Newcomer students & families/ESL

Zaretta Hammond explains why one of the biggest challenges teachers struggle with when first embracing this approach is trying to operationalize it in their classrooms. They worry that they have to learn 19 different cultures – their customs, holidays, foods, and language. This simply isn’t true. The other instinct is to reduce it to a set of checklists for each culture as a way to make it manageable. Cultural responsiveness is more of a process than a strategy. The process begins when a teacher recognizes the cultural capital and tools students of color bring to the classroom. She then responds positively by noticing, naming and affirming when students use them in the service of learning. The teacher is “responsive” when she is able to mirror these cultural ways of learning in her instruction, using similar strategies and tools to scaffold learning. The author offers three easy starting points to help make the process more manageable.