We
Journey to Responsiveness
OUR MISSION
The Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning (CCRTL) exists for making cultural responsiveness a meaningful aspect of everyday life. Being culturally responsive is an approach to living life in a way that practices the validation and affirmation of different cultures for the purposes of moving beyond race and moving below the superficial focus on culture.
OUR VISION
Cultural responsiveness is for everyone. The number one objective is to sway school communities, professional communities, and the general public to becoming culturally responsive.
What we have
Achieved
Transformative Impact on Educators: Teachers receive personalized, one-on-one coaching, leading to lasting growth and development.
Empowered Mindsets and Skillsets: Teachers gain the tools and mindset shifts necessary to be culturally and linguistically responsive across all content areas and grade levels.
Reflective and Responsive Practices: Teachers adopt a mindset that shifts the focus from student behavior to self-reflection, empowering them to adjust their teaching strategies to become more culturally and linguistically responsive to increase engagement and learning outcomes.
Student-Centered and Engaging Instruction: Teachers develop the skills to create more dynamic, student-centered learning experiences that actively engage, validate, and affirm all students.
Improved Student Engagement and Success: Students in classrooms where teachers have participated in Culturally and Linguistically Responsive (CLR) professional development experience greater engagement and improved academic outcomes.
On The Journey,
We Validate & Affirm
VALIDATE, AFFIRM, BUILD AND BRIDGE (VABB™)
Validate and Affirm (VA)—make culturally and linguistically legitimate and positive, that which has been illegitimate and negative by the institution of education and mainstream media; understanding the complexity of culture and the many forms it takes (including age, gender, and social class), which will then create opportunities for making meaningful experiences in school
BUILD AND BRIDGE (BB)
Build and Bridge (BB)—the cultural knowledge that needs to be developed and connected to academic use and within any social or cultural context
The Importance of Validating and Affirming
We Serve the Underserved
We define the underserved as those who have not found success – academically, socially or behaviorally – in the context of school or any other cultural dynamic such as on a job or in a professional setting and the institution is not validating and affirming to who they are culturally and/or linguistically.
I am grateful for the opportunity to commune with my colleagues in this work and to collaborate on ways we can collectively create pathways to better our work for all those we
We Change our Mindsets, Improve our Skillsets
We all have biases. CLR supports acknowledges thoses and teaches us how to move on and began the process of validating and affirming. In CLR, this is changing your mindset. We all can improve our practice. CLR guides the development of skills practices, routines, and experiences to validate and affirm. In CLR, this is improving your skillsets.