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Culturally responsive teaching is a profound pedagogical shift in education that educators are continuously working on to gain more connections to its depth. Culturally responsive teaching has many dimensions with a foundational focus on providing each and every student from any cultural background a responsible, rigorous, relevant, and in-depth education connected to their lives, backgrounds and experiences. It capitalizes on the assets all students bring to the classroom and the belief that all students, despite their backgrounds and experiences, can achieve at high levels. In order to be masters of culturally responsive teaching, we need to constantly reflect on and re-define our teaching values and the components that relate to culturally responsive teaching.
Culture, Introspection and Awareness Wikipedia defines culture as “an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.” Therefore, whether you have a class full of students from different races and ethnic groups or whether you have a class full of students from the same race and ethnic group, you still have different cultures within your classroom and you still need to be a culturally responsive educator. In order to be culturally responsive educators, we first need to understand ourselves, our values, beliefs, and behaviors based on how we were socialized. To understand ourselves, we need to engage in ongoing transparent introspection in the way we view others, especially our students. Two questions to help guide introspections are: "Am I allowing my cultural experiences and socialization to cloud the way I see others and their abilities?" and "Am I truly accepting of other cultures and their valued place in this world or is this just something I project and make myself believe I do?” Genuine self-reflection allows us to be transparent and brutally honest with ourselves. You do not have to share these thoughts with anyone; all you have to do is reflect, acknowledge and be honestly aware of your beliefs, values, and outlook. Awareness is the first step to actively working on shifting your mindset and redefining culture in order to focus on being a more culturally responsive educator. MY COACHING MENU INFOGRAPHIC Instructional coaches are great thought partners who support teachers, parents, students and other staff and school community members in any possible way to impact growth in teaching and learning. As instructional coaches, we mostly work with adults and have to be familiar with adult learning principles and the ways adults learn and are motivated. We have to honor teachers experience and give them the autonomy to choose instructional areas that are aligned to their professional goals. As a coach, I have found that providing teachers with choice worked really well. One situation that comes to mind vividly was giving teachers choice in restructuring a QSSSA design that I initially created. The power of choice was extremely impactful and I got even more buy-in with this strategy. At the end of each year, I reflect on my coaching techniques and find ways to grow my capacity as a coach. To prepare for my coaching role in the 2020-2021 school year, I created the coaching menu in this section. I shared this coaching menu on Twitter and LinkedIn and it was well received. Today, someone from Twitter reached out asking me to share tips for starting a coaching menu, and her question inspired me to write this blog. I taught high school Math to English Language Learners in my last 4 years as a full-time teacher and it was by far one of the best teaching and learning experiences I had in my 24 years in education. During this time, I was also completing my Masters in Education at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and was fortunate to have had the opportunity to do courses that focused on literacy, especially Reading Across the Curriculum. Prior to pursuing this course, I incorporated literacy elements with my high school students when I taught Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and Geometry, but this course provided me with great additional ideas to implement with my students. It was a joy seeing students so engaged in learning and representing their learning. Below, you will find examples of the strategies I used with my ELL students; these literacy strategies do not only work for English Language Learners, but all learners.
Our History of National Poetry Month Since 1996, National poetry month is celebrated every year in the United States during the month of April. It was inspired by the success of Black History Month and Women's History Month. Poetry Month is celebrated in unique ways, some of these being the distribution of 100,00 0 books across the nation, voting for a poet to be placed on a stamp, lighting the Empire State Building with blue lights and more. Every year, these celebrations are continued as poets, publishers, educators and other organizations find unique ways to honor Poetry Month. Other celebrations like Poem in Your Pocket Day, which was founded by the Office of the Mayor in New York in 2002 continue to be participated in to this day. This year, Poem in Your Pocket Day is celebrated on April 30th and to celebrate, you can share your poem on social media, where you work and/or with neighbors and friends. The History of Earth Day Earth Day 2020 marks the 50th anniversay of Earth Day celebrations which all started because Senator Gaylord Nelson, a young Senator from Wisconsin, spoke up about environmental concerns. Inspired by Silent Spring, a book which depicted a watershed moment, and by the student anti-war movement, Senator Gaylord Nelson got a group together to make the public aware of air and water pollution. The group consisted of himself, Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, and Denis Hayes, a young activist. Initially, Earth Day was named "teach-in" but was changed to Earth Day. To impact greater change, Denis Hayes increased the number of members including others from across the nation, to 85 members. In order for change to take place, there must be outspoken voices and people who are brave enough to stand up for what they believe in. In my blog, I share my personal experiences and voice. When I write blogs they are not written to offend, instead, they are written to inspire and motivate others. As readers, you may agree or not agree with my ideas. If you agree, our viewpoints are similar, if you don't, that is okay, it just means we have different viewpoints and respectfully agree to disagree. ~ Cherry-Anne Gildharry As I sit on my back porch drinking a cup of coffee on this beautiful Sunday morning and reflecting on my work from home experience, I was inspired to write this blog. I have always wanted to experience working from home because my wife has this opportunity with her job and she always says how very productive she is when she works from home. However, this is not a typical practice for educators as we are physically needed at our job sites. So when educators were informed that we were going to be working from home because of the coronavirus crisis in our state, nation and world, there were so many thoughts and questions that ran through my mind; how am I going to account for the things I do? What will online coaching look like? How will I continue supporting teachers and students with literacy in Math, and so many more. I thought sharing my actions and ideas relating to these questions in a blog might be helpful to others.
Our Gildharry Family crest was a joint collaboration and a blend of our talents. One of us captured the beautiful photos and used the Layout app to combine the pictures, while the other used Adobe skills to create this amazing and magical crest. This mystical Gildharry Family crest has many profound representations and meanings regarding its colors, pictures, illumination and of course the pronounced letter G. The range of colors represented in this crest symbolizes the diversity in our family relating to cultures, experiences, race, ideas and outlook! In this crest, blue, definitely our favorite color is the base and foundation of the other colors. Blue symbolizes depth and stability as well as loyalty, trust, wisdom, confidence, faith and heaven, just to name a few. Blue certainly describes our love and loyalty to each other and how much we not only trust our lives with each other, but also how much we trust and have faith in heavenly guidance! We know that our lives, love and family are always being blessed and guided from the heavens above! Literacy is not a subject; it is a part of all subjects.
Literacy Definitions and Connections Literacy is defined as the "ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society"- United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “Literacy is the single most significant skill needed to function effectively in school, in the workplace, and in society; it is vital to a successful education, career, and quality of life.” ~ Unknown. In looking at these definitions and quotes as well as other descriptions of literacy, we see that literacy is one of the most important skills needed to function effectively in the workplace and society, and it determines the depth of comprehension and knowledge gained when engaging in reading text in any subject. Then, we must focus on literacy in Math too! As we prepare our students for the workplace and to have a successful quality of life, it is very important to ensure that we also focus on comprehension and developing literacy skills when reading and solving word problems or any text in Math. In working with students in Math classes, I have noticed that many are able to read very fluently, but when asked about the meaning of certain words or sentences within the problem, they did not know the synonyms or how to summarize, communicate or make inferences about the text. As adults, when we don’t know the meaning of words or phrases, we proactively look them up and use them in sentences until we have mastered the correct usage. Encouraging our students to make annotated notes (graffiti it up) by writing the meaning and drawing pictures to make connections to words are powerful strategies in helping them learn new information and develop literacy skills. A good education opens any door, provides you with a deeper passion to follow your dreams and discover the world, and allows you to be free and unrestrained in being your best at all times, especially when generating profound and innovative ideas! ~ Cherry-Anne & Melanie Gildharry Cherry-Anne Gildharry grew up in a small village in Trinidad and Tobago named Barrackpore, and her wife Melanie Gildharry grew up in Mint Hill just outside of Charlotte, NC. We are both very proud of where we came from, but extremely proud of where life has taken us thus far. We are thankful for all of our childhood experiences, including the challenging ones, as all of these have impacted and shaped our lives immensely as well as provided us with a deeper desire to get a great education. Most importantly, we know that it is our personal values and beliefs, innate ambition, our passion for a profound education and our intrinsic motivation that have always been our driving forces in doing the best that we can at all times! While it is our character rather than our degrees and the letters behind our names that define who we are as human beings, we still feel very honored and proud to be first generation graduates, and now, masters graduates! Cherry-Anne attained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of The West Indies, and Melanie, a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from The George Washington University. We were very happy to have had the opportunities to pursue degrees in areas that we are passionate about. After obtaining bachelor degrees, we both attained Teaching Certificates because of our passion for and desire to continue our careers in education. However, in order to gain additional knowledge and become even more compelling innovators in education, we decided to pursue our masters. Cherry-Anne pursued a Master of Science in Teacher Effectiveness and Professional Development and Melanie a Master of Education in Instructional Systems Technology, a passion that she developed while teaching. During these profound learning experiences, we each spent countless hours writing and refining research papers and excelling in our creations and designs!! We also enjoyed having discussions that blended our learning, and we continue to have these thrilling educational conversations on a regular basis! Soon after completing her masters program, Cherry-Anne pursued an Instructional Coaching Certificate as it was her career goal to become a Math Instructional Coach and maybe a Math Consultant someday. Coaching Successes and Challenges Should I Follow my Dream of Becoming a Coach? When I started looking into becoming an instructional coach, I remember doing general research in order to gain a deeper understanding of the role of a coach (which I believe still needs to be defined and honored), and found a statement that kept revolving in my mind; if you don’t like to work with adults, then coaching is not for you. I thought to myself, I do like working with adults who share my passion and understand me, but could not help but think, what if the teachers I work with do not like me as their coach, do not want me to be their coach, or do not respect what I bring to the table? Is coaching for me? What if I am not as effective with adults as I am with my students? Will I effectively support all teachers? The only way to answer these questions was to actually serve in the position. For me, it took a long time to get this position, even with a masters degree in Teacher Effectiveness and Professional Development (a major in curriculum design), an Instructional Coaching Graduate Certificate and 24 years in the classroom as a Math teacher with many leadership roles. So if this sounds similar to your story, do not give up hope! Send your dreams out to the Universe and have faith that it will happen. In my role as a coach, I have had the opportunity to answer all of my initial questions. I have had great experiences as well as challenges and unkind behaviors, but I know that I love my job and nothing will stop me from loving my role as a coach, which I plan to stay in for the rest of my educational career. If you are thinking about becoming an instructional coach, I would say do it! In preparing for this role, continue to work hard to build a strong coaching skill set, and if time allows, build a website to showcase the strategies that you have incorporated in your classroom as well as your leadership roles and more. As you immerse yourself in this role, you will develop personalized techniques that will help you excel! |
Cherry-Anne GildharryOn this page, you will find blogs on educational connections and my life's experiences. Ideas, thoughts and views are my own and are not representative of my employers. References/sources used are public articles found on the internet to support my blogs. Archives
April 2024
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