C133 (Book Club): Continuing to Become Aware of our Actions (pg 59-69)

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In the past episode, we discussed our own role as a culturally responsive teacher and how it shapes our frame of reference when teaching a classroom full of learners from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, let alone language acquisition, disabilities, and gender identity needs.  This was compared to our understanding of surface, shallow, and deep cultural beliefs and ways we may trigger amygdala hijack without knowing it. 

I don’t know about you, but my brain exploded.  This is completely normal, when we peel back the layers of our own cultural frames of reference and compare them with our learners.  Zaretta Hammond references a three part process for widening our own lens called description, interpretation, and evaluation. 

I introduced it in the last episode to get you thinking, but this time, we are unpacking it to the fullest.  Are you ready for description, interpretation and evaluation?  I’m ready to get vulnerable and make changes in my practice. 

Description

​If we want to better understand our thinking and feelings about events in our classrooms, we have to take a step back and examine them with a fresh set of eyes.  Are you ready to see things that may surprise you?  It’s not that difficult, but will have an impact on how you act moving forward. 

Quite simply, think about a recent event that happened in your classroom.  As you write down your thoughts, simply describe what a person said or did in the situation and capture as many details as possible.   Think of them as stage directions in a play.  This person said this, while the other person did this.  

Interpretation

​Look at our observations that have been written down.  Write down your initial thoughts and feelings that you were having at the time of the event.  What did you think about the learner or other adult?  What did you think was happening?  What do you think they were thinking about the situation? 

“Make a list of your assumptions, reactions and interpretations of the behaviors.  What specific thing did you react to?  How did you interpret it?  Based on what belief or assumption?”

Now, go out of your comfort zone and reframe your interpretations.  What are other things that they were thinking or doing during the time of the event?  How can you look at it differently? 

Evaluation

​Now, let’s evaluate your description and interpretation.  What does it say about your thoughts and feelings about the student(s) in the event?  How does it frame how you think and feel about them moving forward?  Are there any possibilities of generalizing based on culture, race, or ethnicity? 

This all sounds so easy to do, right?  I don’t think so.  We have a thing called implicit bias that governs how we think and feel about situations, based on our backgrounds, learning, and cultural roots.  It’s normal, but we have to do better.  

​​In reading Seen, Heard, and Valued by Lee Ann Jung for my upcoming #tccbookclub, I was reminded that for all learners to feel included, we have to consider that everyone feels safe to be their authentic selves.  This means that we create a safe environment where everyone can share their own views, which may be different from our own, and we respectfully listen.  We may not agree, but we still create the space where everyone is heard thoughtfully.

Zaretta Hammond provides a Mindful Reflection Protocol by Dray and Wisneski and helps us go through these steps: 
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• Explain the attributions that you have about the student
• Write out or reflect on your feelings and thoughts when working with the student.  Take into account the potential for misinterpretations resulting from deficit thinking, prejudice, and overgeneralizations.
• Consider alternative explanations by reviewing your documentation and reflections
• Check your assumptions.  Share your reflections with a colleague, parents, and/or community members.  Meet with parents to learn more about expected or observed behaviors at home. 
• Make a plan
• Continuously revisit this process to reassess your attributions and your progress with the student.

To receive more details about this process, be sure to read the chart on pages 63-64.  

​As I reflect on what we have read so far, I am mindful of my own practices and the students that I may have not understood, because I was not being culturally responsive.  I may have misread the cues of their behavior, because they were not aligned with my own practice.  To be honest, I think this protocol can be applied to our interactions with anyone that is different from ourselves and our natural reactions to them based on prior experiences and interactions. 

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​When I was growing up, I interacted with very few black children until middle and high school.  During my formative years, I heard stories about black children being mean.  I was warned by many adults to cross the street if a group of black children are headed in your direction while walking home from school, because they could harm my being or steal from me.  This narrative stayed with me well into adulthood, where I would see a group of young men minding their own business and I would cross the road to avoid interacting at all costs.  It wasn’t until a friend of mine pointed out my behavior did I realize what I was doing and the harmful message it was sending to the community. 

This section of this book reminds me that we all have triggers and some of them are so deeply rooted into our psyche that we might not even know they exist until someone else points them out.  Hi, I’m that person.  No matter who we are, we have implicit bias.  It’s how society is structured.  We have been taught from a young age that certain cultures are better than others based on access, power, economics, skin color, and influence. We see this philosophy in subcultures where colorism is prevalent; the lighter you are the more desirable you will become in society.  

Hammond reminds us that negativity bias is quite harmful, because, “the brain is more than 20 times more focused on negative experiences than on positive ones.”  To help us, she makes a generous list of strategies to help us focus more on positivity and give us some grace to move forward. 

Identify what sets you off.  Duh, why didn’t I think of that?  Because sometimes, we have to do some really difficult work to get to the root of what sets us off.  We may think it’s about cultural differences, when really it’s about ideology clashes from christianity to islam. 

Hammond provides some questions that we can ask ourselves to really get to the root of what sets us off. 

• What am I trying to do in this situation and how do I need to show up to make that outcome likely? 
• How do I want to respond when that person does something that pushes my anger button? 

Can you imagine if everyone was this reflective after an emotional encounter with someone else?  We all know people in our lives that thrive to get a response from us.  They know how to push our buttons to make us angry, frustrated, or feel a loss of control.  Once we see the pattern, we need to identify what sets us off, so we can change our response.  Let’s face it, they will continue to try to push our buttons as long as we let them.  Once we change our response, they will lose interest and change their behavior as well. 

Create an early warning system.  This is our internal system that helps us to recognize that something is about to set us off.  Once we know our trigger, we can see the warning signs that help us to pivot our response. Hammond describes this as the S.O.D.A system, which STOP, OBSERVE, DETACH, and AWAKEN. 

To honor the S.O.D.A. system, I am going to let you read it for yourself on page 68.  The one thing I will say is that it helps you to detach from your personal emotions in a situation and begin to see how the other person is reacting.  This is so important in moving forward as a humanity. 

To reinforce our profession, we need to learn how to work better with each other. This is the power of culturally responsive teaching.  It’s not only about how to teach culturally different learners, but how we engage with others and better understand each other.  If we are living this way in our classrooms all day long, it will naturally impact how we operate in greater society.  

I am an eternal optimist and believe there is more good than bad in humanity.  This book has helped me so much to see how I can do better.  It’s not about a race to the finish, but changing ourselves, so we can help one learner at a time become their best selves.