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As of non-teaching Unit 1 employee, I believe that content within chapters 1 & 2 is important within my work, but not directly related to teaching. I believe that dependent learners really struggle to apply social skills, and pre-employment skills, to competitive employment.

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So many times the achievement gap is an opportunity gap.  AACPS uses the phrase "all means all."  Does all mean all in my classroom?  Does all mean all in my department?  Does all mean all in my school, in my county, truly?  These chapters encourage some self-reflection from we who can make tangible changes to reduce that opportunity gap.  Page 31 called out how in education we "subject our neediest dependent learners to inadequate instruction given their needs, or we allow them to lose valuable instructional time because of questionable discipline practices."  Two action steps I can take in my personal role are continuing to improve my culturally responsive teaching and to address the ways I and others may be upholding or enforcing inequitable practices.

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After reading these first two chapters, I realize just how many of my students could be considered dependent learners. I feel like the biggest challenge is getting them to find their own intrinsic motivation to want to increase their intellective capacity -- helping them realize that making mistakes and thinking critically about a problem is this best way to solve it. I'm hoping the rest of this book gives some specific examples of using culturally responsive teaching strategies that could help move students away from being dependent learners

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From chapters 1 and 2, I can connect with the levels of culture and how that can be used for more meaningful learning. Having such a diverse population at Glen Burnie can make it hard to cater to everyone’s belief system or learning style, so we generally stick to a common denominator, to avoid upsetting or excluding anyone. Seeing that to reach someone culturally is more than just a “surface level” idea and that there are better ways to be inclusive, helps build more in depth and personal relationships, which plays a role in classroom learning.

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In order to climb out of the gap we need to focus on:
-awareness
-learning partnerships
-information processing
-creating a community of leaners and learning environment
I think that the implementation of homerooms and community circles at GB has impacted this in a positive way.

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I can definitely see the dependent learners in our classrooms. As teachers it is difficult to stop allowing them to be dependent. I am interested to see what this book suggests for teachers to facilitate cognitive growth to help students be more independent.

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We have to be cognizant of the cultures our students bring to class, and be able to both draw on them to create a culturally open and responsive environment as well as to use them as a means to activate learning and inform our instruction.           M Terrence

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We have to be cognizant of the cultures our students bring to class, and be able to both draw on them to create a culturally open and responsive environment as well as to use them as a means to activate learning and inform our instruction.           M Terrence

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I feel that my first step is a deeper understanding of students' needs in a culturally and linguistically diverse population. This awareness can lead to providing appropriate challenges to allow students to grasp their own path for learning. In other words, metacognition. This enables students to look further into their own sociopolitical background. Identifying the classroom's dominant culture can assist teachers in reducing bias and building on structural racialization.
J. Leitner

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Our role as teachers is to see our students as more than just their title or a name on a list. Entering into the realm of culturally responsive teaching allows you to see the student in a new light, get to know them, build connections, and SEE them. knowing our students backgrounds is imperative for being able to teach and engage students in your content. It's not just knowing where they come from either, it's their body language, the way they act, think, and way they talk as well. As the text says "culture is the way that every brain makes sense of the world". Our brain uses everyday happenings by using cultural connections and turns them into meaningful events. We can provide and support this type of learning by using the practices provided from our previous PD's and this book.

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It's important to know the cultures of our students and to share our culture with them. The more we learn about each other, the more we develop acceptance of one another.
D. Allen

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I see some interesting connections between the cultural archetypes described in Chapter 2 and different learning styles. Even students who grow up under similar circumstances can have very different preferences for individual vs collective learning. By affording students opportunities to choose learning activities that work best for them we not only reach students with different needs but different cultural backgrounds as well.

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I was struck by the description of the Independent Learner as it is also the description of a strong employee which I've been hearing from Industry for years. As we support these students in becoming independent learners we will also be supporting their ability to be successful in life long beyond school. As someone who works in a support role for the Signature program at GBHS I'm excited by the doors of opportunity that will be opened as more students are supported by this focus on Culturally Responsive Teaching.

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I was struck by the description of the Independent Learner as it is also the description of a strong employee which I've been hearing from Industry for years. As we support these students in becoming independent learners we will also be supporting their ability to be successful in life long beyond school. As someone who works in a support role for the Signature program at GBHS I'm excited by the doors of opportunity that will be opened as more students are supported by this focus on Culturally Responsive Teaching.

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In my experience in teaching, I have found that we are sorely lacking in actionable steps to teach underserved members of our communities. Because of that, I found the use of "Dependent" and "Independent" learners to be very helpful. We get so caught up in our identifications of student needs (ESOL, FARM, EWS, etc.) but I feel as though we never are actually instructed in how that should change our teaching. We talk about "differentiation" but very rarely are new or struggling teachers given guidelines on how to differentiate in meaningful ways. But I can work with Dependent/Independent Learner- that is an actionable difference that is simple to observe, categorize, and differentiate for.

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The content of the first two chapters of the " Culturally Responsive Teaching and the
Brain" relates perfectly with my role at BGHS since the school possesses a diversity of students who all need to success academically by receiving a rigorous although flexible curriculum. So, I am willing to try the application of this culturally responsive approach in teaching because I really believe that all students deserve to be successful and well prepared to confront the educational challenges of today's life.

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My role is to create a culture teaching collectivism. Creating a culture in my classroom is something I've always done. Reading this book has helped me understand why is it so necessary at GBHS. Teaching in an collectivism archetype may allow our students to see themselves as being a part of a larger group.

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Culturally responsive teaching is important for equitable practices.

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Culturally responsive teaching is important for equitable practices.

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English language learners allowed to copy, not think

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English language learners allowed to copy, not think

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uh, the title says it all. Students that have very limited English language skills are put into "mainstream" classes where they learn to copy - not to think or learn content.

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It is imperative as culturally responsive teachers to have adequate background knowledge of students' lives in order to apply the tools we learn from these discussions in our classroom. This begins with understanding the depth of culture, but not to be overwhelmed by it. In the diverse classrooms of GBHS, the idea of cultural archetypes must be executed to make this concept a reality.

-- Holly Youngblood

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Boykin & Noguera (2011) "when such assess are not yet part of a student's repertoire, educators must directly provide for their acquisition and use". This is were we must begin.

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My biggest concern at GBHS is a deficit mindset of learners, teachers, and the community. Rather than being collaborative, it seems like stakeholders are in conflict. After completing these readings, I wonder about what structures GB and I build that unintentionally exclude learners. We meet the needs of all learners by building connections between them, their community, and the required content. -- E. Tucker

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I can see the argument that culturally responsive teaching may help students succeed with more difficult material.  I also think it is important that we ask all students to confront complex readings, to write complex sentences etc. It is a balance between appealing to students and asking them all to handle difficult, grade-level, assignments-- even when it is not directly applicable to their lives.  College and career readiness demands this, I believe.

Kidd

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My role in the classroom is to provide students with meaningful opportunities to learn and grow as students and people. Culturally Responsive Teaching is one of the strongest and most meaningful tools that I can use to do this. By integrating opportunities to explore culture into my lessons and classroom, I am supporting my student's success. By recognizing the sociopolitical context that surrounds my students, I can better support them to dive deep into their culture and find our class meaningful.

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It is important to create social, emotional, and cognitive conditions that allow students to actively engage and take ownership of their learning. This is crucial to teaching at GBHS. Preparing students to learn by creating learning partnerships in the classroom between teachers and students in essential to creating a community of learners. Taking materials and practices that are culturally responsive and approaching them in a student centered learning environment is key to success. Students respond to difficult school tasks when they feel seen, heard, and safe. This is so true and GBHS.

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At Glen Burnie High School, my role in the classroom give many opportunities to involve culture. The bioscience pathway involves real world examples involving individual identity. The medical conditions we discuss throughout the year vary in how they affect different categories of individuals.

I feel it is important to emphasize these moments in the classroom to show the students’ growing minds that some groups of people are at a higher risk than others for certain characteristics. As the PLTW bioscience classes are open to all, any student can have the opportunity to be exposed to these things.

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After reading the assigned chapters, my first thoughts were, how can I better support classrooms to move students toward becoming independent learners. As a teacher, it is important to gather materials and activities that students can relate to in some way. The importance of students making a connection and feeling some sort of ownership over their learning is crucial to their overall development. AACPS has placed a large emphasis on building community over the last three years. Moving students toward becoming independent learners starts with building relationships and creating a rapport with students that extends beyond the content. It is almost as if we are starting over as teachers and learners after being in quarantine from a global pandemic. That being said, this is the perfect time to start fresh and try new things as we embark on a brand new journey helping students and teachers.

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After reading the assigned chapters, my first thoughts were, how can I better support classrooms to move students toward becoming independent learners. As a teacher, it is important to gather materials and activities that students can relate to in some way. The importance of students making a connection and feeling some sort of ownership over their learning is crucial to their overall development. AACPS has placed a large emphasis on building community over the last three years. Moving students toward becoming independent learners starts with building relationships and creating a rapport with students that extends beyond the content. It is almost as if we are starting over as teachers and learners after being in quarantine from a global pandemic. That being said, this is the perfect time to start fresh and try new things as we embark on a brand new journey helping students and teachers.

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Culturally responsive teaching is relevant at all high schools, though the achievement gaps are especially relevant at GBHS this year. Implicit bias and myths about our school population are important for educators to keep track of and consider when planning for our students.

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Connections in the PBS Classroom-AMBrower

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Connections in the PBS Classroom-AMBrower

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My role within the classroom at Glen Burnie High School yields great opportunity to involve culture. The biomedical pathway involves real world examples of cultural diversity that affect humans of all kinds throughout the world. The medical conditions we discuss throughout the year vary from sickle cell anemia to color blindness to diabetes, each affecting a different category of individual and sometimes specific to a particular region/culture. It is important to prioritize these teaching moments to show the students’ growing minds that some cultures/categories of people are at a higher risk than others for certain characteristics. Because these classes are open to all, any student, not just BMAH students are afforded the opportunity to experience the world of biomedical science, no matter their background or socioeconomic status. My students get to optimize their experiences in my Principles of Biomedical Sciences with the hands on labs and technology available.

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My biggest takeaway is really working on purposeful knowledge of students to determine who is an independent vs. dependent learner. Sometimes if a kid is seemingly on task we focus our attention on those who obviously need our help but an industrious student may also be a dependent learner and need different attention/ scaffolding to master the material. Me. Angelo

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After reading Chapters 1 and 2, I couldn't help but reflect on the beginning of the reading. The author mentions "productive struggle." In my previous school (and state) we dove into Dr. Hamond's work. We explored the idea of a "productive struggle." We also found that time has to be considered in curriculum to provide the opportunity for a productive struggle. This opportunity should be authentic and the students should have a reflection moment to identify their areas of success and their areas in need of growth. When planning for this opportunity for students, one must consider building the lesson around the productive struggle. Doing this will push rigor deeper in the classrooms and build an academic community.

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This reinforced the countless other PD connections of cultural connections to education. Making connections is an ongoing expectation of effective teaching and cannot be overlooked. Safe, comfortable, open are words that should elicit the DOL 1 of your room and relationships with your students.
-Kim Brookshire

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After reading the chapters, the first thought that came to my mind was that if I truly want my students to learn and do more (be more engaged) in my class, I need to ensure that structures are in place in my classroom that allow students to feel comfortable meeting my expectations. This means taking the time to build relationships with my students, understanding what they have going on in their life and how that may impact their performance in school, and taking the time to get them to see that what they know and have been through (background knowledge) can help them to be better students and engage with the content in different ways. -T. Simms

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After reading chapters 1 & 2 of “ Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain,” I made a connection to the text and my role as an educator when the author explained the importance of “adequate background knowledge and usable information in order to know how to apply culturally responsive tools and strategies.” One of the examples given is recognizing the various cultures within my classroom.  Becoming aware is the first step in finding ways that I can help students within my own classroom find community, build relationships and become independent learners. -Janet Winter

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Role at GBHS and Culturally Responsive Teaching

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Role at GBHS and Culturally Responsive Teaching

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I noticed at GBHS (or at least in my classes) we have a majority of dependent learners. I would love to start moving my students to independent learners. CRT is a great way to start that. Since Glen Burnie is so diverse we have a great opportunity to include the cultures represented here in our classrooms and start the thinking for students to be independent learners. It seems very hard now since we are starting to go back to our "normal" since the pandemic learning last year. A lot of our students are dependent from that. The students don't know where to start since they haven't been in a normal school setting since the beginning of March 2020. I do try to create a learning environment where it's ok to be wrong and take chances, especially since I teach math (everyone's fav subject). I would like to take CRT and expand my classroom environment to make it more about independent learning.
-Elaina Pagan

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After reading chapters 1 & 2 of “ Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain,” I made a connection to the text and my role as an educator when the author explained the importance of “adequate background knowledge and usable information in order to know how to apply culturally responsive tools and strategies.” One of the examples given is recognizing the cultural archetypes within my classroom such as collectivism and individualism. Or knowing how beliefs, implicit bias, and structural racialization have real impacts on opportunities. Awareness is the first key step in ways that I can help students within my own classroom find community, build relationships and become independent learners. -Laura Frank

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The biggest takeaway I got from the first two chapters was from chapter 1, practice area II learning partnerships: "building trust with students across differences so that the teacher is able to create a social-emotional partnership for deeper learning." (Hammond, p. 19) Having so many students in the classroom who live very different lives it can feel like an impossible task to connect with them all individually but it is crucial to getting them to buy in and connect with the material. I want to hold high expectations for them, but if they don't feel that trust and bond with me they start to doubt themselves. Many of my students downplay their own abilities and are looking for the fastest way out of school. I want to be able to use CRT to help build those bonds and help students find their own passion for learning throughout their daily lives, that can continue past GBHS.
-Riley Cruey

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In chapter 1 the author discussed the idea that "culturally responsive education can strengthen student connectedness with school and enhance learning." (Hammond, p.15) I found this very applicable to my role at GBHS because I feel as if many of my students don't feel connected to school and don't feel as if they have power over their education. I would love to use the strategies we learn to help my students feel as if they are in charge of their learning and build up my students to be independent learners.
-Sarah Wallace

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Thinking about the deep culture values of my childhood and those of my students is the place I want to focus my effort. The idea of collective versus individualistic applies a lot in my classroom.

Kellian Tonetti

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The content from Ch. 1 and 2 connects to my role as a school counselor by showing ways that I can use cultural responsiveness to build and strengthen positive relationships with students. CRT is especially relevant to working at GBHS due to its diverse student population. Since a significant percentage of my caseload consists of ELL students, I found the section on cultural archetypes particularly useful and interesting. For example, it is important for me to be aware that while America strongly values individualistic traits, many Latin American cultures have a collectivist worldview that value relationships, interdependence, and downplay self-promotion.

-Lindsey Luna

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Role for GBHS teachers to;
-Create relationships with students in a safe learning environment to enhance student connectedness & learning
- Understand and utilize brain science and have a cultural understanding
-Adopt the Ready for Rigor framework and progressively master the core areas (awareness, learning partnerships, information processing, and community building)

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I learned that our brain has a region called the Reptilian Region which I thought was really cool. It explains why I frequently want to sunbathe on a rock. I think it would also be a really cool name for a metal band. Or maybe we could change the mascot. Glen Burnie Reptiles. That's cool. Also, we gotta climb outta that gap!

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I learned that our brain has a region called the Reptilian Region which I thought was really cool. It explains why I frequently want to sunbathe on a rock. I think it would also be a really cool name for a metal band. Or maybe we could change the mascot. Glen Burnie Reptiles. That's cool. Also, we gotta climb outta that gap!

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Less experienced teachers with struggling students 

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Less experienced teachers with struggling students 

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I was really intrigued by the analogy of experienced surgeons working with the toughest cases juxtaposed against the habit of having newer teachers teach classes of students that may be significantly struggling. The logic of putting your most skilled and savvy teachers in the classrooms where they are needed most makes a lot of sense.

I do want to add, however, that I am sure AP and other higher-level classes probably need that same teacher as well.

-Lando

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The biggest takeaway I got from the first 2 chapters is that I as the teacher need to utilize the collective student knowledge in which to reach students individually. Doesn't mean I have to use dozens of strategies but reach students through common means. Helping students carry on when things get tough is important to me in developing their perseverance but also it is okay for them to ask for help and to collaborate with other students to learn the material. It will take awhile to help students develop this collective way of learning since being at home for 1.5 years out of school broke these productive connections. Restoring this collaboration will better them as individuals and their individual success.

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climbing out of poverty through caring education

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climbing out of poverty through caring education

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I see that we have a lot of children of poverty - and they have experienced all that the book talks about. They are not happy in poverty and we have to help them to break that unfortunate cycle.
As educators, we have to teach these children to learn how to learn, how to think, how to problem solve - so that they can be the person in their family who knows how to break out of that place through education and the power that brings.