Dr. Seuss and Read Across America Week have been synonymous for a very long time, but they are not one and the same. Read Across American Week is a celebration started and created by the National Education Association in 1997.  The first Read Across America Day actually took place on March 2nd, 1998.  This day, March 2nd, coincides with the birthday of Dr. Seuss.  For this reason, the Read Across America celebration often became tied to Dr. Seuss Day and Dr. Seuss week, but that is no longer the case, and the celebration of reading that is organized and promoted by the National Education Association has definitely evolved.

This year, their theme is create and celebrate a nation of diverse readers, and it’s no longer just one day.  It went from one day to one week to now, the NEA is encouraging teachers to celebrate diverse reading all year long.  Click HERE to access the page on their website where you can see 12 months of recommended books, authors, and teaching resources.  NEA is fully equipping you so that you can promote diverse and inclusive practices when you are reading these books.

Why no more, Dr. Seuss?

Going from a full week of Dr. Seuss to none at all is a pretty drastic change.  This shift happened for several good reasons. First, change is good. There are thousands of amazing authors having an impact on the minds and lives of people. Secondly and MOST important, there has been some information that, although it’s not new, has really come to the forefront about Dr. Seuss and the way that he conducted himself in the days and the years before he became this cultural icon.

I’m not going to tell you what to think because that’s not my job, but what I would like to do is encourage you to become aware, to equip yourself with knowledge and understanding. At the bottom of this blog post I will link to a couple of different articles that I have read and that I’ve found to be very, very helpful over the years as I have been doing my own research on Dr. Seuss and what it is that he said and did. I would love to hear your thoughts on these.

One of the articles talks about how six of the Dr. Seuss books that had been in publication up until 2021 were no longer going to be published because there were racist images and racist phrases that were being used.  Another article talks about some of the cartoon and caricatures that Dr. Seuss drew in the years again before he became this cultural icon.  The article talks about how many of the cartoons are racist and they are just not okay.  At the bottom of the blog I will list more articles because I want to encourage you to arm yourself and to equip yourself with information.

We always want to know who the people are that we are championing. I always encourage my students to understand that there is no perfect person in this world. We all make mistakes. We all trip up, and that’s okay.  Honestly, there is no way around it. There’s not a way for us to not make mistakes in this life, but there are some mistakes that you make that you will struggle to come back from. There are certain things that you say and that you do, ways that you treat people that make it very challenging for you to gain the respect and the trust of other people that you would want to be in your circle.

Dr. Seuss is back in the literacy conversation

So, Dr. Seuss, although he is long since passed away, has been brought back into this conversation because every single year we see that schools are celebrating Dr. Seuss and they are using books and texts written by a man who had very strong beliefs, very strong opinions about race and about people and about skin tone.  He expressed those beliefs through the words he wrote and the cartoons he drew to accompany those words.  Dr. Seuss is reentering these conversations because educators and parents and advocates are reflecting and saying, wait a minute, “How is it that we are spending whole weeks celebrating a man and author who intentionally wrote words and drew pictures that were hurtful, harmful, disrespectful, and racist?”  Caregivers, advocates, and educators are wondering why that same energy is not used to bring in and celebrate authors of a variety of backgrounds, people that are inclusive in their messaging and promoting love and acceptance.

People who say, “Dr. Seuss is dead and gone. You cannot hold a deceased person accountable for their actions.” That is correct. Dr. Seuss is deceased, but his work is not dead and gone. His work is very much alive. The inappropriate, insensitive, and racist words and images are still alive. Over the course of his life, from everything that I’ve read, he did begin to understand that what he was doing was incorrect and wrong.  His viewpoints and the way that he was articulating himself started to shift.  Through the friendships that he developed with people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds he began to see that his words and depictions of people from various racial and ethnic groups different from his own was hurtful and harmful.  Let me clarify, we can never say that all Black people are just like my one Black friend. All Chinese people are like my one Chinese friend. That’s ridiculous because nobody is just the same no matter your race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, etfc.  However, when you have an authentic experience, when you actually have a true, deep, real relationship with people of different races and ethnicities and religious backgrounds and gender identifications, then these words, these phrases, these issues, these concerns, become more than just “things”, than “words” than a “political stance.” They become human. They become a person. They become your friend.

From everything that I’ve read, Dr. Seuss became aware of the fact that what he was doing and saying, the cartoons and the pictures that he was drawing were not okay. Sometime in the 1940s we start to see several other books coming out.  Instead of books like “If I ran the Zoo” and “To think I saw it on Mulberry Street“, we start to see books that much more clearly highlight the fact that Dr. Seuss has a different stance and perspective on many books that we have grown to truly love and enjoy and appreciate in our culture.  Books like, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go“.  This is a book that teachers read all the time to their students. It is a book that people gift to children, and to graduating young adults.  It is almost like he wrote these books to showcase and apologize for the other work that he did. The reality is however, that his previous work has not and likely will not go away.

So, how do we reconcile Dr. Seuss?

So, how do we reconcile this?

He did and said things that were, unjust, they were unforgivable. Unforgiveable, and yet. I personally believe in the power of forgiveness for my own mental health and well-being and peace. I believe that I have to release people for ME.   I’m not going to be angry with Dr. Seuss, right? I’m not going to be angry with a man who is literally dead and gone although his work is alive today. What I can be, is upset when these texts that are clearly and obviously and blatantly racist are being used in the school. I don’t care if you want to provide an example of racism in literature, you can do it in other ways. We can talk about racism and inappropriate caricatures and representation in other ways. We don’t need to use these texts that Dr. Seuss has written. Because these works however, are never going away, we as educators, have to decide how to govern ourselves.

Arm yourself with knowledge to reflect on why it is that you feel it is necessary to use Dr. Seuss texts in your classroom. What is the benefit here? What are students gaining by using his text in the classroom?

Reflection is a powerful tool that helps to bring about awareness, and then you can make a decision as to whether you want to accept what you have become aware of or reject it, and then take some action.

So, take a moment and reflect on the Dr. Seuss books that you typically  and traditionally use in your classroom. Then, think about if there are any other books that you can use to relay the same message or one the uses some of the very same rhythms and patterns and funny names and language. Finally, I encourage you to equip yourself with knowledge, to arm yourself with knowledge, to empower yourself with knowledge. We should be lifelong learners. Do your own research. Find out who Dr. Seuss was behind just “One fish, Two fish, Redfish, Bluefish“. Find out who he was beyond “The Lorax“. Find out who he was beyond “The Cat and The Hat“. Who is this man that we are elevating to such a status that we get completely crushed and upset when someone says that you shouldn’t use his work in your classroom. That’s something else to reflect on. When we’re holding on to something so tightly, this action begs asking the question, “Why am I holding on so tightly?”

In summary, before you pick up a Dr. Seuss book, or send home a flyer letting caregivers know about a week long “SEUSSebration”, 1) reflect on your why, 2) learn about who Dr. Seuss was and what it is that he did and believed, and 3) take some definitive action by deciding whether there some texts that you need to remove, replace.

Now that we know better, let’s do better

Dr. Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Now that we know better, let’s do better. Read Across America Week, Read Across America Month, read Across America Year is one of the best opportunities to expose our learners to a variety of different texts. If we’re talking about reading across America, first of all, that means a variety of different authors. Dr. Seuss is not the only author in America. There are so many authors who have written some phenomenal texts. These authors should be featured in a classroom of young learners so they can see how wordplay can grow and evolve and shift and change based on an author’s experiences, based on an author’s humor, based on all the things that authors take in and then put out into this world as their written work.

If we’re talking about reading across America, then we need to acknowledge the variety of authors from coast to coast, from north and south and east and west, and then also acknowledge all of the students across America, whether they identify in the same way, racially, ethnically, socioeconomically, or religiously. I guarantee your students would love to see themselves and others represented in texts. Sometimes it’s cool to see the animals and the bears and the made up little characters, but it’s also really cool to see somebody that looks like you, somebody that talks like you, somebody that eats the same food that you eat and enjoys the same music that you do. It’s cool to explore the way that other people live AND it’s cool to see the way that you live being celebrated and represented on the page. Read Across America has taken a new direction over the last couple of years to really celebrate all of the children and young adults that are readers.

Why not take advantage of the opportunity to celebrate all the different ways that people live and celebrate and enjoy and worship in America and across the globe.  Why pigeonhole ourselves to just talking about one author and one experience?  Let’s celebrate the beauty of the students that are sitting in our classroom.

As teachers, especially as language arts teachers, but all teachers, we have made it our business, and we are passionate about helping our students to realize their potential and understand that their dreams can become reality. We spend time empowering our students to define success for themselves and then go after it.  So how then, as a teacher, do you then tell those same students that you empowered to define success and write down their ideas – all the silly thoughts and all the sad thoughts and all the angry thoughts and all the celebratory thoughts onto a page, and the students who you taught how to develop a character…. Now some of those students become published authors. Shouldn’t we read and celebrate their words and their journey?   In the Read Across America celebration, if we stay stuck in only celebrating one author and one set of books, we are literally telling our students that what they’ve done doesn’t matter.

I don’t know about you, but I want my students to see that all of the things that I encouraged them to do in my classroom, all the ways that I encouraged them to grow and to develop into who they are today, that it mattered. Their work was not in vain. I would rather pull a couple of Dr. Seuss books off of my shelf and replace them with the work of my students and your students and his, her, they, all of the students that we have developed and helped to grow.  I want to show them, not just tell them that they can believe in themselves and their work and their artistry. Yeah, I would without questions swap out some of those books, and I would encourage you to do the same thing.

If you really want to read across America this year, check out the National Education Association website for books, activities, virtual author visits, and teaching resources.

Remember to center equity, celebrate diversity, and value culture!

Jocelynn

Here are the articles I mentioned in the blog post:

A culturally relevant math class? Indeed, my friend, it can. There is often a misconception that math classes can’t be culturally relevant or shouldn’t be culturally relevant. It should be all about the numbers. There is no place for culture. I think this is because our definition of culture is so narrow. If we were to expand our  definition of culture, the impact of math lessons would be 10 fold. Check out the blog post titled, “What is culture? How can we use it to unlock exciting and remarkable student potential?” I share a much more robust definition of the word.

Before we can decide if a math class can be culturally relevant, I want to define this concept. A culturally responsive and relevant classroom is a space where all of your students are affirmed, welcomed, and celebrated through instruction because you are 1) in tune with your own culture and 2) in tune with and using the culture of your students to design your lessons.

Culturally responsive classrooms are spaces where your students are more engaged because they see the point of the lesson. The students know that the lessons are relevant to them, not just today, but in the future. Math is all about analyzing problems and discovering solutions which is one of the ultimate life lessons. Gospel singer, Erica Campbell said, “How can we learn how to lose without losing IT.” The math classroom is the perfect platform to learn this lesson. We often don’t leverage it. 

Creating culturally responsive lessons puts a focus on the life long lessons being taught through curriculum and content. Therefore, it becomes easier to weave relevance into every moment with your students.

I want to share three tips for effectively creating culturally relevant and responsive math lessons so your students are more engaged, experience increased retention of information and increased levels of academic achievement. All of this helps increase your students confidence in their academic identity. 

The three tips are 1) reflect, 2) keep learning, and 3)implement (take action)

Culturally Relevant Math Tip 1: Take time to reflect

As you are reflecting, I want you to think about your classroom as a whole. Creating a culturally responsive classroom and culturally relevant math lessons is a whole vibe. It’s not just about creating social justice math lessons or including a diverse range of names in a word problem. That is part of it, but it’s the overall feel of the classroom that allows the lessons to land.

Instead, I want you to begin by thinking about the classroom rules, expectations you hold your students to, and norms that have been established. Then, think about how you created them and why you created them? Was there anyone that helped you create these rules? Are there life experiences that clearly impact the rules and expectations you set? Are you modeling your classroom after one of your former teachers, another teacher in the building?  Many times we make decisions about our classroom setup and structure without realizing the impact our own cultural beliefs and norms, life experiences, and schooling impact it.

Next, think about the students in your classroom. Are the established rules, expectations, and norms allowing them to thrive? Really think about this? Are the rules in your classroom foreign or familiar to your students? Do the rules line up with the things they value? Why or why not? 

Do the rules, expectations and norms allow your students to feel comfortable learning, contributing, failing forward?  OR are the rules more geared toward your comfort. I am not saying you should not be comfortable in your own classroom, you absolutely should. The classroom however, is a partnership space. It is a space of knowledge and thought exchange. People who do not feel comfortable will not exchange ideas and share thoughts.

Finally, have you talked through these rules with yourself (reflection), or with a colleague (accountability) to see where there might be a breakdown in communication and understanding?

For example, maybe one rule is that students always complete work independently and then they can chat with a table partner. What if some children come from a households where everyone is encouraged to begin solving problems as a team before breaking into individual thought spaces? How is your rule in direct conflict with the way these children have been raised and encouraged to process? 

Will that child be punished for “acting out”, disrespect, not following rules?

Let’s shift away from teacher centered rules, traditions, and expectations to student centered. I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say that the first few years I taught there were more teacher centered practices in place. I was using rules and expectations from when I was a student in the classroom.

Culturally Relevant Math Tip 2: Keep Learning

Secondly, keep learning. Learn about different engagement routines, learning styles, as well as different practices and customs of your students so you may incorporate that knowledge into the classroom. Learn about different dialects and vernacular. Embrace them. Do not immediately reject a vernacular because it is not considered standard by you. Please do not use the vernacular if it is not yours. Focus on allowing all your students to use whatever vernacular is familiar so they feel more comfortable and welcome in the classroom. This will help reduce anxiety around “Am I saying this the right way?” “Will he/she/they stop me and tell me to say it over again?” Instead, create a safe space where students can bravely express what they are thinking and ask questions. 

After a level of comfort and safety is established in the classroom, feel free to open up conversations with middle and high school students about different vernaculars and ideas about when and how vernacular should be used. Focus on equipping students by making them aware of societal norms and expectations. Encourage students by informing them that they do have a choice. Empower them with the understanding that some vernaculars, unfortunately are not always as well received by the majority mindset.

Continuing to learn about your students and different ways they will feel most comfortable in the classroom is important toward developing a student’s confidence in the math classroom. Many students already enter the math class with tons of baggage from previous years of schooling. There are words that have been used to label them. Words they have learned to use and label themselves.

Creating a culturally responsive math classroom with culturally relevant lessons shows the students that their thoughts, speech, questions, and voice are welcome. Their form of expression is that of a mathematician. Expanding the definition of a mathematician by displaying a variety of examples of people from different schools of thought, gender identifications, races, socioeconomic backgrounds. It matters.

Culturally Relevant Math Tip 3: Take action!

Finally, tip three is to implement. Take action. All that you reflected on and learned about should be used to inform your classroom culture and the development of lessons. You also want to use math problems to provide opportunities to share perspectives. A culturally responsive math classroom is a thinking classroom. It is a classroom where students are encouraged to understand how and why they think the way they do; to understand their processing. It is a place where students are encouraged to share their thinking with others and reflect on questions like, “Well, how do I feel about that?” Students are encouraged to fail forward and make “must”akes. M-U-S-T because that is a part of what we do in life. We fail sometimes and we make mistakes. 

Helping students to do that in the math classroom is critical. This is the perfect platform to facilitate growth and learning around problem solving and multi-step processes, and asking for help, and trying again.

To wrap up, when you are looking to create a culturally responsive math classroom, I want you to think about more than just diverse mathematicians and social justice math problems. Those are important, but I want you to focus on creating a space that takes your students’ learning to the next level because there is a connection between the content and your students; the things they care about and will care about for years to come.

Culturally relevant lessons matter because they center process over product, they are student centered and not teacher centered. These lessons allow your students to grow and develop into the next generation of thought leaders. 

That is what we want. 

For ideas on specific activities and strategies to use in the math classroom check out:

A Culture-Centered Math Class

**Custom Teaching Solutions is an affiliate for the Amazon Associates Program  which means we receive a commission on every sale that comes through our link.**

Let me set the scene. It is January 1st of a brand new year. Your students will be returning to school in a few days. You want to maximize this new year, fresh start vibe. You want to reestablish norms and expectations AND set your students up for personal and academic growth this year.

Hands down, the best way to do this is to make some connections by creating a culturally responsive, culture centered, student thriving kind of classroom.

The start of a new year is a great marker for focused reflection, goal setting, and forward planning. 

In education, we have at least two clear opportunities to take advantage of the “new year” vibe. In August or September the school year begins in the United States. In January, the new calendar year begins for most countries around the world.

Also, depending on the grade level you teach, students begin new academic class rotations half way through the school year. A “new beginning”.

One Word. One Focus. One Year

So, how can we as educators use the energy of these new year seasons to learn more about our students culturally? How can we use what we learn to establish or reestablish norms, expectations, and rules in the classroom? How can we set our students up for personal and academic success?

Well, two thoughts – 

1. Focusing on a new year, new you, resolutions type of deal is not necessarily beneficial. According to a YouGov Survey, about a third of the people who set new year’s resolutions kept all of them. About a half of the people who set new year’s resolutions kept some of them and 16% didn’t keep any. These numbers are based on a fairly low sample size because, according to YouGov, people are more or less likely to actually set new year’s resolutions based on their age. So, a millennial may be more likely to set a resolution than a Gen Z’er. These two types of people are setting different types of resolutions.

However, equipping students with skills to reflect on their journey, both personally and academically can be beneficial. Showing them how to sort through the challenges of the previous collective moments that made up a year and use what they learned to inform their choices moving forward is wildly important. 

2. Using a strategy like choosing a focus word for the year can help you and your students be more successful. Choosing one word is rooted in reflection. Reflecting on your collective moments makes you more aware of your culture and the impact your culture has had on your teaching practices. Then you can shift and improve or amplify those practices. 

Having your students reflect on their collective moments can help them learn a lot about themselves culturally and the impact their culture has had on their choices, successes, and challenges. As they reflect, you get to learn more about them culturally. This in turn allows for a better understanding of learning needs, expectations, norms, etc. It can help you set a baseline for expectations and norms in the classroom. Coming up with a focus word or phrase is powerful because it is grounded in intentional reflection for forward momentum. Completing a one word project for students is marked for success.

The Power of Choosing One Word for Personal and Academic Success

Let’s continue answering the three aforementioned questions. To establish beneficial norms, expectations, and classroom rules you need to know about your students culturally. In order to set your students up for personal and academic success you need to know about them culturally. This means creating a culture-centered/culturally responsive classroom where three necessary and beneficial practices are always at work – reflection, learning, and implementation. One reason why having your students choose their one word is so powerful is because it allows you and your students to do all three. This is the key to a truly student centered classroom with a personalized learning path for each student.

Having students participate in the one word/phrase exercise is perfect. Think about it, as your students are reflecting on what word they will choose they have to sort through several other words deciding whether the word resonates with them, their purpose, their goals, their aura. 

In doing so, they become aware of certain things, like “who am I that I connect with this word over another?”  Like thinking of other words that might have been a focus whether they realized it or not and then seeing what worked and what didn’t work, as well as thinking through why a strategy worked or didn’t work. 

Then, your students need to decide whether to accept or reject this knowledge. They can work through that by formulating new ideas, crushing old ideas, acknowledging and processing feelings.

Finally, your students will decide what action to take moving forward. Do they need to learn new strategies, concepts, or go deeper in understanding previously learned concepts? Do they need help? What resources will enable them to be successful this time around?

7 Activities to help your students choose their word or phrase for the year

Here are 7 Activities to help your students choose their word or phrase for the year – 

Adjectives Around the Room – Write multiple adjectives on index cards and tape them to the tops of desks, on the walls, or on the backs of chairs. Have students sit or stand near the adjective that resonates with them. While your students are near the adjective, have them fill out the accompanying sheet. I recommend having students switch at least 3 times.

Picture Inspiration Around the Room – Print multiple pictures – landscapes, statues, people completing activities – place them around the classroom on walls and desktops. Have students complete a gallery walk answering the questions and making observations on an accompanying sheet. Have students switch at least 3 times.

Poetry for Inspiration – Have students read several poems individually or in small groups. Students discuss the meaning of each and gather inspiration. Students may choose a word or phrase from the poem.

Famous Quotes– Choose several quotes to have students read and reflect on. You may want to include some information about the person who delivered the quote. Your students may connect with the words or the person.

A Musical Journey toward Inspiration – Have students write the names of songs on a sheet of paper. Preview and then play through the songs in no particular order. You may want to print out lyrics. Allow students to sit with the melody and the words. How does it resonate with them?

Emotions – Put several positive and negative emotions around the room. Have students move to two different positive and one negative emotions. Have them describe why they chose this emotion. Do they want to embrace this or reject it? Do they want to feel it more or less? **This activity could trigger trauma. This may not be appropriate for every class, or any class.**

A Little Chit Chat – This is an activity that can be completed in conjunction with one of the others. Some of your students may be verbal processors. Giving them time to debrief with one – three other students may help in providing clarity.

Gain Insight into Who Your Students are Culturally

Watching your students work through these types of activities will give you insight into who they are, what they value, and who they hope to become. It will allow you to craft your lessons around helping them become their future selves successfully.

Once your students have selected a word, have them write it down or type it, make it pretty. Have them record the dictionary definition and their connotation of the word. Have them jot down their expectations for how a focus on this word will play out for the coming year. What do they want? Why? What has impacted their thinking and choice. 

Finally, do a One word check in throughout the semester. This should not be a one and done activity. It is important to fully teach them the skills of reflecting, goal setting, focusing, and implementing.

If you want to use my PowerPoint lesson slides, student activity sheets, and templates, grab my print and go resource, Check out the one word project for students HERE.

Cheers, my friend and Happy New Year!

Every experience students have is an opportunity to help them tap into their power as learners. Experiences outside of the classroom impact the way students view experiences inside the classroom and vice versa.

As educators, we realize that, but do our students? They should. Understanding how their cultural beliefs, traditions, norms, societal expectations and upbringing impact their mindset and worldview is immensely important. 

When students understand who they are, they can better understand why they are, and intentionally shift how they operate in order to learn more deeply and successfully. 

The Power of Cultural Reflection for Students and Teachers

This is not just beneficial for the students. It is beneficial for educators as well. When students understand themselves, they can articulate their learning needs more clearly. This allows us to differentiate lessons and create a learning environment that authentically allows the students to be affirmed, welcomed, and celebrated through instruction.

As students become more aware of how their culture impacts them as learners, their academic identity is noticeably more confident. They understand how to be their best learning self. This leads to increased academic success.

Incorporating this type of reflection specifically in regard to classroom assignments is powerful. 

Allowing your students to reflect on their culture, empowers them to understand the way they think, how they process, and determine their strengths as a learner.

Why Should Students Reflect on Their Assignments?

Reflecting on their assignments allows them to think about what they learned about themselves, their peers, and the world around them.

Assignment reflection also provides opportunities to determine what they want or need to learn more about in the future.

So, now I’m sure you’re wondering how to make all this magic happen in your classroom with your students. 

Using the Power of Cultural Self-Reflection in Your Classroom

Here are three strategies to get you started:

1. Ask yourself three anchor questions as you are analyzing your curriculum, designing lessons, and selecting resources to support learning.
   1. What are my students learning about themselves?
   2. What are my students learning about my peers?
   3. What are my students learning about the world around them?
2. Talk to your students about culture – what it is, why it is important, and how it impacts their perspective as learners.
3. Have your students reflect on their assignments before and after completion. HERE are some of the reflection sheets I use with my students.

These three strategies are power packed and results based. It takes time to get your students in the habit of reflecting and being comfortable thinking about themselves in a new way, but I promise the results are exponentially rewarding.

Cheers to reflection!

P.S. If you need some additional support creating lessons for your unique set of students, click the link below and schedule a coaching call with me today!

I’ve heard it said that practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make permanent.  To become and remain a culturally competent educator there are five habits you can practice. 

• Engage in personal & professional reflection 
• Understand mindset (awareness, acceptance, action)
• Participate in focused professional learning/lifetime learner 
• Be a goal setter and goal getter 
• Take Action

Habit #1 – Engage in personal & professional reflection 

Engaging in cycles of cultural reflection is an essential starting place. We each have a culture; our traditions, norms, beliefs, and expectations. These shape who we are personally and professionally. Our culture helps us understand the world around us. Our culture shapes us as educators. It shapes the learning environment we create and the learning experience we establish for our students. Reflecting on this helps us to become aware of our blind spots and biases, our strengths and stories. We often center our classrooms and curriculum around our personal beliefs. Centering ourselves can put us at risk of minimizing, isolating, and marginalizing our students. My Cultural Reflection Workshop & Journal walks you through three levels of reflection and gets you thinking about how different aspects of your culture are centered in the classroom. 

Habit #2 – Understand Your Mindset  

You are aware of your beliefs, traditions, and expectations, through cultural reflection, now what? After reflecting on your culture to gain awareness, the next step is acceptance. With acceptance comes a shifting mindset.  Grab a sheet of paper. Draw a t-chart. Write current belief on one side of the “t” and shifting (desired) belief on the other side of the “t”. Now jot down three of your current cultural beliefs related to pedagogy, teaching, or your students. Then, jot down the adjusted cultural belief or an addition to one of your current beliefs.

Habit #3 – Participate in Focused Professional learning

Alright, my friend. You’ve done most of the tough, but necessary stuff, so here is the next brave step. To truly be a culturally competent educator you must understand what it actually means to be culturally competent and how that shows up in your teaching practices and classroom. You can do this through focused professional learning. Reading the blog posts and the books is great, but actionable professional learning will show you how to successfully implement. If you’re looking to kickstart your learning right now, check out this workshop “Kickstart Your Culturally Responsive Teaching”.

Habit #4 – Be a goal setter & a goal getter

Olympic volleyball player, Rachael Adams, says, “A dream written down with a date is a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action becomes reality.” It is wonderful to dream about a classroom where all students are affirmed, welcomed, and celebrated. It is even better to make this dream a reality. The way to do this is by establishing realistic, actionable goals. Two examples of goals you can set are: 1) to reflect at least once a semester 2) choose one lesson from one unit to revamp. Check out my tips for creating a Culturally Responsive Lesson. Once you set the goals, it is time to take action. 

Habit #5 – Take Action

I always say that small, consistent and intentional steps get you to the goal. No need to be overwhelmed. Allow yourself grace, “rest if you must, but don’t you quit.” You’ve got this. And honestly, this is the most fun habit! This is the habit where you get to use your amazing knowledge and creative juices to design or redesign culturally responsive lessons, select dynamic resources, and collaborate with your teacher crew. If you need a crew you can always join the Culture-Centered Facebook group, or hop on a quick coaching call with me to talk about all the things. 

Practicing these 5 habits of a culturally competent educator will help you transform your teaching practice and transcend the learning experience for your students.

Cheers!

I’ve created some dynamic resources to help you on your journey toward cultural competence!

What will you do with these next 30 days? How will you prepare YOU?

Here are the three things I plan to do.

The beginning of the school year is not the time to prepare. In between classroom set up, syllabus printing, roster reorganization, team meetings and other PD, all I have time for is coffee. 

One month before school starts I am still relaxed enough to really think about who I am, what I accomplished last year, who I want to be and what I want to accomplish this year.

To do this, I ask myself focus forward questions. These are questions that help me think about the future. So, I might ask, “Am I purposefully pursuing my passion? How will I continue my pursuit this year?” 

I reflect for a few minutes, but the majority of my time is spent thinking about next steps.

Next steps, for me, always involve finding inspiration and encouragement. 

Reading books, taking walks, watching movies, talking with friends, taking an art class or a dance class. I can gather inspiration from most places when I am open to receiving it.

Over the years I have found that living an inspired life in the best lesson I can teach my students. 

From the inspiration I gather, I can begin to create my first Power Up space.  This is a place where I can continue to be inspired throughout the school year.

For tips on how to create your own Power Up space, check out this blog post.

The last thing I do 30 days before the school year is …. pick my poison. 

Stay with me. I promise it makes sense.

One of my favorite movies is The Princess Bride. In that movie there is a battle of wits; the old poison in the cup schtick. The challenger actually places poison in both cups. So, how does he escape death? He deliberately chose this poison and then ingested small amounts of it each day. This built up an immunity in his body.

What does this have to do with the 30 day prep for school? Well, there is always something that we dislike doing, but we know it will make us stronger. This is the poison. 

Poison – anything done or consumed in excess.

So, during my 30 day prep time I choose something that I don’t particularly like doing, but I know it will make me a better person. I do this thing in small doses.

For example, I love a clean, organized house, but with 4 young kids, cleaning is not a task I enjoy. In order to have what I want, I put myself on a small dose cleaning schedule. 

• Mondays – strip all the beds, remake them, and wash all the dirty sheets.
• Tuesday – Clean the bathrooms
• Wednesday – Wash kids’ clothes

In this way, I am not overwhelmed trying to clean everything at once.

Well, that’s all folks!

Cheers to the 30 day prep!

Joce

Need some great professional development? Want some practical strategies you can take straight back to the classroom? Check out The Intentional Teaching Series.

As educators we are always being asked about the impact we are making in our schools and with our students. This is an important question because we have such a significant impact on both the school environment and the student experience. Regularly reflecting on ways that students are negatively and positively impacted by our attitudes, our words, and our interactions is important in creating a successful and thriving school environment.

If we could pause here for just a moment… I want to ask about you, the educator. How are you doing today? How are you feeling? How have your students’ attitudes, words, and interactions impacted you?

It is equally as important to check on how teachers are doing, as it is to check in about the students. Not only do teachers need to check in, but we need to make sure we are taking the time to process.

The Importance of Processing

Today we are going to discuss why we should process and how to process.

Process: To deal with something according to a particular set of actions.

Here are some helpful steps for processing the points of impact along your teaching journey:

1. Acknowledge the feeling.
2. Acknowledge the trigger.
3. Lean into the feeling and learn from it.
4. Ask yourself questions – do you like this feeling? Is it negatively or positively impacting your person?
5. Decide on appropriate responses – counseling, journaling, exercise.
6. Release the feeling, retain the lesson.

As teachers we are emotionally connected to our students and the school environment. Throughout the school year there are things that happen to our students impacting their behavior and academic performance. These things also impact us as teachers.

There are both positive and negative points of impact. Look at the chart below. How do these events make you feel?

Begin Purposeful Reflection

Download the FREE Healthy Processing Packet and begin processing the points of impact you encounter year after year, day after day, class period after class period.

**Here is a teaser** Write down one significant point of impact. Next to it, write a corresponding feeling. Don’t think about it. Don’t try to be politically correct. How does the event make you feel?

Cheers! You have already begun healthy processing.

Is this the first time you have stopped to process?

If not, think about how you typically process these most significant points of impact.

If this is the first time, reflect on why you have not stopped to do this sooner.

The Importance of Awareness & Atunement in Purposeful Reflection

In “Understanding Emotions and How to Process Them“, Dr. Gregg Henriques discusses the importance of awareness and attunement. To be aware is to recognize the existence of the feelings. What feelings are produced as a result of events happening in the school as a whole AND those produced by students’ attitudes, behavior, and interactions?

Attunement describes a person’s awareness and receptivity level in conjunction with the reaction to awareness. So, now that you are aware of the feelings produced by various impacts, what is your response? Do you shove the feelings away? Do you discuss the feelings? Journal? Counseling? Talk to a teacher friend?

Your reaction can be the beginning of a healthy processing journey, or the beginning of an unhealthy compacting journey.

Download the FREE Healthy Processing Packet to begin your journey. We will dive a bit deeper in the next post.

Cheers to healthy processing!

Joce

Looking for a deep dive into purposeful reflection for both teachers and students? Check out the Intentional Teaching Series.

People are always saying, “I wish I could be a fly on the wall in THAT room!” Well, today you get to be the fly.

Imagine you are buzzing down the hallway in a local school. You fly into a classroom on the left with the door open.

Classroom #1:

You rest on the white board in the front of the classroom and observe some students slumped in their desks half asleep. Other students are texting under their desks or generally off task.

The teacher lectures from the front of the classroom flipping through PowerPoint slides. The teacher stops twice to ask if there are questions and then continues after no one raises a hand.

After almost dozing off yourself, you decide to keep it buzzing. There is a closed-door on the right, but you can hear laughter and chatter.

Classroom #2:

As you slip under the door you see students huddled in groups around the classroom discussing a topic. Some are acting things out, others are taking notes, while still others are researching answers on their tablets. Almost all the students are engaged.

After a short time observing, you hear a bell ring. The students sit down in their groups and the teacher says, “Lecture 4. Tablets ready? Interactive slide show ready?” And then the teacher began a 10 minute lecture, pausing periodically for students to edit their notes.

At the conclusion of the lecture, students resumed conversation with their group regarding the new lecture topic. They asked each other questions, looked up answers, posed scenarios, and hypothesized. The teacher walked around the classroom monitoring student discussion groups and answering clarifying questions.

“Wow!” You thought, and buzz out the classroom. A short distance away you see another open door and decide to buzz in.

Classroom #3:

The teacher is sitting at a table with 4 students. The other students are sitting in groups and various places around the classroom on bean bags and couches.

You can see that all the students are engaged in different activities. They seem to be on a self paced schedule. Some are reading independently, others are typing papers or proofreading a classmates’ paper, still others are in small groups collaborating on a project.

Buzz Buzz. Time to head back to your classroom. What would you see if you were teaching?

So, what is the point? Is this a judgy judgy moment? No. This is a time for reflection.

Ask yourself:

1. Which teacher am I?  -OR- Which teacher do I want to be?
2. Why do I teach this way?
3. What simple changes can I make to ensure student engagement is a priority?

Now that I am a parent I also ask myself, “Am I the teacher I would want for my own child?”If the answer is no, I know things need to change.

Ask yourself:

1. How can I change my mindset?
2. What habits can I change?
3. How will these two changes impact student growth and engagement in my classroom?

Time to check your stats. Will asking these questions require work. Of course! We know however, that anything worth having is worth fighting for. Is student growth and engagement worth having?

So begin by asking yourself these questions. Then, seek solutions. Maybe you know a colleague that can help you assess and improve upon your teaching practices. Maybe there is some online PD you can do to brush up on some teaching strategies.

Be reflective, encouraged, and proactive! Download the FREE Teacher Reflection to start putting together an action plan for success in this area.

It is often the smallest changes that make the largest impact.

Cheers to transforming our mindset, tweaking teaching strategies, and transcending student expectations of school.

Need some great professional development? Want some practical strategies you can take straight back to the classroom? Check out The Intentional Teaching Series.