active processing. Attention is the first step in learning. We cannot learn, remember, or understand what we don't first pay attention to. Call and response is just a way to get the brain's attention. Most games employ a lot of the cultural tools you'd find in oral traditions - repetition, solving a puzzle, making connections between things that don't seem to be related (Ever play Taboo or Apples to Apples?).

Organizing learning so that students rely on each other will build on diverse students' communal orientation. This communal orientation can be summed up in the African proverb, "I am because we are." Even making learning slightly competitive in a good-natured way increases students' level of attention and engagement. It's why the T.V. show Survivor has been around for so many years; it's a social-based game.

The brain is wired to remember stories and to use the story structure to make sense of the world. That's why every culture has creation stories. In oral traditions, stories play a bigger role in teaching lessons about manners, morality, or simply what plants to eat or not eat in the wilderness because it's the way content is remembered. Diverse students (and all students, really) learn content more effectively if they can create a coherent narrative about the topic or process presented. That's the brain's way of weaving it all together. (Bonus: It also offers a great way to check for understanding and correct misconceptions.)

So Janice took her weekly list of science vocabulary and created a variety of sorting and matching games for students. She built a set of simple card games based on Go Fish or Old Maid. In addition she created some team games. Each week students had different active ways to learn the vocabulary. For 10-15 minutes a couple of times during the week, students got to play these learning games rather than look up words in a dictionary. She gave them instructions for making the games at home if they wanted to.

Instead of the traditional weekly vocab test, she asked them to "storify" their understanding of key concept words like metamorphosis, using vocabulary from past weeks.

When I checked in with the group a few weeks later, she was the first one to share. She said student engagement was like night and day. Now all students were participating. She said she knew they were learning the vocabulary at a deeper level because they were actually using the new science terms during discussions and in their writing with no prompting from her.

The big A-ha's for the group that day were that (1) Culturally responsive teaching doesn't have to be some performance the teacher does to entertain students and (2) It doesn't have to mention race or reference culture at all. Instead, what makes a practice culturally responsive is that it mimics students' own cultural learning tools. They all realized that these practices are helpful for all students, not targeted at minority students.

The real trick is to use these strategies regularly as part of your instructional routine rather than doing them randomly every now and then. Consistency is the key. ♦

Learn more about how to improve diverse students' information processing skills and actually grow their brains in Zaretta Hammond's book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students .

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3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive

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Google "culturally responsive teaching" and you can find a dozen videos of well-meaning teachers leading some call-and-response chant about exponents or rapping about the Boston Tea Party while students sit back and giggle.

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I want to talk about how you can take your science teaching to the next level, where young people, and especially underrepresented young people (people of color, LGBT, immigrants, girls, etc.), find what you're teaching engaging, relevant to their lives, and which research shows that if done thoughtfully, enables them to achieve a higher level of learning. I'm not suggesting you change your science content. Instead, I'd like to illustrate the importance of modifying your teaching to be culturally relevant.

Ideally you are already providing hands-on, inquiry-based science experiments, which are known to increase achievement and engagement. [Shameless plug: This is something that a zebrafish program that I work with, BioEYES, does well, so if you need help see our website ( www.bioeyes.org), our latest research paper in PLOS Biology that details our results and how to launch an outreach program in your area, read our Node post from 2010, or contact me directly.] How engaged are your students? Are there some that are struggling, or who aren't that committed? Do your lessons speak to the diversity of individuals that you are teaching? Are they culturally relevant?

What does this mean, exactly? Culturally relevant teaching was first described in 1994 by Gloria Ladson-Billings, an education researcher, to mean: "a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes." She suggests reframing how we think about and teach students, especially those typically marginalized by the greater society, from a place of need or as a problem to be fixed, to a place that acknowledges the cultural richness and the assets they bring into the classroom and society.

Culturally relevant teaching is based on the following principles: Academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 1994). The first principle, academic success, is that we want learners to grow, intellectually. While seemingly obvious, the unconscious biases we educators harbor can sabotage our best intentions. For example, research shows that we call on "poor" performers less often, and spend less time waiting for them to answer. The second principle, cultural competence, is that we introduce students to the global perspectives found in the greater scientific community and the world. Students can then celebrate not only their own cultures, but learn new perspectives as well. And the third and final principal, sociopolitical consciousness, involves helping students to apply their learning to solving some of the world's pressing problems.

How does a scientist apply these principles in a science classroom? Let's first look more closely at what a culturally relevant classroom is like.

You get to know your students on a meaningful level. You identify what each student is interested in, what their values are, what their home life is like, their traditions, style of communicating, and how they relate to their community.

You demonstrate caring. By getting to know your students and what they value, you begin to develop meaningful relationships with them and show that you value them, their culture, and their ways of learning, which may be different from traditional ways of learning. This goes beyond merely respecting students and their differences. You build safe spaces for ethnically diverse students to learn and achieve. You provide high expectations for all learners, yet help them succeed in steps, not all at once.

You respond to ethnic diversity while delivering instruction. You actively seek out ways to incorporate your students' lives and cultures into the science lessons you're providing.

Now why is this all so important? For one, research shows that academic scores increase when you deliver culturally relevant instruction (Au & Kawakami, 1994; Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Foster, 1995; Gay, 2000, 2010; Hollins, 1996; Ladson-Billings, 1994, 1995; Paris, 2012; Scherff & Spector, 2011). Boutte, Kelly-Jackson, & Johnson (2010) emphasize that: "academic achievement is a central goal of culturally relevant teaching." When you set high expectations for students, which for starters can be as simple as calling them "scientists" no matter their age, it shows that you believe they can achieve great things. They feel valued. Secondly, many minority students have spent their entire lives having to fit into a dominant culture, while their own culture has been suppressed, oppressed, and devalued. This has a profound affect on an individual's identity. It forces one to try and maintain one identity at home and in their community, and a separate identity at school. Imagine what that feels like.

Teaching from a culturally relevant framework supports and nurtures student identities and values. It creates a safe space that allows students to excel, and sometimes to fail. But when failing in a supportive environment, you can help them get back up and try again, step by step. It is this scaffolding of learning that helps struggling performers engage with learning and to advance.

So how do you apply culturally relevant teaching to science? For starters, be willing to look at your own beliefs and biases toward others. Take a few implicit bias tests ( https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html). Understand that we all have unconscious biases. While difficult, seek out ways to challenge your assumptions ( https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sound-science-sound-policy/201501/overcoming-implicit-bias-and-racial-anxiety). Learn about and interact with other cultures. Put yourself in others' shoes. Be the curious scientist you know yourself to be. In the process, you might even find ways to mitigate the global stereotype that all scientists are White males that wear glasses and like to blow things up in the laboratory (Finson, 2002).

Next, get to know the population you serve even more. You could start by administering a student inventory ( http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/products-for-your-classroom/). Or have the classroom teacher administer a survey. What you learn can help you to build an authentic relationship and can generate ideas for ways to incorporate a student's culture into your lessons. Don't make assumptions about who they are. Find out who they are.

Deal directly with controversial subjects such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and poverty. Give them context. You might think about how science has historically been done by and for men, and how this has shaped the field (e.g., medical dosages are prescribed similarly for men and women, yet women sometimes need a lower dose). How might a discussion about this change the way we do/view science? What can you and your students do about it? While genetics education might start with Gregor Mendel, communities like the Native Americans have been doing experiments on corn for thousands of years but didn't write down their findings because they followed an oral tradition. How might a Native student who brings this prior knowledge into the classroom then respond to a teacher who posits Mendel as the founder of genetics?

Study a wide range of individuals and ethnic groups. Include many perspectives. No one person represents a group. Again, this is true for you as well as each student in your class. What interests you? Where is there commonality with your students?

How might you infuse issues of social justice, for example, into a science activity? One example involves teaching students science vocabulary ( http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/culturally-responsive-teaching-strategies/). Author Zanetta Hammond suggests making a game of it, making the activity a social one, or "storifying" it. All three strategies employ the techniques of oral traditions-listening, repetition, memorization and learning-which are common to many cultures. In addition, marginalized populations often share a history of having to pool their resources in order to survive or get ahead, and value their community and group over individual gain. Creating groups where students can socialize and work together is not only inclusive of all cultures, but models the collaborative nature of scientific work.

Help students make connections between the science content, the contributions made by underrepresented scientists, and your students' lives. This does not mean you change the science content. But you can incorporate data, photos, examples, and information from different cultures into each lesson so multicultural science education is institutionalized in your program and practices, as opposed to being taught in isolation (e.g., during Women's History Month only). If you are working with African-American learners, you could talk about and show photos of prominent African-American scientists (e.g., biologists Ernest Just and Charles Drew), show data and graphs of diseases that disproportionately affect African Americans, or provide examples of scientific research that has been done to African Americans (e.g., Tuskegee experiment). By utilizing the techniques of science-such as the scientific method, arguing from evidence, and problem solving-you can elucidate and challenge stereotypes and prejudices.

You might frame a genetics unit not around Gregor Mendel, but around researchers of color: Priya Moorjani, a geneticist who has used genomic data to understand the origins of the Indian caste system; Kono Yasui, a biologist who researched the genetics of several plant species; or Rick Kittles who used genetics to trace the ancestry of African Americans. Or you might choose a woman like Barbara McClintock who was not encouraged personally or professionally to study science, but who still went on to win the Nobel Prize for her work in genetics. Here we have several examples that are inclusive of women's contributions to science (also see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/). Pay attention to areas of intersectionality. Are there LGBT researchers you know of? Look for these role models, many of which may be "hidden" or ignored, and celebrate them. The key is that you are not teaching specifically to a particular ethnicity or group, but are incorporating different perspectives and creating an inclusive, relevant, and supportive environment for learners from various backgrounds.

While some of these ideas may give you pause -perhaps you feel they require too much effort or take you too far outside your comfort zone-you don't have to include everything, or even everything all at once ( 1). Start with small changes, and identify where you and your students share common ground and what you are comfortable with. Feel free to share activities and examples you find in the comments below. Challenge yourself over time to go beyond a casual interpretation of culture in your science classes and in your lab but instead think about how your lessons might allow for opportunities for critical debates on the role and practices of science in society (Ladson-Billings, 2014). I argue that by not expanding upon our current view of science knowledge and oppression's role in shaping it, we reinforce and privilege Eurocentric hegemonic ideas. By teaching to the whole child, you will gift your students with strong identities, new perspectives, and ultimately will engage them more in science, increase their critical thinking skills, spur greater learning gains, and hopefully help them consider a career in the sciences. And who doesn't want that?
(1) For a good philosophical framework, see the "typology for multiculturalizing science" at Baptiste, H., & Key, S. (1996). Cultural Inclusion: Where does your program stand? The Science Teacher, 63(2), 32-35. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24149767 References
Au K.H., & Kawakami, A.J. (1994). Cultural congruence in instruction. In E.R. Hollins, J.E. King, & W.C. Hayman (Eds.), Teaching diverse populations: Formulating a knowledge base (pp. 5-23). Albany: State University of New York Press.

Boutte, G., Kelly-Jackson, C., & Johnson, G.L. (2010). Culturally relevant teaching in science classrooms: Addressing academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical consciousness. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 12(2).

Boykin, A.W., & Noguera, P. (2011). Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap. Alexandria, VA: the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107016.aspx

Finson, K.D. (2002), Drawing a Scientist: What We Do and Do Not Know After Fifty Years of Drawings. School Science and Mathematics, 102: 335-345. doi:10.1111/j.1949-8594.2002.tb18217.x

Foster, M. (1995). African American teachers and culturally relevant pedagogy. In J.A. Banks & C.A.M. Banks (eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 570-581). New York: Macmillan.

Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching, 2nd Ed. New York, New York: Teachers College Press.

Hollins, E.R. (1996). Culture in school learning: Revealing the deep meaning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful teaching for African-American students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 17-18.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465-491.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: aka the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74-84.

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93-97.

Scherff, L., & Spector, K. (2011). Culturally relevant pedagogy: Clashes and confrontations. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Shuda, J.R., Butler, V.G., Vary, R., & Farber, S.A. (2016) Project BioEYES: Accessible Student-Driven Science for K-12 Students and Teachers. PLoS Biol 14(11): e2000520. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2000520

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Kicking It Up a Notch: Becoming a Culturally Relevant Science Educator - the Node

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I want to talk about how you can take your science teaching to the next level, where young people, and especially underrepresented young people (people of color, LGBT, immigrants, girls, etc.), find what you're teaching engaging, relevant to their lives, and which research shows that if done thoughtfully, enables them to achieve a higher level of learning.

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Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning

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Teaching controversial subjects is an inherent part of some courses and disciplines. Topics like race, culture, gender, and/or sexual orientation can come up in many fields, and any course dealing with current events presents an opportunity for socially-challenging or politically-charged topics to arise spontaneously in class discussions. How we manage those discussions, however, can greatly impact how useful the conversations are to our instructional goals, and what sort of impact they have on the dynamics of the class. Many of the suggestions below focus on pre-planned discussions, but many of the techniques can also be applied to discussions that pop up unexpectedly.

Preparing for Discussions

In situations where you know you will be addressing a controversial topic, you can prepare for the discussion in ways that set the stage for success.

Consider possible sources of student views. On many issues, students' viewpoints may be wrapped up in their personal identities, influenced by family members, or connected to religious/spiritual/moral beliefs. So a challenge to an idea may be seen as a personal challenge as well. Just being aware of these deeper origins of student opinions-both for you and their classmates-may be useful in approaching delicate conversations.

Lead with your goals. Contextualize the discussion within your class and disciplinary contexts. Be clear with your students why you are having this conversation and what learning outcomes you expect. Be ready to reiterate these goals during the discussion, and ask the students to redirect the conversation in ways that return to these goals.

Provide pre-discussion assignments. Ask students to complete an assignment in advance that helps them understand and articulate their own views, as well as others they have heard. Such pre-discussion homework can help them reflect on those views, understand potential reasons behind them, and connect them to disciplinary content in the course. Such activities let them do some more logical thinking in advance, before any emotional barriers get thrown up during a heated discussion.

Prepare students with disciplinary models for thinking. If you are wanting them to learn how someone in your discipline discusses these matters, be certain to spend time overtly explaining and modeling those disciplinary processes, and make sure the discussion practices those models, prompting students as needed. For example, is there a certain type/level of evidence that you expect them to apply to their reasoning? Are there certain theories/concepts that you want them to apply to their arguments?

Establish some discussion guidelines. Work with students to establish a set of guidelines for class discussion; their input is important here so the rules are part of the classroom community, not just rules you impose. Some possible guidelines include:

Listen respectfully, without interrupting

Allow everyone the opportunity to speak

Criticize ideas, not individuals or groups

Avoid inflammatory language, including name-calling

Ask questions when you don't understand; don't assume you know others' thinking or motivations

Connect back to course concepts whenever possible

Don't expect any individuals to speak on behalf of their gender, ethnic group, class, status, etc. (or the groups we perceive them to be a part of).

Talk candidly about the challenges ahead. Admit up front that the conversations may be awkward or challenging, but explain why they are important parts of the class. You can set an example by expressing some personal vulnerability, a willingness to take risks and make mistakes, and a willingness to learn and grow in a public setting.

Warm up first. Consider dealing first with some less complex or emotionally-charged topics, rather than just jumping into a very heated issue. Have a reflective discussion about how that discussion went, so students can learn how to handle the discussion and build trust with their classmates.

During Class

Provide a framework and starting point. Prepare some questions to get the conversation started, balancing the needs for both focus and openness in responses. Avoid questions that seem like there is one right answer. In some cases, it works well to ask not for their own opinions, per se, but a sharing of what opinions they have heard about that topic; such an approach allows you to get the "lay of the land" without anyone feeling too exposed from the start. Structured discussion activities can also be useful for guiding conversations in productive and supportive ways (including these examples from Vanderbilt University).

Actively manage the discussion. Be ready to prompt students as needed for follow-up, additional explanation, or evidence. Be ready to remind students of the discussion guidelines, and let them practice re-stating comments as needed. And be ready to steer the conversation back to the stated goals of the discussion.

Address the difficulty. If there is some hesitancy in the conversation, consider asking why it is difficult to discuss, and be ready to reassert any course or disciplinary framework that will help people respond. Admitting your own discomfort in addressing such issues can make students more comfortable with their own discomfort, especially if you explain or model how you can work past it.

Provide structured opportunities for reflection and input. Consider how you can structure opportunities for everyone to stop, think, and reflect, particularly when the conversation lags or becomes contentious. Ask students to write for a few moments, share answers with a neighbor, and come back to the broader discussion with that new focus. Sometimes a short writing break is useful in diffusing tension and refocusing the conversation.

Be ready to defer the conversation. If the conversation gets too heated or off-topic, you may want to reach some sort of closure to the immediate discussion and defer the conversation to another class period, for which everyone can prepare. Be certain to explain the purpose of this deferral, and give students some resource or assignment that will help them prepare to discuss the topic in a more meaningful way within the context of the course and discipline. This is particularly useful in situations where the conversation was spontaneous, not planned.

Be aware of the implications of sharing your own views. Weigh the impact of you sharing your own opinions on an issue, knowing that could silence students who hold other views. If you do share your own ideas, be sure to elaborate on your thinking process enough to model the disciplinary thinking you want them to do, not necessarily the outcome.

Confront inappropriate language. If a student makes an inappropriate comment-racist, sexist, or otherwise offensive-letting it go without intervention can seem like a tacit endorsement of those views. And whether the slight is intentional or not, the impact is the same. Letting such comments pass unchallenged can seriously harm students' trust in you and their sense of belonging in the class and the university. Have some responses ready for how you are going to address such comments, including language that interrupts bias by calling out the behavior while calling in the person. Responding directly to microagressions and other inappropriate language may feel uncomfortable, but our discomfort as instructors has less impact than discomfort experienced by marginalized students.

Follow-Up

Synthesize the discussion. Leave some time at the end of class for people to synthesize what they heard, particularly in terms of how it relates back to course concepts and the activity's stated goals. Or consider giving students a follow-up assignment outside of class that asks them to do this synthesis and reflection, both for their own benefit and for you to assess how useful the activity was. Part of the purpose here can be to give students a way to process any cognitive (or emotional) dissonance they may have encountered during the discussion.

Reflect on the conversation dynamics. Ask student what they would have liked to have done differently in the conversation-either a reflection on the whole group's behavior or (perhaps more importantly) on how they participated. You might remind them of any frameworks or guidelines as a structure for their reflections. In some cases, it might be worth giving the group a second chance at a discussion.

Share relevant resources as needed. If you think some students may need assistance processing a difficult discussion, and who may need emotional or psychological support, make sure they know about campus resources available to them, including:

Problems with Discussion

Getting Started: Students are often reluctant to get down to work in a discussion. Students are more likely to join in discussion if you divide them into pairs or small groups and assign a specific discussion question. After a few minutes of small group discussion, ask several groups to report out their ideas to the entire class. This often helps to get discussion going because students have had a chance to "try out" their ideas on their peers. Alternatively, give students time to write individually before opening up a discussion; they are much more likely to speak up if they have some notes to speak from. Further, by allowing for this kind of pre-discussion activity, you will be able to ask more complex and interesting questions. At the same time you will be promoting equity in the conversation, allowing everyone in the class to gather his or her thoughts before speaking rather than privileging the bold or the entitled, who can otherwise dominate the discussion.

Attendance: Despite the fact that discussion section participation is a requirement for many introductory courses, students may believe that their attendance is not mandatory since the AI rather than the professor is in charge. Therefore you may want to devise a way to structure required assignments, projects or presentations into your sections so that section participation will be a part of the final course grade. If students know that the AI has some responsibility for determining their grades, that AI will have considerably more authority in the classroom or in any interactions with students.

Losing Control: One fear about discussion is the possibility that the discussion will be TOO enthusiastic or not remain civil. Develop ground rules as a class. Gently, students can be reminded that behavior X (e.g., interrupting, blatantly ignoring the conversation, showing disrespect) is not appropriate in the context of the rules the class agreed on. If no rules have been established, or if the inappropriate behavior doesn't seem to fit under the rules, you should address it immediately. Otherwise, you send a message to the students that such behavior is acceptable. Often, simply walking toward the student(s) will resolve the problem, as they will see that you are paying attention. Sometimes, however, you will need to address the problem directly. Try not to get rattled-take a deep breath, allow some silence, and then respond. This gives you some time to plan a response that models for the students how to handle a difficult situation. Remember: never shame or humiliate a student, and don't take student remarks personally-although an attack may seem personal, it may be directed at authority figures in general rather than at you in particular.

Discussion Monopolizers: If the same students answer all the time, you might say, "Let's hear from someone else." Then don't call on students who have already spoken. Do not allow one student to speak for an inordinate amount of class time. Take that person aside and ask him or her to limit comments in class. If the student does not respond to this hint, tell him or her an exact number of times he or she will be allowed to respond in class, and do not call on him or her after that number has been reached in any class period.

Controversial Topics: If you teach charged topics, prepare students for discussing them. For an article about how to build up the skills necessary to discuss sensitive topics, see "Controlled Fission: Teaching Supercharged Subjects" (Pace, 2003).

Learning More

The CITL occasionally offers workshops on leading discussion on difficult topics. See the CITL Events page, or contact us at citl@indiana.edu.

The teaching center at the University of Michigan (the Center for Research in Learning and Teaching, CRLT) has several online resources related to teaching difficult topics and leading sensitive class discussions, including those aimed specifically at teaching during crises (campus unrest, national tragedies, etc.): http://www.crlt.umich.edu/multicultural-teaching/difficult-moments.

The CRLT also provides a guide specifically aimed at Preparing to Teach about the 2020 Election (and after).

Vanderbilt University's Center for Teaching also has resources with valuable suggestions for managing difficult discussions, particularly the "Specific Tools and Strategies" section: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/difficult-dialogues/.

"Responding to Microaggressions in the Classroom: Taking ACTION" (Souza, 2018) provides some concrete language for responding to inappropriate comments in class.

"Interrupting Bias: Calling Out vs. Calling In" (Haslam, 2019) offers language for calling out biased language and behavior in ways that both confront and educate.

Having Difficult Conversations about Race and Other Identities: Overview of Intergroup Dialogue (IUPUI's Center for Teaching and Learning, 2020) provides an approach to facilitated conversation between individuals of different social identity groups. (video, 1:01:25)

The Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs is an advocate for underrepresented students, faculty, and staff and provides programs to promote excellence through diversity, equity, and culture at Indiana University. Their diversity education programming offers useful insights on promoting equitable and inclusive instruction.

Arao, Brian, and Kristi Clemens. "From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces: A New Way to Frame Dialogue around Diversity and Social Justice." The Art of Effective Facilitation: Reflections from Social Justice Educators. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing (2013): 135-150. Available from Indiana University Libraries ( https://iucat.iu.edu/catalog/16117547)

Brookfield, Stephen. Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (2005). Available from Indiana University Libraries ( http://iucat.iu.edu/catalog/6278982).

For More Help or Information

Contact the CITL for more assistance on these issues-including planning activities around difficult topics, managing classroom discussions, and setting inclusive and constructive classroom climates.

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This page provides tips and resources for managing heated or contentious conversations in the classroom.

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What if I become a target in my school and risk getting fired? -Jamila Lyiscott

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What if I become a target in my school and risk getting fired? -Jamila Lyiscott

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How Educators Can Lead Conversations After Crisis

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How Educators Can Lead Conversations After Crisis

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History can seem nebulous and distant to anyone, let alone someone who's only been alive for six years. But the necessity of addressing the history of the civil rights movement with young kids is, on the whole, pretty uncontroversial. Due to his legacy of steadfast courage, peaceful organizing and nonviolent resistance, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is often used to introduce students to the movement. Children may be exposed to a sanitized version of his work, but they rightly understand that he shattered incredible barriers.

Yet, despite evident connections between the work of Dr. King and the work of today's civil rights activists, too often educators fail to trace throughlines for students. We need to stop avoiding this critical conversation with our young students and make space for them to draw those connections. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a great opportunity to do so.

First-graders are excited to study through a lens of fairness; it is largely what drives them in their daily interactions. If they can understand why Dr. King marched, then they can certainly wrap their minds around the need for continued protest and action in the face of ongoing systemic injustice. When I teach the history of the civil rights movement, I tell my students that, yes, Dr. King was killed for what he believed, but his cause never truly ended. Working together, we identify Dr. King's principles and link them to the world we live in. Then students are ready to bear closer witness to the activism of focused, courageous black people and their allies today.

The children I teach are open-minded truth-seekers who love to question, probe, absorb and engage wholeheartedly with issues of inequity; tackling injustice fires them up and makes them excited to solve problems together. What tends to be tricky is making the cross-generational connection explicit and developmentally appropriate. This is what I've been exploring with my class since the Black Lives Matter (BLM) hashtag made its first appearance in 2013.

What I've found is that young students are not only capable of understanding why BLM is necessary through a historical lens, but also they are developmentally primed to ask difficult questions, generate thought-provoking insights and wrestle openly and unambiguously with difficult themes. There is much in the way of content and methodology that is accessible to young kids; resources are increasingly easy to find. In my class, we've made our own BLM posters, explored the Oakland roots of BLM co-founder Alicia Garza, read relevant children's literature, and observed and discussed the related work being done by our middle and high schoolers and the Black Student Union.

As with so much of our first-grade curriculum and practice, bringing these weighty discussions down to a hyper-local level has proven crucial. Last year around MLK Day, we compared the guiding principles of Black Lives Matter to our school's mission and, even closer to home, our classroom charter. We found much in common, particularly BLM's focus on diversity, empathy and loving engagement, and its overt ties to feminism and gender identity issues.

During the handful of years I've worked with kids on tying BLM to the civil rights movement, the responses from students have been thoughtful, incisive and challenging. To the guiding question "Why is a movement still needed today?" one child flatly answered: "Because people with black and brown skin are still treated badly." Another remarked that "things are better now, but we've only ever had one black president and now he's gone."

An entire discussion arose from a student's observation that "mattering" is the same thing as " just being loved for who you are," and together we came to the conclusion that realizing you may not matter is one of the worst feelings there is. Unencumbered by adult filters, kids ask the tough questions: "Why do the police hurt Black people?" "What good does it do to march?" "Why is skin color so important?" "Who decided that white people matter more than other people?"

By tying BLM to the civil rights movement, to the Black Panthers and to other grassroots causes centered in reversing injustice, we can proudly declare together that we fight on. We also show our students that race, gender and identity are not taboo classroom subjects; they are important elements of the human experience. Or, as one self-aware first-grader put it last year, "I'm four things: One, I'm Black. Two, I'm a girl. Three, I'm a scientist. And four, I'm proud."

Each time we stumble through a critical conversation together as a class, we show one another that we value all of our multiple identities, that we value each other. After all, the educator's version of the Hippocratic Oath ought to be to reaffirm to all children that they matter, in the classroom and in the world.

Turner is a first-grade teacher at an independent school in Oakland, California.

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From MLK to #BlackLivesMatter: A Throughline for Young Students

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History can seem nebulous and distant to anyone, let alone someone who's only been alive for six years. But the necessity of addressing the history of the civil rights movement with young kids is, on the whole, pretty uncontroversial. Due to his legacy of steadfast courage, peaceful organizing and nonviolent resistance, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.