Reminder: you can’t claim to be culturally responsive/caring/whatever if you don’t actually support a student’s culture.

Culture INCLUDES language, clothing, names, music, activities etc.

And we need to do it INTENTIONALLY. It’s not just making the math problem about surfing.

The problem is, most teachers are white women. And whiteness & white culture isn’t big into change or plurality of ideas for community. It allows them to see their culture as “American” & everything else as other. It means their beliefs are “American” & all else is “political.”

They don’t realize that BIPOC lives and esp Black lives have been politicized for years. Our existence is political. Our ability to try and thrive is unfortunately wrapped up in policy.

To begin breaking that down in your classroom you have to actually break down yourself.

What do you value? What would it look like for your kids to thrive?

But then you HAVE to ask: WHERE do those images originate and are they rooted in white dominant culture? BIPOC teachers need to ask this too since it’s so internalized. That’s what you need to break down first.