C129 (Book Club): From Pedagogy of Poverty to Ready for Rigor (pgs 14- 20)

Welcome back to our book study of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain (CRT) by Zaretta Hammond.  As I reviewed my notes for the last episode, I discovered that I missed two key significant ideas that I want to explore before moving forward.  

​Hammond refers to the school-to-prison pipeline, which is something that is quite prevalent within the United States.  This pipeline consists of learning systems that withhold rigorous instruction to children of color, particularly black and latino boys.  

​The repetitive instruction sparks behavior issues, which increases learners from being removed from the learning setting.  The decrease in instruction widens the gap for developing young people who can critically and creatively think. 

The pipeline can largely be attributed to the “pedagogy of poverty”.  Hammond describes this as, “setting up students up to leave high school with outdated skills and shallow knowledge.  They are able to regurgitate facts and concepts but have difficulty applying this knowledge to new and practical ways.”  Unfortunately, you often see this at the elementary/primary level in poorer schools.  Having worked in these conditions, I’ve seen the pedagogy of poverty used repeatedly by teachers who came from a similar background.  They are often perpetuating the same low-level instruction to the next generation without knowing it. 

​So, how do we get out of this cycle?  We engage in culturally responsive teaching.  Hammond defines it as, “a process of using familiar cultural information and processes to scaffold learning…Focused on relationships, cognitive scaffolding, and critical social awareness.”  What does this mean?  We need to be familiar with the backgrounds of our learners and scaffold learning, so they can access it.  Unfortunately, many educators believe this is reducing the amount of rigor with instruction to meet this shortfall.  Instead, it's quite the opposite.  We are striving to scaffold the process for learners to think critically and creatively.  Zaretta has established this in her Ready for Rigor framework. 

Awareness

Awareness is the first part of this dynamic framework.  We examine our own social and political viewpoint and how it impacts our instructional practices.  We begin by asking ourselves these questions:  
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• What is my level of privilege based on my race, gender, class, or language? 
• How does this privilege allow me more opportunities than others? 
• How is the privilege and bias shaping my teaching practice? 
• How are my actions stopping my learners from reaching their potential? 

This particular portion of the framework became clear to me when I worked in a pre-dominant culture that was not my own.  I had to learn about how my behavior was building a culture of responsiveness or a wall of exclusion.  I had to face some truths about my behavior and level of privilege compared to my peers and learners. 

Learning Partnerships

​Learning Partnerships focuses on building strong relationships where learners trust us and our process of delivering learning.  They know that we are doing everything we can to create opportunities for their growth. We might develop these partnerships by asking these questions: 
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• How am I building individual relationships with my learners? 
• How is my schedule arranged to build in moments for rich discussions, such as: morning meetings, restorative circles, etc. 
• What safeguards am I putting in to ensure they are never missed or cut from the instructional day? 

Relationships always come first before instruction. At the beginning of the school year, I heard Emmanuel Acho cite this quote:  Rules before Relationships = Rebellion.  This is true to all of us. As a teacher, we might take umbrage with a new administrator demanding curricular or cultural changes before they have learned about our teaching practice.  If we don’t like it, why would we do it to our learners? 

Information Processing

Information Processing is about deepening our learner’s intellective capacity, which has been defined by Hammond as, “the increased power the brain creates to process complex information more effectively.”  This requires us to examine our teaching practice to determine if we are using the adequate processes, strategies, tools, and products to help learners engage with the curriculum at a deeper level. We can examine our practice by answering these questions: 
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• How do learners process the information they are engaging within their day?
• How are we balancing skills and strategies that are teacher-driven, modeled, guided, and learner-driven?  
• Where are learners guiding their own learning pathway?

Community Building

Community Building focuses on leveraging the power of the group to create a safe and caring environment that connects with the learner’s background.  It’s difficult for them to connect to something they don’t understand, which may be our view of what a community looks and feels like based on our personal experiences. 
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• How are learners co-creating the space design to reflect their optimum conditions?
• When do learners engage in meaningful discussions in pairs, small groups, and whole group to solve complex problems that reflect local and global contexts?

Things to consider

​The thing I appreciate about each chapter is there is a summary of the big ideas, invitation to inquiry questions for application, and additional resources to explore further.  This really helps us as learners to broaden and deepen our perspective. 

Can you believe we have only made it to chapter 2?  There are so many nuggets of wisdom that I can’t contain myself!  The thing that has stayed with me the most is preparing our learners for rigor, so we get out of the loop of watered down instruction for more economically disadvantaged youth.  I’m so grateful that this book openly addresses so many concerns that rest upon my heart so beautifully. 

Before you know, we are heading into the chapters about neuroscience that went over my head.  I’m excited to revisit them through a new lens to help us grow into loving and appreciating this amazing book.  Have a blessed day.