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In my seventh year teaching English/language arts, I moved to a new school. As part of the orientation, one of the veteran English teachers kindly provided me the essential reading list for 10th grade students. When I reviewed the list, something just didn't sit well. The entire list was filled with books either written by men or featuring white, male protagonists. The only exception was the tragic, unlikeable protagonist in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, whose toxic masculine ideals lead to his demise.

I felt like a wall of bricks had fallen on my head. Was I about to subliminally teach my students that no one who looked like them could be a protagonist, or a true hero who models quality attributes? After all, when I looked at my classroom, I saw seats filled mostly with students of color, many of them young women, and some of them from other countries. I was teaching at a Title I school where roughly 70 percent of our population was from diverse backgrounds. Knowing that I would be teaching these "essential pieces" to students left a lump in my throat. The irony of it all. Here I was, an immigrant from Malawi, Africa, who grew up in the United States as an impoverished English-language learner student, now teaching other students in a manner I knew was not beneficial to them. It was all I could take-I had to do something different, not only for my students but also for myself. Other teachers had been teaching these same books because that was the way it had always been. How essential were these books to my students?

I went to my principal and asked if I could choose different books. I had a supportive principal who believed in teacher expertise and instructional freedom. He told me I could teach whatever I wanted-as long as my students showed growth in their content knowledge at the end of the year.

So, I tackled the problem head-on. Here's what I did:

1. I researched sociocultural perspectives. I read books and scholarly articles. Basically, I got schooled.

According to education professor and author Geneva Gay, "[W]hen academic knowledge and skills are situated within the lived experiences and frames of reference of students, they are more personally meaningful, have higher interest appeal, and are learned more easily and thoroughly." This stood out to me, and I avoided certain types of activities because they were culturally insensitive.

For instance, when I was in school, one of my teachers had us create family trees as a way to use descriptive language. A cute idea, right? Well, many of my students' family trees were complicated, with blended or missing information, and this often made family trees a sore topic. So instead of family trees, I had my students ask their relatives about the stories behind how they were named. It gave them an opportunity to research their own unique identities. Then students wrote about their names, using new descriptive techniques they had just learned. My students found this lesson appealing, and it improved their writing by connecting it to their own personal experiences.

2. I chose engaging texts. The classroom literature needed to better represent my students, to inspire them to connect to the texts. I changed the book list, finding works written by female authors or books that had female or minority protagonists. For the poetry unit, I taught Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson. Students created their own poetry journals. Many students told me they hated poetry until they read that book. Some found the sequel to Locomotion and read it on their own. Not only did students' negative perceptions about poetry change, but they also read another text, on their own, without my prompting.

I also added other culturally relevant texts that were popular with my students, including The Contender by Robert Lipsyte, The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, and The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore. These books had diverse protagonists who were openly struggling with issues related to race, poverty, immigration, or behavioral disorders. These are complicated issues that students often face, and they needed to see characters persevering through these same struggles. I paired these new texts with nonfiction articles and had students compare themes between the fiction and nonfiction pieces. My students showed incredible growth on their state mandated end-of-course exams, topping the district in English II scores for two straight years. This growth was in part due to their improved reading skills because they felt connected to the books.

3. I restructured my classroom environment. According to researchers Kathryn M. Edmunds and Kathryn L. Bauserman, "Motivation has frequently made the difference between learning that was temporary and superficial, and learning that was permanent and internalized." If I wanted my students to continue to learn, they needed to get past simply connecting to the literature. They needed to want to learn.

My classroom atmosphere used to be rigid; students worked quietly. However, they were also restless and disengaged. I needed to build upon the fact that teens were social creatures. So, I made lessons that included partner work. I also reduced the number of homework assignments and created project-based learning units. This meant that the only homework I assigned was connected to real-world, applicable products. These types of experiences helped students find purpose in their learning, and they came to class wanting to learn. Reducing the homework load also relieved some of the students from the stress of finding time to do homework because many of them worked jobs after school or took care of younger siblings.

4. I became more transparent. For many cultures, being transparent is a true sign of respect, so I became as transparent as possible with students and parents. If I was unsure of something, I would tell them. I created calendars of daily agendas and standards, providing copies for students and parents. I emailed parents calendars and classroom updates. For parents without email addresses, I often made phone calls when students seemed to need some extra encouragement from home. Contacting parents when students did well was also just as important as contacting parents for concerns. This communication alleviated confusion, helping parents understand how to best help their children through the learning process. By doing things like this, I earned students' respect, which helped nurture a positive classroom culture.

When I remember the infamous book "list" that started it all, I am grateful that it pushed my thinking because I learned that a list of texts didn't help me teach my students; it only helped with teaching texts. To truly embrace culturally responsive teaching-the only way to reach students-I had to move away from an insensitive archaic system and foster a culture of diverse inclusion. By doing so, my students' knowledge grew exponentially, and in turn, I also stayed true to my own cultural growth.

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4 Steps to Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher

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In my seventh year teaching English/language arts, I moved to a new school. As part of the orientation, one of the veteran English teachers kindly provided me the essential reading list for 10th grade students. When I reviewed the list, something just didn't sit well.

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Jennifer Gonzalez, host
[Listen to the audio version of this podcast.]
Jennifer Gonzalez: This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode twelve of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about how your non-verbals impact your effectiveness as a teacher.

[music playing]

Gonzalez: Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before we get into the episode, I want to take a minute to ask you to do a couple of things. If you've been listening to the podcast and you're enjoying it, I would love it if you would go over to iTunes and give the podcast a rating, and if you have a little more time, a quick review. The more positive reviews and ratings a podcast has, the more visible it is in iTunes. So by leaving a rating, you're helping me reach more people.

Also, if you're just meeting me for the first time through this podcast, I want you to know that this is just a tiny bit of what I do. Most of my work is done on my website cultofpedagogy.com where I show you how to implement new teaching strategies, I review excellent books on teaching, and I just share all kinds of other resources on classroom management, educational technology and how to make your teaching way more effective and satisfying. While you're there, click the About button and scroll down to where it says "Subscribe." From there you can get yourself on my mailing list so we can stay in touch. If you ever have a question about your teaching or a suggestion for the podcast, go to that same About button and click on Contact. From there, you can send me an e-mail directly.

Okay, in this episode I'm talking with a guy named Jack Shrawder who runs an organization called Teaching for Success. We are going to talk about the specific non-verbal behaviors that make teachers less effective and how you can adjust your voice, posture and other non-verbals to give yourself more presence and confidence in the classroom. I definitely picked up a few tips from Jack and I know you will too.

One more thing: although this episode will help all teachers, if you are a college-level teacher, especially an adjunct, you're going to have an added benefit from this one.

Let me tell you a little bit about my guest, Jack Shrawder. He began his career as an airline mechanic and was hired by a local college to teach aviation technology. He had no teaching experience or training. He basically had to learn how to teach on the job. His experience is definitely not unique. Universities have a pretty consistent track record of hiring instructors just for their subject area expertise and not their teaching experience. So he taught for fourteen years. Over that time he also got graduate training in education and he learned more formally how to become a teacher. Bbut this experience really made him want to help other teachers. So he started his organization, Teaching for Success, and their mission is to help adjunct instructors develop the skills they need to succeed in teaching. They do this through an e-mentor program. Universities subscribe to this to give their adjunct instructors access to all of the materials. They have a really big library of tools and they also have an online community of other instructors and other people that serve as mentors. There are over 12,000 members in this community. So it's a great resource if you're an adjunct instructor. So check that out. They are at teachingforsuccess.com.

So for all of us, let's start improving our non-verbals. Here's my interview with Jack Shrawder.

Gonzalez: So one of the things we talked about on the LinkedIn discussion that I wanted to focus on with you today was on teacher non-verbals. And on some of the things that teachers are - I mean, first off I want to know: Do you think non-verbals are an important factor in how well teachers can establish and maintain a classroom environment?

Jack Shrawder: Yes I do, absolutely. They key concept was congruity. A congruence of the message that the speaker was saying verbally or written - Let's say verbally - face to face. The non-verbal cues that the listener or the viewer was picking up. If those were not congruent, what that means generally to the student is that there's a distrust is. So to be seen as a person with integrity, of value, someone that you want to listen to, right away, it's very important that those two things match. In other words, if I say I am interested in hearing what you are have to say, and yet I pull my cell phone out and check my e-mail, you know right away that you're second place. So that's a very common thing today. The message that we're sending by our digital devices to people we interact with is like, "Well hold on, I've got a call. You're not as important."

So that's just a very brief non-verbal, but - I don't know if you've ever watched Cesar Millan, who is a dog trainer. But he had a show about ten years ago. He would always say, "If you're going to walk your dog," - he said, "All right, shoulders back. Stand up tall. Your dog is going to notice that you are serious about walking and the behavior that you expect. Your dog is going to notice that you're in charge." You know that even was part of - You mentioned military, yeah I was in the air force - which was not the strictest of branches. You know, it's still the same thing. If you want people to respect an authority, it's not a title so much or rank. But it's - They used to call it military bearing, which just meant you had confidence when you walked in and people were going to take what you said seriously. They were going to do it. You believed that. That self belief - that self image in all kinds of subtle ways is transmitted to the listener. They adjust their behavior according to the belief.

So for teaching it's the same thing. If you believe that you are walking into a bunch of students that are unruly and not worth it and just aren't going to listen, that's exactly what you're going to get. You get what you believe. That's why I like to go back to the psychology angle. The mindset is that belief of the self image, which israrely talked about in formal teacher training, at least at the college level. We never talked about that at all. You were just supposed to somehow know that, I guess. But it took me years really of trial and error and pieces of information throughout seminars and all kinds of places to kind of get a better picture of what's an optimal mindset to have to go into a classroom with to get the response back that you want to get and not what you don't want.

Gonzalez: Right. Suppose a teacher really does not feel that confidence yet and they sort of have to fake it for awhile. Are there any things that a person can do physically? I've heard people say that just standing up straighter makes you actually have a little more confidence even when you're not feeling it.

Shrawder: It does. Absolutely. You know I think the number one place to start is breathing. I learned this experientially, personally was that once you allow yourself to slow down, deep breathe, and not - you will slow down. You will get a deeper voice. You will - your message will really come across as more important and you will relax. And you will be able to listen and view...If you actually look at a student when you are communicating - while it sounds strange, what I found was that at first, in the early years, I would see a group of students if I was, say, giving a presentation. Or in those days we liked to lecture a lot more but - you know, it would be a kind of a theater experience, just like you would see an audience. But later on when I started to really slow down and have more presence, have more feeling that I was there in the classroom and what was happening was okay, the audience broke up into individual students who were telling me things non-verbally about "I don't get it." or "This is exciting." or "Tell me more about this." or "This is a good thing." or "This class sucks." You know, you could see it.

Now for the - physically for the instructor - learning tai chi, yoga, those kinds of things is an excellent way to learn breathing control and the power that that will give you. Number two, studies have shown that expansive postures, open postures, hands wide apart and stances leaning backwards or tall. All of those give yourself power and project power. Project confidence. Those you can see through video-taping...well, "taping." Video went out. Video clips. Or people who know you can give you feedback like that if you ask. We rarely do. From spouses and siblings and our kids. They know. They will tell us pretty honestly if we ask them and if our egos don't get in the way and we can hear it. Anyway, the sources of feedback are there if we want to use them.

Gonzalez: So two things that I heard in terms of like a take-away would be pne, sort of try to take up more space with your body as opposed to sort of shrinking, shrinking down. And you also mentioned deeper voice. Is there something to that too?

Shrawder: I believe so, yes. The faster and higher we go in our voices, it's interpreted as nervousness and you're hiding something. Or you're not sure of really what you're saying. That's part of the relaxed - you know, if you're not relaxed, being a student or being part of an audience, I'm sure you pick that up too. You go, there's something - this is not pleasant. You're nervous for the person speaking because they're nervous.

Yes, the voice will drop. The amount of inflections, the up and down of your voice, the richness of your personality will start to come through if you can relax. And like I said, really speak - We used to call it in the present moment. I don't know if that's still a common term, but you know balancing that works.

Gonzalez: Would the speed of your speech also play into that?

Shrawder: Yes, absolutely. Most of the time new faculty, new presenters, new teachers will go much too fast for too long. You know, look at YouTube clips of top presenters. Notice their cadence. They're not afraid to stop. Silence is an excellent tool when you're doing a presentation, going through a few points. Stopping for a few moments. 5 - 10 seconds seems like forever. But stopping and saying - And then maybe a cue as "Does that make sense?" or "Is anyone - Does anyone have a question at this point?" because students don't really like to interrupt me. They do more today than they used to, but still it's a little hard to. For the quieter student who, that has a real question or is not getting it to be able to communicate that takes a break. If you're just running through like a freight train, they'll never respond and you lose them.

Gonzalez: Right. You know I saw a video once that was actually talking about the phrase "Does anyone have any questions?" and how a lot of times students won't even respond to that because it's almost too open-ended. I saw a guy once say how you need to ask a more specific question, like "What have I said in the last few minutes that's confusing anybody?" "What do you need me to explain again?" or something along those lines to get them to be more brave I guess, or clear on what they're confused about.

Shrawder: I agree with that totally. Those are excellent ways to ask that same thing but a little bit better. Then I learned from sales. When the student does give you a response. Let's say you've thrown a question out on specific question and you get it answered. Usually what I - early on in my career I'd go "Great, let's move on." You know? Got an answer, perfect! But now, you know, there's two things that sales people use. They say "Well tell me more." or "Why do you say that?" Those are two kinds of salsey responses, but what it does is just open the door to okay, that's an interesting thing. Or "Do others - do all of you agree with that statement?"

Gonzalez: That's a good one, yeah.

Shrawder: So that again you're not just looking for a one word answer. "Great, okay let's move on." When you could have an in-depth discussion simply by backing off and allowing deeper thought and asking for more input.

Gonzalez: Right, right. That's great, I love the idea of those follow-up statements because I think a lot of us would like to have that real rich, dynamic discussion in our class but just don't know how to get it. In my experience teaching college, a lot of students were very reserved. They were afraid to say anything at all. But I taught slightly more upperclass - I don't mean upperclass economically, but they were further along in college so we didn't have as many behavior issues as much as they just wanted to get in and out and get their stuff done.

Shrawder: Exactly

Gonzalez: We've talked a little bit about non-verbals. Do you - Are you aware of certain phrases or verbal tics that teachers have that they should avoid using because they send the wrong message to students?

Shrawder: One of the most common is to add a little chuckle or humor frequently, more than is appropriate. Or that the kind of little bit of laugh is not funny or not tied in with any humor. It's just kind of a nervous response and so you know somebody might say "Okay class, let's get started for the day hahaha." You know that little is so - It eventually irritates people.

Gonzalez: Right, right.

Shrawder: But it weakens the message so much that now I'm confused. I don't know whether you're really - I don't know is this serious or is this some sort of light-hearted - is the instructor going, you know, this isn't really that important or just trying to get through the day? And so that's one of them.

The other is a style of - I think it was sort of the California valley style or something, but it was always the end of the sentence would rise in pitch, which we interpret as a question. There's no way to be - to affirm some statement or direction or something and then lift your voice as if it's a question. The listener goes nuts, you know, I don't know what this person is trying to do.

Then it's, you know, eye contact is so old. The Greeks knew that was a good thing. But it's very hard to do and I think still today it's very - You need to check: Are you really calmly and nicely looking and communicating with the person like, "Wow, what you're saying is important." You ought to be thinking, "Wow, what you're saying is important." not "Okay that's great, I've heard that a thousand times before. Let's get on with it." You know? Because we can read that in each other's faces. It really is an important thing. I really recommend - I didn't really see all this until I took a video workshop that we spent several actually, three or four days doing presentations, being videod and then being critiqued. It was a little tough on the ego.

Gonzalez: Yeah, I bet.

Shrawder: I learned things I would never have learned because there was a professional presenter or instructor who had done that for years and just learned so much. I can't emphasize it enough. If people are doing in-class, in-front-of-student presentations and that's part of the way they teach, they take videos of themselves and either self analyze or preferably sit down with someone who knows presentations and pick it apart a little bit. You get better fast.

Gonzalez: Right, right, great. One of the other things that we had talked about was student non-verbals. You had mentioned in a separate discussion that sometimes students send us messages through their non-verbals that if we could be more attuned to those we would understand kind of the underlying message and be able to respond more appropriately. So what are some of those?

Shrawder: Well it's my philosophy that students' behavior is telling me how valuable the class or the activities or that particular moment or section of time is to them. Because I know that's what I do. If something is not valuable, you know a conversation, a class, a workshop - How many classes did you take, hundreds and hundreds of hours. We end up going well, I think I'll look at my book. You know this was before cell phones, so - You'd take out a piece of paper and start scribbling. Just anything, looking out the window, it's like "Oh, I gotta get through this."

The first thing, to me is, I'm getting messages about how valuable this activity and my teaching style and the whole class setup is to the students. If they're disengaging, I'm taking that as my fault. I believe they wouldn't be there - Just about all of them - If they come, they're expecting some value. I need to find out what is value to the students and to see whether through the different teaching modalities there are - There's so many of them today. How can what I'm doing match up to what they're feeling is valuable? Because I don't want to waste their time. I hate people who waste my time. I don't want to do that to other people in what I try to do. So that's the first thing is to listen to that. Listen more.

That's a general kind of response, but also to ask students through one minute management questions that they could reply maybe anonymously to through an index card or a little half sheet of paper just tear it off and give it to me on the way out. Just ask them, "What was the most -" "What was the least interesting?" "What was the most interesting or most helpful experience today? Try to get some feedback so that you can kind of clue in on what was most helpful, what wasn't, as honestly from students as you can.

Now as far as setting it up to get the most engagement as possible, I really do believe that one is there has to be discussion of behaviors and rules. You know, we're here as a group so how do we function as group? To me it's teamwork, which stems from my philosophy that it's the instructor and the student together as a team are teaming up against the subject matter's complexities and ambiguities and mysteries and mistakes. All of these things. We're trying to master a set of outcomes, learning outcomes that this course is all about. So what I recommend to teachers is - They often walk in and see It's me against the students. It's me and the content and we're having to force this on the students because aren't going to pay attention and I have to make sure they get it. I think that could be a mindset that leads to a lot of disengagement. You know I prefer seeing an image when going into a group is They're with me, especially the first day. They haven't decided this is a waste yet. So here's my opportunity. Gotta start off with value.

One of the values of any community is how do we get along together. We're diverse. Some of us are cranky, some of us are not, introverted, extroverted. Okay, so let's set up some rules. Now here's the way I normally - And I just set up in the syllabus a normal set of behaviors which I feel are very important. With some experience, you're an experienced person hopefully and you say "To get this....Over the past few years I noticed that these rules are really important to get progress, again for us to move on and get progress against the content. Here's what we have to do." And then you get buy-in. Because if you don't get buy-in and just say "Here are the rules. Take it or leave it," you've missed an opportunity. Take some time to get their consent. If you do this publicly in class the first time, your first meeting, say, "Okay, here they are. Now, here is the time to object or modify. How are we doing? Anybody have any heartburn on any of these? Can you live with these? What do you think? Okay, let's all sign it. I want you to sign off on your syllabus that these rules are good and you're going to - you support them." Whatever technique gets buy-in. I think that helps so much in avoiding behavior and disruptive problems.

Gonzalez: I really love that idea of presenting your relationship with students as a team, facing the content together. That, to me - I've never heard that before and I think it would put students, especially at the college level, at a really different kind of mindset. And I think it could be used at the middle and high school level too, really because they're becoming adults at that point and that's the relationship that they should eventually want to have with anyone who is a teacher or a mentor or anything along those lines.

Shrawder: Absolutely.

Gonzalez: Thank you so much, Jack, for giving us this time.

Shrawder: Sure, no problem, that's fine. I enjoyed it Jennifer. It was nice indeed meeting with you and I enjoyed the conversation very much.

[music playing]

Gonzalez: Again, to learn more about improving your work as an adjunct instructor, visit teachingforsuccess.com and as always, come visit cultofpedagogy.com for tons of resources to help you kick mountains of butt in your teaching.
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Episode 12: How Your Nonverbals Impact Your Teaching

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The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 12 Transcript Jennifer Gonzalez, host [Listen to the audio version of this podcast.] Jennifer Gonzalez: This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode twelve of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about how your non-verbals impact your effectiveness as a teacher.

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Samira Fejz ic was used to people saying her name wrong, especially in school. "Through the years, as roll would be called, I would wait for that awkward pause-this is how I knew I was next. I accepted this ritual."

Fejzic (FAY-zich), whose family left Bosnia in the early nineties and moved to the U.S. in 1999, experienced this ritual for ten years, and she understood that people in her new town weren't used to names like hers, despite the fact that the area's Bosnian population had grown massive in recent years.

"It never hurt me until high school graduation," she recalls. "This was a big day for me. My grandparents from Bosnia came just to watch me get my diploma and of course, my name was butchered."

If you're in a position to say lots of student names-in your classroom, over the P.A. system, or especially at awards ceremonies and graduations-no one will be surprised if you mess up a couple of them. But this year, maybe you can do better. If you make the commitment now to get them all right, if you resolve this time to honor your students with clear, beautiful pronunciation of their full, given names, that, my friend, will be the loveliest surprise of all.

Three Kinds of Name-Sayin'

I grew up with a hard-to-pronounce name. Actually, it wasn't that hard; it just looked different from what people were used to: Yurkosky. (Kind of rhymes with "Her pots ski," minus the "t" in pots.) Year after year, i t threw everyone off. And the way they approached the name put them into one of three camps: fumble-bumblers, arrogant manglers, and calibrators.

The fumble-bumblers I didn't mind so much. They'd mispronounce the name, slowing down and making their voice all wobbly, not trusting themselves. They'd grimace, laugh, ask me how to say it, then try again. But then they sort of gave up. Over the next few attempts, they'd settle into something that was a kind of approximation, and that would be that. What made me not mind these people was that they put the mispronunciation on themselves- their demeanor suggested the fault was with them, not me or my name.

The arrogant manglers were another story. They assumed their pronunciation was correct and just plowed ahead, never bothering to check. In many cases, an arrogant mangler will persist with their own pronunciation even after they've been corrected. Adan (uh-DON) Deeb, whose family hails from Israel with Palestinian roots, experienced this as a middle school student in the U.S. "Every time I was called up to the office, EVERY SINGLE TIME, they would mispronounce my name, no matter how many times I corrected them. It made me angry. To me that shows that they just don't care enough to get my name right."

This group has a couple of sub-categories: One is the nicknamers-people who come across a name like Rajendrani and announce, "We'll just call you Amy." The other is the worst kind, the people who start with the first syllable, then wave the rest of the name away like so much cigarette smoke, adding "Whatever your name is," or just "whatever." I don't have a creative name for this group. Let's just call them assholes.

Finally, there was a small group I think of as the calibrators, people who recognized that my name required a little more effort. They asked me to pronounce it, tried to replicate it, then fine-tuned it a few more times against my own pronunciation. Some of them would even check back later to make sure they still had it.

My cousin Laura, who has the same last name I grew up with, remembers a professor who was a true calibrator. "It did take him a bit of time to learn to pronounce my name, but he was always apologetic when he said it wrong, and always insisted on the importance of getting such things right. He was easily the most inspirational and challenging teacher I've had...he just insisted that every student feel important."

If you're already a calibrator, keep up the good work. If you're not-if you've let yourself off the hook with some idea like "I'm terrible with names"-know that it's not too late to turn things around, and it does matter. Though it may seem inconsequential to you, the way you handle names has deeper implications than you might realize.

Kind of a Big Deal

People's reaction to this issue varies depending on their personality. If your student has a strong desire to please, wants desperately to fit in, or is generally conflict-avoidant, they may never tell you you're saying their name wrong. For those students, it might matter a lot, but they'd never say so. And other kids are just more laid-back in general. But for many students, the way you say their name conveys a more significant message.

Name mispronunciation - especially the kind committed by the arrogant manglers-actually falls into a larger category of behaviors called microaggressions, defined by researchers at Columbia University's Teachers College as "brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color" (Sue et al., 2007).

In other words, Although most of your students may not know the word mutilating someone's name is a tiny act of bigotry. Whether you intend to or not, what you're communicating is this: Your name is different. Foreign. Weird. It's not worth my time to get it right. microaggression, they're probably familiar with that vague feeling of marginalization, the message that everyone else is "normal," and they are not.

In her piece What's in a Name? Kind of a Lot, writer Tracy Clayton (under the name Brokey McPoverty) rails against Ryan Seacrest's move to shorten the name of actress Quvenzhané Wallis to "Little Q." She points out that Seacrest and other media figures treat the names of some actors-who happen to be white-differently: "The problem is that white Hollywood...doesn't deem her as important as, say, Renee Zellweger, or Zach Galifianakis, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, all of whom have names that are difficult to pronounce- but they manage. The message sent is this: You, young, black, female child, are not worth the time and energy it will take me to learn to spell and pronounce your name."

This, by the way, is how you say Quvenzhané:

This issue goes beyond names rooted in cultures unfamiliar to the speaker. Whatever it is your student prefers to be called, it's worth the effort to get it right. I'm sure I've not only mispronounced my own students' names, but I've probably also called them something that was not their preference-realizing in April that the kid I've been calling Stephan all year actually prefers to be called Jude.

And before you get all defensive about the bigotry thing, let's be clear: Discovering that something you do might be construed as bigotry doesn't mean anyone is calling you a bigot. It's just an opportunity to grow. An opportunity to understand that doing something a little differently shows others that you respect them. At some point in your life, someone probably taught you to hold the door open for the person coming in behind you. Before then, maybe you didn't know. Opportunity to grow. It's that simple.

How to Get it Right

The best way to get students' names right is to just ask them. Pull the kid aside and say, You know what? I think I've been messing up your name all year, and I'm sorry. Now that graduation is coming, I want to say it perfectly. Can you teach me?

By humbling yourself in this way, you let them see that you're human. You're modeling what it looks like to be a lifelong learner, a flexible, confident person who is not afraid to admit a mistake. Regardless of the outcome, a genuine effort on your part will mean so much, and when the big day comes, they might even root for you to get it right.

If you have hundreds of names to learn, get systematic: Starting now, carry around a clipboard with all the names you'll need to say - even those you think you already know, and start checking in with kids in the cafeteria, in the halls, in the stands at a basketball game. And for God's sake, write down what they tell you. When the big day comes, the page of names you read from should look something like this:

Do whatever it takes, using whatever kind of symbols or notes you need to get the right syllables out in the right order. (The apple is there to remind the speaker to say that "a" like they would in the word apple.)

If you've run out of time to ask students themselves, or if doing that is too uncomfortable for you, you can get some help online. On Pronounce Names, you can find a huge collection of names and their pronunciations.

Whatever you do, do something. For some students, you may be the first person who ever bothered. If the only time you say their name is in the classroom, your correct pronunciation will help the whole class learn it, too. Eventually that will ripple through the school, making that student feel known in a place where before they felt unknown.

And if you have the honor of announcing them on the day they receive their award, their diploma, the day that marks some big achievement, you have a unique opportunity to make it even more special, but you only have two seconds: Make it count. It's a gift they'll remember for a long time. ♥
Reference:
Sue, D.W., Capodilupo, C.M., Torino, G.C., Bucceri, J.M., Holder, A.M.B., Nadal, K.L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62 (4), 271-286.

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How We Pronounce Student Names, and Why it Matters

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Listen to an Extended Version of this Post in a Podcast: Samira Fejz ic was used to people saying her name wrong, especially in school. "Through the years, as roll would be called, I would wait for that awkward pause-this is how I knew I was next. I accepted this ritual."

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A 4-Part System for Getting to Know Your Students | Cult of Pedagogy

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Relationship building is key to good teaching. This system will help you quickly get to know students and benefit from those connections all year long.

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Student Interviews

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What Will I Do to Communicate High Expectations?

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What Will I Do to Communicate High Expectations?

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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4 Steps to Becoming Culturally Responsive

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4 Steps to Becoming Culturally Responsive

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In my seventh year teaching English/language arts, I moved to a new school. As part of the orientation, one of the veteran English teachers kindly provided me the essential reading list for 10th grade students. When I reviewed the list, something just didn't sit well. The entire list was filled with books either written by men or featuring white, male protagonists. The only exception was the tragic, unlikeable protagonist in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, whose toxic masculine ideals lead to his demise.

I felt like a wall of bricks had fallen on my head. Was I about to subliminally teach my students that no one who looked like them could be a protagonist, or a true hero who models quality attributes? After all, when I looked at my classroom, I saw seats filled mostly with students of color, many of them young women, and some of them from other countries. I was teaching at a Title I school where roughly 70 percent of our population was from diverse backgrounds. Knowing that I would be teaching these "essential pieces" to students left a lump in my throat. The irony of it all. Here I was, an immigrant from Malawi, Africa, who grew up in the United States as an impoverished English-language learner student, now teaching other students in a manner I knew was not beneficial to them. It was all I could take-I had to do something different, not only for my students but also for myself. Other teachers had been teaching these same books because that was the way it had always been. How essential were these books to my students?

I went to my principal and asked if I could choose different books. I had a supportive principal who believed in teacher expertise and instructional freedom. He told me I could teach whatever I wanted-as long as my students showed growth in their content knowledge at the end of the year.

So, I tackled the problem head-on. Here's what I did:

1. I researched sociocultural perspectives. I read books and scholarly articles. Basically, I got schooled.

According to education professor and author Geneva Gay, "[W]hen academic knowledge and skills are situated within the lived experiences and frames of reference of students, they are more personally meaningful, have higher interest appeal, and are learned more easily and thoroughly." This stood out to me, and I avoided certain types of activities because they were culturally insensitive.

For instance, when I was in school, one of my teachers had us create family trees as a way to use descriptive language. A cute idea, right? Well, many of my students' family trees were complicated, with blended or missing information, and this often made family trees a sore topic. So instead of family trees, I had my students ask their relatives about the stories behind how they were named. It gave them an opportunity to research their own unique identities. Then students wrote about their names, using new descriptive techniques they had just learned. My students found this lesson appealing, and it improved their writing by connecting it to their own personal experiences.

2. I chose engaging texts. The classroom literature needed to better represent my students, to inspire them to connect to the texts. I changed the book list, finding works written by female authors or books that had female or minority protagonists. For the poetry unit, I taught Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson. Students created their own poetry journals. Many students told me they hated poetry until they read that book. Some found the sequel to Locomotion and read it on their own. Not only did students' negative perceptions about poetry change, but they also read another text, on their own, without my prompting.

I also added other culturally relevant texts that were popular with my students, including The Contender by Robert Lipsyte, The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, and The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore. These books had diverse protagonists who were openly struggling with issues related to race, poverty, immigration, or behavioral disorders. These are complicated issues that students often face, and they needed to see characters persevering through these same struggles. I paired these new texts with nonfiction articles and had students compare themes between the fiction and nonfiction pieces. My students showed incredible growth on their state mandated end-of-course exams, topping the district in English II scores for two straight years. This growth was in part due to their improved reading skills because they felt connected to the books.

3. I restructured my classroom environment. According to researchers Kathryn M. Edmunds and Kathryn L. Bauserman, "Motivation has frequently made the difference between learning that was temporary and superficial, and learning that was permanent and internalized." If I wanted my students to continue to learn, they needed to get past simply connecting to the literature. They needed to want to learn.

My classroom atmosphere used to be rigid; students worked quietly. However, they were also restless and disengaged. I needed to build upon the fact that teens were social creatures. So, I made lessons that included partner work. I also reduced the number of homework assignments and created project-based learning units. This meant that the only homework I assigned was connected to real-world, applicable products. These types of experiences helped students find purpose in their learning, and they came to class wanting to learn. Reducing the homework load also relieved some of the students from the stress of finding time to do homework because many of them worked jobs after school or took care of younger siblings.

4. I became more transparent. For many cultures, being transparent is a true sign of respect, so I became as transparent as possible with students and parents. If I was unsure of something, I would tell them. I created calendars of daily agendas and standards, providing copies for students and parents. I emailed parents calendars and classroom updates. For parents without email addresses, I often made phone calls when students seemed to need some extra encouragement from home. Contacting parents when students did well was also just as important as contacting parents for concerns. This communication alleviated confusion, helping parents understand how to best help their children through the learning process. By doing things like this, I earned students' respect, which helped nurture a positive classroom culture.

When I remember the infamous book "list" that started it all, I am grateful that it pushed my thinking because I learned that a list of texts didn't help me teach my students; it only helped with teaching texts. To truly embrace culturally responsive teaching-the only way to reach students-I had to move away from an insensitive archaic system and foster a culture of diverse inclusion. By doing so, my students' knowledge grew exponentially, and in turn, I also stayed true to my own cultural growth.

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4 Steps to Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher

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In my seventh year teaching English/language arts, I moved to a new school. As part of the orientation, one of the veteran English teachers kindly provided me the essential reading list for 10th grade students. When I reviewed the list, something just didn't sit well.

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4 Beneficial Effects of Positive Student-Teacher Relationships

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4 Beneficial Effects of Positive Student-Teacher Relationships

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1. Promote Academic Success with Positive Student-Teacher Relationships

The presence of positive student-teacher relationships alone does not translate to academic success, but students that establish a strong bond with their teacher do perform better than students whose relationships with teachers involve some sort of conflict. Teachers can help improve academic success in students by clearly expressing positive expectations for each student, presenting students with equal opportunities to participate in class discussions, and expressing to students that they are confident in their ability to succeed when it comes to their coursework.

2. Avoid Behavior Problems through Healthy Student-Teacher Relationships

* Speaking with students privately about their behavior in order to avoid embarrassment.

* Acknowledging students' feelings in order to understand the cause of their behavior.

* Reviewing school policy or classroom guidelines so that students are aware of the rules they have violated.

* Following up discussion with immediate consequences for students that misbehave.

* Checking on students after they have been disciplined for their actions.

In order to prevent a behavior problem from occurring again, the problem must be addressed. This highlights the importance of student-teacher relationships in which student behavior is corrected in a manner that encourages them to reflect on how they have misbehaved and what steps they can take in the future to change it.

3. Help Develop Self-Worth and Improved Student Mental Health

4. Positive Student-Teacher Relationships Assist Educators with Professional Growth

Positive Student-Teacher Relationships Create Thriving Classrooms

Clearly, there are many significant benefits of positive student-teacher relationships. When students feel a sense of classroom pride and teachers are able to effectively communicate with their class, engagement occurs. A classroom in which students and teachers can focus on education rather than disturbances is one in which they both can thrive.

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4 Benefits of Positive Student-Teacher Relationships | Pride Surveys

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Positive and healthy relationships between teachers and students can be extremely beneficial at all levels of an educational establishment, within the classroom and across the school environment as a whole.[1] From improved self-esteem to increased engagement, there are a number of benefits of establishing positive student-teacher relationships between educators and pupils of all ages.

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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"Bump, buda bump bump..."

"Bum, bum," students respond as they sit in their seats.

Lynch, a second-year teacher, attributes the orderly behavior of her class to the culture she creates through the positive relationships she's built in the classroom. She's done this by being clear about her expectations of all students (she treats them equally) and by enforcing classroom rules in positive ways (in this case, by playfully calling out a familiar tune).

Teachers can build relationships with students in many ways. Here are four:

Get To Know Your Students

"It is our responsibility to get to know our students at different levels, not only academically, but personally and socially as well," says retired New Mexico teacher Eloy Gonzales. "You may have the content knowledge, but if you don't build the rapport with students, you won't get anywhere."

Simply asking children about their weekends can be the first step to connecting with them. When teachers take advantage of opportunities to speak with their students about life outside school, it's an indication to students that their teacher actually cares about them as a person.

Individualize

Paula Denton, author of The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language that Helps Children Learn, believes building relationships creates a more learning-friendly environment. Understanding how the child operates allows the teacher to further individualize their curriculum and find creative ways to help the student successfully grasp the material.

"The more we know about the child the more we can build learning environments and curriculums that are going to work for them," Denton says.

Gonzales took time to work with one of his students who had difficulty with spelling. Rather than continuing to mark failing scores on her spelling tests, Gonzales spoke with her mother and devised a plan. He gave the girl a smaller list of words, set weekly goals, and she eventually exceeded those goals.

"It was about building that self-worth that they need as students," Gonzales said.

Watch What You Say

One mistake some teachers make is using harsh language with students. They use sarcasm when joking or unkind words when disciplining them. Then, everyone is uncomfortable. Educators can create an environment where students feel comfortable learning and the teacher maintains order without using such language, simply by being mindful of the choice of words used.

"Bottom line, I don't think [the use of sarcasm] is appropriate," said high school counselor T'wana Warrick-Bell. "Teachers need to remember 'this is a student I'm talking to and I need to respond to the student on a professional level.'" Warrick-Bell is the department chair at DuVal High School in Lanham, Maryland.

"It's very common to hear teachers using sarcasm," Denton said. "Yet, it is always shaming to a child and should not be used, even if we feel like it's being used in a sense of playfulness...we need to be careful and not careless."

Keep Trying To Reach Your Students

But everyone has bad days-even educators. A situation that easily could have been diffused escalates to voice-raising or students are offended by a teacher's reaction to a comment in class. What do you do if you make this slip-up?

"I was always taught that an apology goes a long way," says Warrick-Bell.

Gonzales asked his students to tell him respectfully when they noticed a change in his usual disposition. Giving them this responsibility showed them he was human. "Kids understand when you tell them 'I was wrong,'" Gonzales said. "It goes down to having open communication [with your students]... Just because you're a teacher doesn't mean you're always right."

Once you dust yourself off and own up to your mistake, continue to reach out to your students.

Lynch knows at the end of the day, even if it wasn't so great for either her or the kids, she still has relationships to maintain.

"I let them know that things are ok and everyone makes mistakes," she said. "[I tell them] 'Let's just have a good day tomorrow.'"

Although teachers may feel a crunch to get things done, with all the material they are expected to cover, Denton suggests taking the time to develop this connection, even incorporating it into the curriculum.

"In schools, relationships are treated as luxuries," she said. "Relationship is a necessity for learning. We can't afford not to do it."

These tips are just a few ways you can build bonds with your students. Setting expectations, enforcing classroom rules positively, consistently making an effort to learn who they are outside of school, individualizing instruction, and using appropriate language in class will show how much you care. Relationships make a difference in the way students perform in school. They can also make the process of giving students what they need in the classroom a little easier.

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"Bump, buda bump bump..." "Bum, bum," students respond as they sit in their seats. Lynch, a second-year teacher, attributes the orderly behavior of her class to the culture she creates through the positive relationships she's built in the classroom.

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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Teachers can improve outcomes and build equity in the classroom by listening closely to their students. Here are six ways to do that.

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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How many times have you heard that schools need to create "a culture of high expectations" for all students? What exactly is that? Esther Quintero, senior fellow at the nonprofit Albert Shanker Institute, explains in this post, which first appeared on the institute's blog.

By Esther Quintero

What exactly is "a culture of high expectations" and how is it created? In fact, what are expectations? I ask these questions because I hear this catchphrase a lot, but it doesn't seem like the real barriers to developing such a culture are well understood. If we are serious about raising expectations for all learners, we need to think seriously about what expectations are, how they work and what it might take to create environments that equalize high expectations for what students can achieve.

In this post I explain why I think the idea of "raising expectations" - when used carelessly and as a slogan - is meaningless. Expectations are not test scores. They are related to standards but are not the same thing. Expectations are a complex and unobservable construct - succinctly, they are unconscious anticipations of performance. Changing expectations for competence is not easy, but it is possible - I get at some of that later.

Certain conditions, however, need to be in place - e.g., a broad conceptualization of ability, a cooperative environment etc. It is unclear that these conditions are present in many of our schools. In fact, many are worried that the opposite is happening. The research and theory I examine here suggest that extreme standardization and competition are incompatible with equalizing expectations in the classroom. They suggest, rather, that current reforms might be making it more difficult to develop and sustain high expectations for all students, and to create classrooms where all students experience similar opportunities to learn.

I get that we all care about the same fundamental issues here: Creating the conditions that support and lift all kids regardless of socioeconomic status, race or initial ability. But I think this goal is better served by understanding what expectations truly are - if we avoid this (somewhat tedious) task I am not sure how much real progress can be achieved. So, please bear with me.

***

In social psychology, expectations - particularly expectations for competence - are implicit, largely unconscious, anticipations of the relative quality someone's future performance. In other words, expectations are "quick predictions" about how much value someone's contributions will add to the goal or task at hand. Various theories of group processes and interpersonal relations (see here for a good overview) have established that if the value of someone's contributions or ideas is predicted to be high, that person will in fact receive more opportunities to contribute (e.g., express an idea, make a suggestion), other group members will defer to this person more often (e.g., they will go along with his/suggestions, respect his/her idea etc.), and they will perceive his/her contributions to be superior in quality.

Expectations for competence shape social interaction in subtle but powerful ways. Also, once developed, expectations tend to be self-fulfilling. The higher the expectations for someone, the more likely it is that this person will receive opportunities to speak up, the more likely it is his/her suggestions will be positively viewed by others, and the more likely it is that this person will stick to his/her ideas in the face of disagreement or criticism by others. By contrast, the person for whom group members hold lower performance expectations will be given fewer opportunities to contribute, will speak less and in a more hesitant fashion, will more frequently have his/her contributions ignored or poorly evaluated, and will be more easily influenced when disagreements emerge.

In this manner, differential expectations create and maintain a hierarchy of participation, evaluation, and influence among group members - also known as the group's "status hierarchy."

The processes and dynamics I just described are pervasive in all kinds of social groups and organizations. Groups of students and classrooms are not radically different. So, of course having high expectations for all students is fundamental, particularly among teachers and administrators who have daily contact with those students, but also peer expectations as well as the expectations a student holds for him/herself are fundamental. In schools, participation is learning - when a student is withdrawn or fails to get the attention of others, that student is neither engaged nor learning. So, how can we make sure that schools are equitable places where all students enjoy similar learning opportunities?

To begin to answer this question, we need to know how expectations are formed and why it is that people (old and young) walk into new groups with certain shared knowledge of the world that serves as the basis for the group to mimic and perpetuate inequalities that exist in the broader society.
Where Do Expectations Originate?
As I said earlier, expectations are often unconscious; it's not like we can concentrate and be able raise or lower our expectations for someone, even for ourselves. To affect (raise or lower if you will) expectations we need to get at their "root cause" - so, where do expectations come from? One key source is socially significant (or status) characteristics, which are attributes on which people differ (e.g., race, gender, native language, math expertise) and for which there are widely held beliefs in the culture associating greater social worthiness and competence with one category of the attribute (men, whites, English speakers, math experts) than another (women, African Americans, Spanish speakers, math novices).

I have discussed ( here and here) implicit biases and stereotypes - status beliefs are a component of stereotypes. While stereotypes about gender, race and ethnicity may differ in content, they all have something in common: A status element that associates greater value with one category of the distinction (men, whites) than another (women, people of color).

I should probably clarify that I don't endorse any of this. Quite the contrary - my point is that the goal of reducing social inequalities in everyday contexts requires acknowledging the fact that status associations do exist and attempting to understand and expose the inequitable processes that these associations and beliefs set into motion.

Now, back to my original point: This is why I find the "setting high expectations" rhetoric so meaningless. Simply saying that we strive for a culture of high expectations does very little to create one - unless all we mean is that is that we need to raise test-scores. But test-scores are not expectations, nor do they represent expectations in any meaningful way. In fact, standards are not expectations either. Rather, " standards act as filters mediating the relationship between evaluations and expectations." Think about the following: A score of 14 correct answers out of 20 is sufficient demonstration of ability if the standard is 12 or more correct responses, but the same score becomes unconvincing evidence if that standard is set at 17 or more.

Standards are what allow us to maintain high or low expectations in the face of hard evidence that should disconfirm preconceived ideas. Say a boy and a girl perform equally well on a math task. If we implicitly hold lower expectations for the girl's math competence, the girl's good performance will conflict or appear inconsistent with what we (unconsciously) anticipated - a cognitive dissonance of sorts. This tension is "resolved" with standards: I raise the standards for the girl only and require her (not the boy) to provide more evidence of math ability. In other words, I use a stricter standard to judge the girl's performance. This is why standards need to be as objective and explicit possible; when standards are clear and agreed upon beforehand it's harder to use them in the arbitrary (albeit unconscious) manner I just described.*

In sum, raising expectations (and making standards not just high but also explicit) can have a powerful effect across a range of socio-emotional and academic domains, but it can't be done with a magic wand; it is essential that we get into the weeds some more, which is where I turn next.
Status & Expectations In the Classroom
Classroom groups, like all other social groups, develop the kinds of hierarchies that I've mentioned above. Students who have a high status are more active, and are seen as more competent and influential. Meanwhile, low status students struggle to get recognized; they don't talk as much and, when they do, their ideas are often ignored. Classrooms are not naturally equitable environments - in fact, most social settings aren't. But the teacher can alter these dynamics in very profound ways and change classroom expectations effectively using strategies such as assigning competence to low status students. As I explained in a previous post:

Students tend to believe and respect the evaluations that teachers make of them. Thus, if the teacher publicly commends a low status student for being strong on a particular (and real) ability, that student will tend to believe the evaluation. At the same time, the other students in the classroom are likely to accept the evaluation as valid. Once this happens, the expectations for the student's competence - as well as his/her relative status in the classroom - can rise dramatically, which is likely to result in increased activity and influence of the low status student as well as increased success in future classroom tasks.

Raising expectations for all students is possible, but it has to be done carefully and intentionally. Also, for this type of intervention to be effective, teachers and students need to be in a context that conceptualizes ability broadly:

Teachers need to be able to convince their students that there are different ways to be "smart." (...) Tasks that require multiple abilities give teachers the opportunity to give credit to such students for their academic and intellectual accomplishments.

When tasks are interesting, challenging and varied, they require different abilities - since different learners have different abilities, students can take turns as leaders. By contrast, when assignments are narrowly defined, the same students tend to do all the talking while others are systematically made to feel as though they have nothing to contribute. In other words, activities and assignments can themselves become the basis for displays of dominance within the group.

Cohen and colleagues explained that students of teachers who assigned standardized tasks, used competitive evaluation, and permitted little autonomy and decision-making were more likely to agree when ranking one another on reading ability than students of teachers who assigned individualized tasks, used less competitive evaluation and assigned more work to be done in small groups. This is important because greater agreement on the ranking of a status characteristic (in this case, reading ability), suggests that the characteristic is more powerful in that particular context, which means that it shapes expectations for competence more strongly: Good readers (thus good students) versus bad readers (thus bad students).

I should probably clarify that some status characteristics (including, for example, reading ability in the elementary grades) are what we call "diffuse." That is, a high ranking in that characteristic influences expectations across a wide range of domains - in this case, the children who are the better readers are also thought to be smarter in other areas, even when such areas are unrelated to the act of reading. By contrast, the child who is a poor reader - an extremely bright dyslexic student, for example - can come to be perceived, by him/herself and others, as a poor student.
Implications in the Current Context
To recap, I explained what expectations are, how they are formed and how they shape classroom social dynamics and learning. I also said that expectations can be altered and that teachers are instrumental in equalizing learning conditions and raising expectations for low status students. Finally, I noted that a precondition for effective interventions is that the context needs to be one in which multiple abilities are valued. In fact, more competitive classrooms where students focus on standardized tasks tend to develop more rigid hierarchies and differentiation than classrooms where tasks are more diverse and the environment is less competitive. This is cause for concern in today's climate, where many teachers, parents and students are worried about the misuse and overuse of standardized tests and their unintended consequences (e.g., narrowing of the curriculum, competitive rather than cooperative environment).

The research I highlighted suggests that the notion of high expectations that everyone so fervently proclaims might very be hard to foster, given current ideas about school reform. Indeed, the current context may in fact contribute to creating less equitable classrooms - classrooms where performance expectations are more differentiated, high for some students and low for others - making it much harder for educators to ensure that all children enjoy similar opportunities to speak up, showcase their diverse strengths, receive praise and approval and, as a result, gain self-confidence and experience the kind of social belonging that can actually help fuel more engagement and deeper learning.

* In the context of education "reverse double standards" or the practice of using a more lenient standard to judge the lower status person are also a concern.

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What 'setting high expectations' for all students really means

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How many times have you heard that schools need to create "a culture of high expectations" for all students? What exactly is that? Esther Quintero, senior fellow at the nonprofit Albert Shanker Institute, explains in this post, which first appeared on the institute's blog.

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What are some things that teachers do that make you feel accepted and welcome? shared by Heather Hamtil! Click to watch the video!

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Strategies for Promoting Culturally Responsive Classrooms

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Strategies for Promoting Culturally Responsive Classrooms

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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How does a teacher communicate caring and expectational beliefs in a way that most positively impacts student achievement? Judith Kleinfeld coined the term warm demanders when describing teachers who most successfully supported student achievement. Creating four quadrants with a vertical scale running from low to high expectations and a horizontal scale running from low to high relationships, she identified four categories.

Sophisticates - (Low expectations and low relationships) were often aloof and undemanding. I describe this as "I delivered the information. Either you learn it or you don't."

Traditionalist- (High expectations and low relationships) - "teachers who set high expectations for students but view developing personal relationships with them as outside their professional purview, offering little academic or emotional support to help students meet expectations."

Sentimentalist - (Low expectations and high relationships)- warm but undemanding. I often observe these teachers making tremendous investments in students' lives (sometimes financially). I describe that they have sympathy rather than empathy. They feel badly for the students' situations and difficulties and it causes the teacher to lose focus on the students' academic potential.

Warm Demanders-(High expectations and high relationships) - combined "high personal warmth with high active demandingness". "In the classrooms of these teachers, students actively participated in discussions and were willing to work hard for their teachers, with whom they had developed a positive, mutually respectful rapport."

Warm demanders includes:

Explicit focus on building rapport and trust. Expresses warmth through non-verbal ways like smiling, touch, warm or firm tone of voice, and good natured teasing.

Shows personal regard for students by inquiring about important people in their lives.

Earns the right to demand engagement and effort.

Very competent with the technical side of instruction

Holds high standards and offers emotional support and instructional scaffolding to dependent learners for reaching the standards.

Encourages productive struggle

Viewed by students as caring because of personal regard and "tough love" stance.

The exploration of "warm demanding" is a worthwhile professional learning and coaching focus for summer goals setting, fall planning sessions, opening week PLC strategizing, and coaching observations for teachers' "missed opportunities."

Warm demanders approach their students with unconditional positive regard, knowing students and their cultures well, and insisting that students perform to a high standard. Students have told researchers that they want teachers who communicate that they are "important enough to be pushed, disciplined, taught, and respected".Elizabeth Bondy and Dorene D. Ross
((Educational Leadership) Wilson & Corbett, 2001, p. 88)
Such is the stance of the warm demander.

This site from the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU can be used to initiate teacher dialogue for raised consciousness. Here are a few of the statements found in the research summary:

Students who have positive relationships with their teachers use them as a secure base from which they can explore the classroom and school setting both academically and socially, to take on academic challenges and work on social-emotional development

Studies show that early teacher-student relationships affect early academic and social outcomes as well as future academic outcomes

Positive relationships with teachers are important in supporting higher levels of self-esteem, higher academic self-efficacy, and more confidence in future employment outcomes.

Researchers who have investigated teacher-student relationships for older students have found that positive teacher-student relationships are associated with positive academic and social outcomes for high school students

Studies of middle and high school students have shown that students shape their own educational expectations from their perceptions of their teachers' expectations

Due to the influence of expectations on motivation, expectations can be an important factor on a students' academic achievement.

Consider having teachers work in groups of four. One person reads a paragraph from the report out loud to their group, the next person summaries/paraphrases the most important points, the next individual shares personal experiences that reinforce or question one of the key points, the last person identifies an element he/she wishes to have as a conscious focus in the coming weeks. Those conscious focus points make great agendas for peer or instructional coaching. (Participants rotate roles and select another paragraph.)

I know that as a classroom teacher, graduate instructor, and coach, I spent time in each of Kleinfeld's quadrants..... usually unconsciously. Reflection and coaching provided opportunities for me to make conscious decisions about my teaching actions which often increased student success and raised my expectations of my students and myself.

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How does a teacher communicate caring and expectational beliefs in a way that most positively impacts student achievement? Judith Kleinfeld coined the term warm demanders when describing teachers who most successfully supported student achievement. Creating four quadrants with a vertical scale running from low to high expectations and a horizontal scale running from low to ...