What lengths am I willing to go to in order to do right by every child?

We all come from different places and spaces. We all have independent learning styles, have contrasting means of expression and communication styles. There is no one child that is the same; we learn this from a very young age. So, when it comes to being an educator and ensuring every child gets the best version of school possible, we need to embrace all those differences and make learning fun for all students, and most importantly, impactful for each of them. We cannot offer equity in the classroom if we are using the same, old, rigid style of teaching. That is like trying to fit a square into a circle.

I believe we can offer equity in the classroom by incorporating culturally responsive instruction into the curriculum. Culturally responsive education requires stepping outside of the typical education box and finding the things that make your students feel connected to the lesson and engages them on a more personal level.

This style of teaching will allow me to go even further in making sure every student has an equal opportunity to learn. Through culturally responsive instruction, I will offer compassion, understanding, empathy, diversity in learning styles and teaching. It will not always be easy. I will need to be courageous and always speak the truth, never hiding the reality of social-racial issues, but addressing them appropriately and with grace and consciousness. I will share this style of teaching with other educators that I see may not be offering this environment in their own classroom(s) or may be struggling to connect with their students. Advocating for all students, always. I will learn with my students, by means of their perspective of the curriculum and how they interpret lessons. I will ensure that I do my best to understand where they are coming from and create a space for them that only fosters growth.


Comments

  1. Priya ClarkMarch 31, 2022 at 11:41 AM

    Hello Christel!
    I love your word art and I see some words in there that I used as well! I think that you have a very similar thought process to another blog that I responded to and I love how you emphasize that we all come from different places and spaces. It is really easy to forget this simple concept, but it is imperative that we remind ourselves constantly to be able to have a scope of what is going on in our students lives and how we can help them. I love that you focus on our lesson planning and how we should be incorporating our students lives into our lessons to make it fun and engaging for them. It happens too often where students just sit in a classroom, read a textbook, take notes and leave. This does not work for every student. To be able to do right by the children in our classrooms, we have to make sure they are engaged in our lessons and that they are having fun. I know that some of the classes I take right now, like this one, are extremely engaging for us and I end up getting the most information out of it by doing activities and speaking with my peers. Other classes of mine are heavily lecture based and I don't get as much out of them as I wish I did because I just don't thrive in that environment and I know that other students feel the same way! Thank you for all of your ideas!

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    Replies
    1. Christel GrallMarch 31, 2022 at 12:33 PM

      Thank you, Priya! Yes! I think lesson planning with students' learning styles in mind, is the way to every student's success. I appreciate that you see the importance of this too. I am right there with you when it comes to having a learning style that is more interactive and not so one-sided. I love drama-based pedagogy and really see the value in using it for almost every lesson out there. There are so many styles of learning it works with too!

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