 We're not the commercial. Good afternoon. My name is Anne Pigram. This is Sharon Yates. And this is our story, A Promise Kept, Developing 21st Century Thinkers and Learners Through Culturally Responsive Teaching. My name is Sharon Yates. I'm a lifelong career educator with 41 years of dedication and service to one locality and one school district. However, my AHA moment and story began in 1965 after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. I was in ninth grade just beginning my high school journey. It was a time of racial upheaval and uneasiness across the country and Denver D. County was no different. Schools were under attack and were being forced to provide a plan to integrate public education. Denver D. County followed the freedom of choice as its means of complying with federal laws. Of course, only a handful of black students chose to go to Denwoodie High, the all-white high school, and no white students chose to attend Southside, the all-black school. But after being encouraged by my algebra teacher, I chose to leave the county's only secondary school for African-American students in high school. I left an educational environment that was familiar, comfortable, and where I related to my teachers and fellow classmates to go to where I was unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and yes, unwanted. Though there were other black students who chose freedom of choice, there were so few of us that often I was the only African-American student in the class. I did not speak up, volunteer, and always sit very quietly trying desperately to be unnoticed, unless the teacher singled me out which was always terrifying. What's the experience all bad? No. For I learned some things from this chapter of my life, and one of those lessons was to try and never put my students into a situation to always provide an instructional environment conducive to learning, one that was comfortable and that my students could relate, and a place where they could respect diversity. So I know firsthand the importance of a culturally responsive instructional environment. So you may ask what is a culturally responsive teaching? It is pedagogy that integrates a diverse curriculum and an instructional environment which reflects the student demographics. How does it manifest itself in the classroom for teachers? Here is the self-checklist in providing a culturally responsive educational environment. Know the cultural backgrounds of your students. And the lessons. Introduce lessons with what students already know from home, community and school. Find ways to bridge the social language and academic language. Allow opportunities for students to talk about elements of their cultures. Provide assignments that encourage students to share experiences. Ensure that classroom visuals are representative of cultural groups. Encourage interpersonal interactions and a sense of community within the classroom. Find ways to engage all students in each lesson. Vary the use of culturally connected instructional approaches such as storytelling, affirmation, imagery, call and response and mnemonics. So how does this keep the promise of developing community learners? A culturally responsive instructional environment provides the skills needed to be productive citizens and work and function in a global society. Those skills intentionally provide opportunities for communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. How can stakeholders create a culturally responsive environment? This is where my story begins. It begins in the mid-1980s when I moved from teaching English in a rural school setting to teaching English in Fairfax County, a large suburban school district in Northern Virginia. I was afforded the opportunity to work with students of all ages, ranges, age ranges, abilities and diverse backgrounds which brought with it successes and opportunities for professional growth. However, as my classrooms became more ethnically diverse, I now had students who brought with them different types of language challenges. This led to my foray into working with a group of students who proved to be the most awarding of all of my experiences in my teaching career. These students were ESOL students, also known as English language learners. Armed with the advice that had been passed down to me by one of my mentor educators, don't allow ESOL students to stay where they are, bring them up to where you want them to be. I set out to expose these students to literary masterpieces and creative compositions. But I quickly learned that my ESOL students could not comprehend or even relate to my zeal in teaching them the intricacies and beauty of Shakespearean language. For in my attempts to bring them up to where I wanted them to be, I was overlooking the cultural experiences and backgrounds that they carried with them on a daily basis. Experiences that they brought into the classroom with them every day that we would meet. This then translated into a way of letting them know that I recognized the importance of the wealth of cultural experiences that made them who they were, along with celebrating the diverse backgrounds that were part of our classroom learning experiences. At that point I decided to use a variety of learning strategies at various times throughout the course, which allowed students to showcase their cultural and ethnic backgrounds to each other and also to me. One of the most effective of these strategies was a variation of a vision board, which I like to call if I can see it, I can be it. In creating this visual presentation students would be encouraged to not only show pictures and images of their future goals and accomplishments, but they were also asked to include something on the board that would give others a snapshot into their cultural or ethnic background. As a classroom teacher these images helped me to learn the importance of the quinceanera to the Spanish culture or the significance of Ramadan in the Feast of Eid to my Muslim students or to the importance of the centuries old Asian custom of animal birth signs much like our zodiac. I came to enjoy hearing stories from my native African students about their naming ceremonies or admiring the beautiful pictures of hijabs and saris that would be illustrated on these vision board presentations. As each student took a turn in sharing this important representation of themselves I noticed how each one became more comfortable and supportive of each other. As the year progressed with these vision board presentations afforded me the opportunity to frequently check in with the students using the board information as a conversation starter. Posting them in the classroom demonstrated the importance that I saw in their representations and eventually it helped me to make some real life connections in their boards and many of the academic topics that we covered in class. I also enjoyed sharing with students any attempts that I made in creating my own visual interpretations of topics that related to cultures that were of interest to me. As you can see from this example I recently had the opportunity to summarize my visit to Montreal Canada by putting together a representation of images along with words and phrases that are entirely in French. In doing this I created an environment where students view my way of connecting to a culture or a language that is not inherently part of my background but then be used to make universal connections which can extend far beyond the classroom. So in conclusion our story ends with a promise kept developing for our first century thinkers and learners. However, this could be the beginning of your story and keeping the promise. How can the information presented through this brief presentation apply to you as a promise keeper of public education reflect on your role as a stakeholder in education and briefly share a statement or thought with your shoulder partner as you talk about maybe some of the important points that we have brought forward. It's just the importance of recognizing cultural teaching as an important component of 21st century learning. How does this connect to you? Think about it, share about it Ann and I are going to come down in the audience and we'd just like for you all to just talk a little bit about some of the points that we have presented to you this afternoon about cultural responsive teaching. I want to keep that going. We would like to leave you this is the official end right now. We would like to leave you with a quote by Johann Goethe which says there are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children one of these roots the other wings. Thank you so much.