Connecting With Students Through Arts and Culture: A culturally informed weekly teacher planner specific to Saint Paul Public Schools

Abstract

A wealth of research indicates that when students feel seen and heard in the school environment their learning increases. With the pandemic further disrupting the public school system, it is critical that educators focus their efforts on pedagogies that ensure students from marginalized communities do not fall further behind. Social scientists in the field of education have found that Culturally Responsive Instruction (CRI) has a profound effect on all students’ learning. Teachers who practice CRI are facilitators of knowledge in their classroom, honoring students’ lived experience and empowering them to build on their knowledge. In the following pages I use the literature to show what academics define CRI to be, why it is important, what it looks like in practice and finally, how teachers can be trained in and assessed on their CRI. I then use the literature, combined with my own research methodologies to answer: How can curriculum leaders and cultural experts work together in the Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS) to increase students’ feeling seen and heard?