After watching Zaretta Hammond's webinar, I began thinking, as I tend to, what does this mean for me and my class? How can I get to the concrete parts of this to USE them tomorrow in my room? I have to admit that I don't feel like I know a lot about culturally responsive teaching (CRT). I watched a webinar last week in which Hammond was a panel member. It was so informative. They talked a lot about trauma informed practices during the Pandemic. But really what Zaretta Hammond talked about in this webinar was really good teaching practices (the 4 cultural learning tools, memory, puzzles and patterns, talk & word play, perspectives) and it seems shifts to include culture to lower the stress response for students (students of color, low income students, English learners, etc). Lowering stress by increasing rapport as a foundation in order to push student to the zone of proximal development is the goal. Not to make students trust the teacher and others to feel good but to feel good and have enough trust to learn and become leaders of their own learning. Another idea Hammond discussed was the issue of schools having inequitable outcomes because they underdevelop the cognitive information processing skills of diverse learners. This has been something that I am really interested in and I have blogged about. I saw it first hand and also struggle with how to teach higher order thinking skills to to students with limited English skills. I still want to exlore that topic in my class room and hope to include that in my research or perhaps my future research. :) Hammond discussed rapport or trust with the teacher as a means to learn. As a teacher, I feel like I have always been pretty good at building rapport with students. I am inherently always myself, I do not put on a teacher voice, well I don't think so. But that has served me well. I invited my principal to the last live webinar with Hammond and others. She posed a question to our staff about connecting with kids. (My school prides itself on connecting with children). She gave a challenge about thinking about who have we connected with thus far and who have we not. And tasked us with how to connect with one more student in the next week. It was beneficial for me to have that challenge because I am pleasantly surprised by how well I have connected with my students virtually, however, I do not feel connected with them all. I have some work to do. So, that is something that I have to think about. Obviously, I have my four new students I need to get to know but there are still a handful of others that I need to focus on as well. I look forward to trying.
3 Comments
Sheri Blades
11/9/2020 10:15:23 pm
I love that your admin attended the webinar! AND that she took a piece of it to prompt reflection with your whole staff! That is commendable! I will take on the challenge too. I feel I have connected with majority of my students but there are still a few who I need to continue getting to know deeper and earn their trust. Your blog helped highlight who those kiddos are and I already have a few ideas of what I will do to try to foster that relationship building. Thanks for the reminder and inspiration!
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11/11/2020 12:34:31 pm
Erica,
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Lynda Bergner
11/20/2020 07:55:58 am
I love Dr Hammonds book, and I appreciate her position on building relationships with students. I'm with you, before doing anything else with my kids, I try to build rapport with them, because I think that there is nothing more important that we can do as educators. I think that if the students don't trust us, there is no way that we can educate them.
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About the AuthorI teach 3rd grade in Napa Unified. Archives
December 2020
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