The bell sounds and the adventure begins. Hundreds of students flood the hallways, jockeying to get to lockers, bathrooms, and classes, visiting with friends all the while. You can sense excitement, confidence, fear, and anxiety.
The middle and high school years can be challenging for adolescents. To help students in these transition years, we need to make our classrooms into oases of care and support.
As teachers, most of us agree with general statements like, "We should support the success of all students." It's sometimes difficult, however, to translate those broad ideals into practice. Culturally responsive teaching can help us do so.
Culturally responsive teaching is a comprehensive approach that expects and demands that all students meet high expectations in a learning environment that honors all cultural backgrounds, communication styles, and life knowledge. When thinking of culturally responsive teaching, one must recognize that culture is a broad term and is not exclusively associated with race. It is about the important groupings or communities to which we all belong that shape who we are. Important tenets of culturally responsive teaching include developing strong teacher-student bonds; creating a sense of community; and establishing a stable, secure classroom environment.
I have spent many years as a middle school and high school teacher, and although I now teach at a university, I continue to go into classrooms and work with middle and high school teachers and students. Here are some culturally responsive teaching strategies I've found particularly effective in creating caring, supportive classrooms for adolescents.
Develop a Bond with Students
The need to be cared for, understood, and respected is strong in everyone. When we work to connect with our students, we show them that they are important to us. Teachers can develop a bond with middle and high school students through the following strategies.
Learn Students' Names During the First Week of School
Although "learn students' names" sounds incredibly simple, middle and high school teachers see so many students every day that they often fail to master all their students' names quickly.
I take digital pictures of students and promise them that I will know their names by the third day of class. I let students know how serious I am about this by testing myself. At the beginning of class on the third day, with the entire class looking on, I walk to each student's desk and say his or her name. Any mispronounced name is an incorrect response. Students always express surprise and appreciation that I learn their names so quickly.
To be honest, this is not easy; and I'm not always perfect with students' names. However, by making such a public effort, I show students from the first day of school that each one of them is valuable to me. I strive to validate each person and make sure that no one fades into the background.
Welcome Students as They Enter Your Classroom
In middle and high schools, students are used to being fairly anonymous in class. Even if you have hall duty, you may be able to stand near your classroom door and acknowledge each student individually.
Some teachers not only greet students by name but also shake their hands as they enter the room. Giving students a smile as they enter the classroom tells them that they are important to you and that you welcome the opportunity to support them in learning.
Help Students Think About Long-Term Goals
Ask students to make a list of their career goals. Once you know students' goals, integrate information about careers into the daily teaching and learning environment. It can be fun and challenging to think of how different career choices fit into your curriculum content. For example, if you have a student who wants to be a pilot and your class is studying the distance formula, share how that student would need to use this formula in his or her future career.
When students make their career list, ask them to list their role models for their chosen careers and then create a Future Superstars display that includes a picture of each student along with his or her role model.
Celebrate the Culture of Each Student
Teachers can talk about students' cultures in a variety of ways. (Remember that culture doesn't refer exclusively to ethnicity. We all belong to many different cultures.) When high school students study probability and statistics, they can learn about black mathematician David Blackwell in conjunction with other mathematicians mentioned in the curriculum. When I teach the history of computing, which most textbooks cover from a European and United States perspective, I make sure to include Manuel Sadosky, considered the father of computer science in Argentina.
It's also great to use songs from students' cultures. Middle and high school students love to take a tune or song and change up the words to teach others the mathematical content they have been studying. For example, we used the tune "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and changed the words to remind ourselves of the order of operations to solve mathematical problems.
Build a Sense of Classroom Community
Middle schools and high schools often stress individual learning. We need to balance the pursuit of individual accomplishments with a sense of community. Teachers who incorporate a culturally responsive stance help students develop a feeling of responsibility for one another—an awareness that the class rises together in success and falls together in failure. Although building community consumes some instructional time, it can also promote academic growth. Adolescents who feel supported are more likely to do their best.
Help Students Get to Know One Another
Middle and high school students often come from different feeder elementary schools, even from perceived rival schools or neighborhoods, so we cannot assume that community will happen automatically. In many secondary classrooms, students don't even know their peers' names. Therefore, it is crucial to provide time for students to get to know one another and to understand what they have in common.
Teachers should make sure students learn the names of their peers and something special about each person. I often model how to name a special quality of each individual, using my family and myself as examples. Then I ask students to list three to five qualities they consider to be their strengths, no matter how big or small. I use this information to honor students throughout the school year. For example, one student told me that she was really good at styling hair; when we learned about the different formulas for calculating interest, we made sure to reference that student's future hair salon. Several students mentioned that they were good at creating rap songs; I asked them to help write a rap song about the particular math concepts we were studying.
Set Common Goals
With middle and high school students, the goals established at the beginning of the school year often revolve around basic routines. Yet we can use common goals to go beyond classroom management techniques. For example, if students have a problem getting to class and being seated on time, you might make that a goal: "Let's try for 90 percent on Wednesday, 95 percent on Thursday, and 100 percent on Friday." At the end of each class period, the students in the class can track their performance for that day, discuss progress in reaching the goal, and then brainstorm solutions to any obstacles that are preventing them from reaching that goal. Tracking goals helps students recognize they need to work together.
As classes coalesce, goals can become broader and more meaningful. I taught in high-poverty middle and high schools, where the public perception of our students was often negative. Students knew this, and they felt that they were not valued as members of the wider community. I acknowledged this perspective, and then we used it to challenge ourselves to do great things. We adopted a "let's show them" attitude.
As a result of working together, we excelled at the district algebra competitions, computer science competitions, multimedia showcases, and more. We took a negative image and worked to provide evidence that we were successful members of our school district and community. Our standing in the larger community rose, and students' self-esteem increased as well.
Establish Procedures and Routines
Experts in classroom management note that establishing procedures and routines is vital for student learning. In elementary school, students have many routines that help them know what happens daily at certain times, what to expect from the teacher, and how to act. But once students get to middle and high school, the teaching of procedures and routines usually lessens. That's unfortunate because adolescents, who often face so much uncertainty and stress, are especially in need of stability, comfort, and refuge in the school day.
Consistency in procedures and routines does not mean that instruction always needs to occur in the same way. Teachers should alter and differentiate instructional and assessment strategies so all students can be as successful as possible. However, the standard routines and operating procedures should remain constant so that students feel safe and secure. Here are some examples of routines and procedures that you might want to teach middle and high school students.
How to Enter and Leave the Classroom
If you want students to write down the day's agenda in their notebooks as soon as they come into the classroom, explain that procedure and then practice it. Over the next several days, track or graph the number of students who are following this procedure on the board. Provide some way to visually track student progress.
In a similar vein, teach students procedures for leaving the classroom. Let them know whether you want them to leave when the bell rings or wait for you to dismiss the class. The more clearly you state your expectations and then follow those routines, the more comfortable students will become in your classroom.
How to Submit and Retrieve Papers
Let students know exactly how you will collect and return papers. For example, to collect student papers, you might have students turn their papers over so their names are facedown and then pass them forward so that all papers are collected by the first person on the row. The procedures for students to collect their graded papers could be to maintain a basket at the front of the room with a folder for each student; students could check their folders when they enter class. You might even want to have middle school students compete to reduce the time it takes for the entire class to follow these procedures.
How to Ask and Answer Questions
Questions and answers are standard parts of the school day for nearly all adolescents. It's important that teachers establish procedures and routines so that students feel safe to pose and respond to questions.
Students need to know that your classroom is a safe place to learn. This means that it is acceptable to make mistakes when answering a question and that the teacher and fellow students will not ridicule others as they learn. To support a class rule that students respect themselves and others, you might discuss what it would look like to show respect to a student or the teacher when he or she makes a mistake. Talk about how laughing, eye rolling, or other gestures or comments do or do not show respect to the speaker. You could also talk with students about how looking at the speaker (tracking) shows respect, support, and attentiveness.
Students often feel unsure how and when they should ask their own questions. Let students know whether there is a specific time for questions or whether they can ask questions whenever they come up. It is completely acceptable to be up-front and tell students to hold their questions or that you will put questions in the "parking lot." (With this strategy, you put comments or questions that you don't want to lose track of in a special place so that they can be addressed at a later time.) In addition, to reinforce the idea that questions are a natural part of learning, you should commend them for asking questions and providing evidence of their interest and desire to learn the material being covered.
Safe Havens
Supporting our adolescents in their middle and high school years means more than providing them with a rigorous curriculum. It involves providing emotional security for them as they navigate through academic challenges, develop their identity, and dream about their future.
The three culturally responsive approaches presented here will not provide all the support and care that adolescent students need. But these approaches place us on the path to better care for adolescent learners in their challenging transition years. Our classrooms can be safe and supportive havens for our adolescent students.
