This journey is not about generating guilt or shame; it is about understanding the truth about the world we live in, coming to a deeper, more compassionate understanding of ourselves, and being on the right side of making a better world. |
Figure 4.1 Three Strands Weave Together to Close the Achievement Gap: The Through Line of High Expectations with Antiracism and Rigor
In the current era, these three foci—high-expectations teaching, culturally responsive pedagogy, and rigor—are too often pursued independently and with different degrees of intensity across US school districts. The first point of this chapter is to see them as one cohesive rope, one effort in which the three elements coexist in a symbiotic relationship (see Figure 4.1). These three are together the pathway to collapsing the disparity in academic opportunity for large groups of our marginalized children.
Culturally responsive pedagogy is part of high-expertise teaching just as much as checking for understanding and any of the other elements in research-validated pedagogy. |
Chapter Resources: Documents & Readings
Real progress on restructuring a school for equity requires a leader who has come to understand at a deep emotional level the experience of being dehumanized, excluded, and treated as a second-class citizen that people of color have experienced in their lives and continue to experience today. |