As a teacher in the Bronx, culturally responsive pedagogy and instructional moves were the crux of my teaching philosophy. I welcomed every opportunity to include different narratives, perspectives, and challenges into my teaching. My kids learned about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They were asked to take Bigger Thomas to trial in Richard Wright's Native Son. They wrote spoken word pieces and raps focused on the themes of their lives. My focus was always, "What's happening in my classroom and how can I make the experience better for my students?"
Then I became an assistant principal three years ago, and we had to switch our curriculum from one that was homegrown and written by our teachers to one that was pre-written. This was for many reasons, namely that the data showed that our homegrown curriculum wasn't working as well as it should. While 8th grade data had improved, we saw other grades remain stagnant or reverse, as some teachers were more adept at writing curriculum than others. This led to different experiences for our students from classroom to classroom and disjointed outcomes both vertically (across grades) and horizontally (within grades). Our kids deserved better. They needed to see and feel success not just in their classroom experiences but also on paper.
While I felt that adopting this new curriculum could lead to better outcomes for all our students, I was also grappling with a challenge: When I'd been a classroom teacher at my school, I'd had deep personal ties to our homegrown material. In fact, I'd been the lead dissenter on faculty about adopting a pre-written, less personalized curriculum! The new curriculum had themes and ideas that alluded to culturally responsive elements, but it did not speak to the lives of the children in front of us. I knew other teachers would feel the same discontent I had, because they too had personal ties to the curriculum they'd helped write. I also worried that it would take away some of their agency due to the scripted nature of the material and lessons.
However, what I tried to stay rooted in was the experience of our students as illuminated through the data. When it came right down to it, our old curriculum was not serving students as well as it should. It was time for a change—it was time for me to lead that change.
Our old curriculum was not serving students as well as it should. It was time for a change—it was time for me to lead that change.
To do so, I needed to dig into my role as not just an assistant principal, but an instructional leader. An instructional leader needs to understand deeply what is being taught in their school—the assessments that are given, the standards being addressed, and the specific ways of engaging learners at all levels. Being an instructional leader also means supporting teachers with how to adapt and modify what students are learning. Lastly, it means being able to model and speak to the strongest and most relevant strategies in education for teaching and learning.
All these responsibilities impact the instructional core of a school community. What is taught, how it's taught, and how students respond to it all help to shape and define a school's culture. Our school needed a strong instructional culture where teachers felt empowered to speak up about their concerns for the new curriculum and had ways to address those concerns. We needed to work together to make the curriculum fair for all our students but still relevant to them, while also allowing teachers their agency and autonomy as instructional leaders in their classrooms to make decisions for the children in front of them.
When Teachers Speak Up
I wasn't entirely sure how to get buy-in from our teachers around the new curriculum, but I knew it was crucial for them to decide how to adapt it to reflect the students they worked with every day. It was important for me to listen to them—they are the experts who have their own cultural knowledge and skill sets. They wanted to ensure students' experiences, voices, and humanity were illuminated. Yes, it was necessary to teach to the standards and improve data outcomes from both formal and informal assessments, but how could we also authentically weave the identities of our students into these lessons and units? Most importantly, how could we as educators have conversations with and alongside students about challenging issues connected to race, bias, and discrimination when they were not clearly addressed in the new curriculum?
Credit: Photo Courtesy of Shauna McGee
Author Shauna McGee (standing on right) leads a lesson reflection session with teachers to evaluate cultural responsiveness in their respective content areas.
After talking with teachers, the next steps became clear for me as an assistant principal and as an instructional leader. Together, we had to unpack and deconstruct the curriculum, then piece it back together with our students' needs front and center. Teachers must lead this work, but they would require support and clear criteria for alignment and success.
An Instructional Culture VIBE
Classrooms and school buildings can be full of "bad vibes" if we don't center students' learning and the valuable experiences and knowledge they bring with them into the classroom. For this reason, I developed a strategy for instructional leaders to look at curriculum with teachers to both strengthen the instructional culture of a school and ensure that curriculum is culturally responsive to the students they serve. The V.I.B.E. structure, as I call it, allows for educator reflection, and it ensures expectations are kept high for all students through four steps. It also pushes the instructional practices of educators by requiring that they plan and evaluate curriculum with an intentional focus on deepening instructional practices from a culturally responsive lens. Here's the breakdown:
V
Voices and experiences of those who are marginalized are an integral part of the learning experience. All curricula are culturally responsive, but it is important to ask what culture is being subscribed to. Inclusion and prominence of underrepresented voices are moral imperatives that all educators should task themselves with as we educate the next generations of leaders. I don't know about you, but I'd like my future politician or doctor to understand inequities in their respective fields and seek to address them through reflection and examination of disparities.
I
Interrogation and Inquiry asks teachers to determine if the questions and themes posed within the curriculum can be used as they are or added onto to include more of the student experience. Teachers can ask, "What are the unintended consequences of teaching this lesson exclusively as it is written?", "What pre-context do my students need to be successful in reaching the learning target?", or "Is there a historical context that would deepen the understanding of this lesson for students?"
B
Backwards design asks teachers to examine the end of unit tasks as the driving force for the learning within the unit. Sure, we want to have culturally responsive learning and ask students to grapple with global issues, but how does that show up in the learning? This is where we focus narrowly on the standards, tasks, and skills in a unit to determine if they include critical thinking in addition to recall and application of skills. Backwards design asks us to start with what we want students to demonstrate at the end of the unit and then plan around that as opposed to starting with learning targets and planning ahead. There is an emphasis on focusing on the end goal as the level for the instruction throughout.
E
We must provide students with the opportunity to Extend their learning by posing new challenges, engaging in research about a topic, or thinking about real-world community impact through project-centered (civics-oriented) learning opportunities. This could be as simple as having students pose "what if" questions aligned to their learning and then having to respond to them using real-world examples. Or it can be as complex as students addressing an issue that is impacting people who look like them in another part of the world and writing bills or proposals to raise awareness.
School buildings can be full of “bad vibes” if we don’t center students’ learning and the valuable experiences and knowledge they bring with them into the classroom.
If you are a culturally responsive practitioner, or desire to include more of this lens into your practice, the VIBE model provides both educators and the administrative team with clear look fors aligned to curriculum and instruction. But just having the model doesn't inherently result in a culturally responsive curriculum. Culturally responsive practices require that leaders and teachers evaluate their own belief systems:
- Do teachers have time during the school day to discuss issues of race and inequities for children of color in our school?
- Do teachers and/or the administrative team have a brave space to discuss their own race, ethnicity, identity, and how it has impacted their lived experiences
- Are teachers being trained on how to create brave spaces for students and/or facilitate circles for challenging discussion?
- Do I as a leader require and provide support for how to implement culturally responsive tenets in daily teaching practices?
- What are we reading as a school community or content team?
- What are my core values and belief systems about children of color? Children with disabilities? Unhoused students? Students with varied learning needs?
While a curriculum will never be perfect, there is hope in modifying it to meet student needs. We as administrators also must be on the dance floor with teachers to understand the themes and discourse present within the curriculum that teachers are expected to teach. This allows us to create systems that support equity and culturally responsive instruction. Equity and access should exist for all, and in this curriculum thang, teachers need love and learning to love on the babies in front of them.
While a curriculum will never be perfect, there is hope in modifying it to meet student needs.
Horace Mann referred to education as an "equalizer," and I agree. What we are taught—or not taught—becomes what we believe, what we defend, and how we engage with others in society.
In a school building, you will not always have control over the curriculum taught. It is important for us as administrators to prioritize supporting teachers in developing students' critical thinking. We need students who don't just do well on tests, but who can evaluate the world around them and point out injustices. Students who can build businesses on equitable practices, rooted in providing opportunities for those who may not otherwise have them.
Our role as administrators is to set the standard, model the expectation, and support teachers with both the technical and adaptive challenges that will arise when making changes to curriculum. Is this always easy? Of course not. It requires us as leaders to examine our own core values and what we believe is necessary practice. It requires we support the curriculum work and reflect on why being culturally responsive matters for students.
But this work is essential. By supporting our teachers with cultivating a VIBE, we are setting the standard that says culturally responsive curriculum matters, that they have our support in teaching it, and that we value education that can transform lives.
