CRT & Student & Teacher Identity

                            1.    The Skin That We Speak by Lisa Delpit 

                                                        

                                                                     

Summary: The Skin That We Speak is a collection of anecdotes and scholarly advice from passionate educators that highlight the myriad of ways in which educators can affirm, honor and welcome different linguistic and cultural identities of students within the classroom. 

This entire collection, challenge teachers from all walks of life to confront personal biases and ideas concerning these students, and presents a variety of ways/actions that teachers can/must take in deconstructing them, through INTENTIONAL action-based advocacy lathered with knowledge.

                                                                  

Rationale:This book is a vital part of my CRT teacher toolkit because it advocates for the IDENTITIES of all different types of culturally and linguistically diverse students (African-American, indigenous, ELL's and Latino/Hispanic) whose identities are MOST commonly misrepresented. 

It provides an accurate account of the how’s and why’s of such stereortypes and gives ALL teacher identities the responsibility to evaluate our roles in either aiding or debunking the biases that stem from them.

This sets the stage for these types students to have a clean slate entering the classroom, and gives them a fair chance to be the voice for their own identities. 

                                                           

Citation: Delpit, L. D., & Dowdy, J. K. (2002). The skin that we speak: Thoughts on language and culture in the classroom. New York: New Press.

   2. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood.... and the Rest of Y'all too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education by Christopher Emdin 

Summary:  This book serves as complete “Need to Know” “What Must Be Known”  Guide about urban settings, the types of students that come from them, and ways to nurture their identities, and the structures and systems that impact the urban environment and way of life for minority students who come from them. 

While Edmin addresses and educates specifically white teachers identities he invites teachers from all different identities and backgrounds into the conversation to understand, observe, and fully recognize how a society and system established that prioritizes white lives has negatively impacts our urban youth minority students in more ways than one, and the system and quality of urban schooling and environment as a whole. 
                                                                    
Rationale: This book is exemplary, serving as a necessary tool that shows and prepares teachers for exactly how to bridge gap between their own identities and the identities of their urban minority students, as it equips them with the proper tools such as historical background knowledge and understanding of how urban minority youth are affected. 
 This book requires for teachers, to step outside of the box to examine  the livelihood of our urban students, (their resources, surroundings) while simulatenously celebrating the African-American identity, the richness of our culture and the brevity of our history that serves as a manigfying class of to the how's and why's of these urban minority identities. 

Citation: Emdin, Christopher. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood ... and the Rest of Y'all Too Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education. Beacon Pr, 2017. 

3. Culturally Responsive Teaching and & The Brain- It Starts with Being Responsive Podcast by Zaretta Hammond 

                                                                

Summary: This blog cast directly examines and highlights the ways we associate behaviors, functions and  characteristics with identities that  we see, observe, and encounter around us as well as how responses to these identities shape our encounters with individuals, more specifically the students coming into our classrooms. 

Our responses are direct products of our associations and our associations a direct product of what we have heard, learned and been told. Using what is known about the idea of responsiveness, Hammond presents three Astounding ways in which teachers can create/foster a culturally responsive classroom and safe space for students in all of it's totality. 

Rationale: This blogcast is essential to my teacher toolkit because it presents three amazing ways in which we as educators can speak the language of responsivness and be most in tune with the practice of responsiveness which include:

1. Humanizing our interactions with our students (more empathy, more understanding). 

 2. Using the neuroscience of trust to establish a secure and safe foundation for our students' (IDENTITIES). 

 3. Practice touching the spirit (hearts) of our student's to ignite positive emotions. These three key steps show exactly how we can make our students feel seen, heard and understand through nurturing and affirming their identities simultaneously. 

 Citation: Hammond, Zaretta. “Start With Responsive .” Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain, Transformative Learning Solutions, 27 Nov. 2017. 

4. Finding Joy in Teaching Students of Diverse Backgrounds by Sonia Nieto 

Summary: This book highlights the experiences of diverse teacher identites who engage with the wide variety of diverse students identities in their classrooms each day. Sonia Nieto gives a peek into their world, their every days and the challenges and triumphs that come with doing so. 

As the students they teach come from a diverse spectrum of identities, so do these teachers which makes each anecdote and experience wholesome that is provided in this  textual narrative.  From this advice and these anecdotes rich knowledge on ways in which we as teachers can exercise socially just practices in our classroom is illustrated. 

Rationale: This book is essential to my toolkit as it would serve as a refresher and even a helpful guide in how to deal with challenges, an inpsiration on how to tackle a diverse classroom and foster courage, laughter and even a reminder of the joy that comes with serving diverse identities. 

This book would also remind me that as a teacher identity everything I do and say matters and to give myself room to grow and even learn as I nurture these different identities. This book would emphasize that as teacher's we also have identities and what they bring to the classroom and our students is just as important. 

Citation: Nieto, Sonia. Finding Joy in Teaching Students of Diverse Backgrounds: Culturally Responsive and Socially Just Practices in U.S. Classrooms. Heinemann, 2013.