Teaching in a way that is culturally sensitive to students impacts their academic and neurological development.
“Children grow into the intellectual life around them” - Leo Vygotsky
In order to push dependent learners in positive ways you must offer them a safe community in which to stretch themselves and grow. Here are tips on how to do that in your classroom.
How to optimize the classroom environment to promote learning
Validation
Affirmation and rapport are keys to establishing a positive relationship with students. When exploring texts that address challenging ideas like racism and gender roles never trivialize a student’s experience in the larger sociopolitical context.
Allow Students To Connect
Our brains are hardwired to seek connections to others. Students want to feel safe and know that their ideas are valued in the classroom.
Eliminate Threats
The first two layers of the brain (including the amygdala) help detect and minimize social and physical threats. The third layer is where neuroplasticity takes place. The brain registers threats such as felling unsafe in the classroom the same as a physical threat like being attacked by a bear.
Reframe mistakes As Information
Students can see mistakes as confirmation of their lack of ability. Instead help them see mistakes as information that can help them improve the next time.
Representation is Key
"If you can show me how I can cling to that which is real to me, while teaching me a way into society, then and only then will I drop my defenses and hostility, and I will sing your praises and help you to make the desert bear fruit” - Ralph Ellison
Be sure that students feel like they have mirrors int he classroom. even if the school isn't diverse and no one else is like them, find ways to allow students to feel like they belong and that their cultures are values and reflected int he classroom. One way to allow students opportunities to feel represented positively, is through the literature that they encounter in the classroom can have a tremendous effect on their engagement.
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