What We Do

Journey to Responsiveness

CLR can renovate or overhaul your instruction, depending on where you are in your teaching and where you want to be at the end of the day. CLR is rooted in seeing and feeling the change for yourself.

What It Means to Be CLR:

Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness (CLR) is a framework to promote a culture of inclusivity and diversity in the classroom as well as culturally responsive teaching (CRT).

Becoming culturally responsive means that your instruction changes for the better. CLR can renovate or overhaul your instruction, depending on where you are in your teaching and where you want to be at the end of the day.

The Importance of CLR

Serving the Underserved

One definite area of agreement in education is the persistent failure of traditional schools to equitably educate all children, in particular African Americans and Latinos.

An underserved student is any student who is not successful academically, socially, and/or behaviorally in school because the school as an institution is not being responsive to the student.

Ultimately, CLR is a challenge to your existing pedagogy.

CLR involves the validation and affirmation of the home (indigenous) culture and home language for building and bridging the student to success in the culture of academia and mainstream society.

Our work exists because our educational system, as is, continues to underserve too many of our students, particularly African American and Latino children. We offer an alternative – a pedagogy grounded in the systemic validation of home culture and language as the basis for teaching and as a bridge to standards-based learning.

5 Underserved Populations

Native Americans
African Americans
Mexican Americans
Hawaiian Americans
Asian Americans

Skillset vs. Mindset

The first way is the change in mindset. As the initial step to changing the instructional dynamic in the classroom and the overall school climate, educators have to see their students’ cultural and linguistic behaviors. A change in mindset is rooted in four areas: speaking a common language, listening to your deficit monitor, knowing your race-ethno cultural identity, and identifying the students who are in most need of cultural responsiveness.

beliefs
disposition
orientation
world views
attitude
values
biases
prejudice
Mindset
CLR Journey
abilities
practices
routines
world habits
experience
training
Skillset

Going to Where Students Are

Culturally & Linguistically

CLR is metaphorically diving into the pool and getting into the water with your students; you are meeting your students where they are culturally and linguistically.

As mentioned previously, U.S. schooling is based on the sink‑or‑swim approach. You have some students who are simply good swimmers, meaning they “do” school well. On the other hand, you have some students who are not good swimmers or are not swimmers at all. These students don’t do school “well.”

Our organization has identified four broad pedagogical areas and the learning environment that can be infused with CLR strategies and activities. These activity categories are identified, along with the associated pedagogical areas, below:

Responsive Classroom Management
• Use of attention signals strategically Use of protocols for responding
• Use of protocols for discussing
• Use of movement activities
• Use of extended collaboration activities
Responsive Academic Literacy
• Use of culturally responsive supplemental text
• Use of engaging read-alouds
• Use of effective literacy strategies across content areas

Dive Into Our

CLR Pool of Activities

Responsive Academic Vocabulary
• Tiering vocabulary words - Level 2 and Level 3
• Use of vocabulary acquisition strategies
• Use of reinforcement activities
Responsive Academic Language
• Providing opportunities for situational appropriateness
• Use of sentence lifting for situational appropriateness
•Use of re-tellings for situational appropriateness
• Use of role-playing for situational appropriateness
• Using teachable moments for situational appropriateness

These pedagogical areas represent the general categories that we believe all classrooms—regardless of grade level or content area—should have in place effectively and efficiently, therefore, we created Culturally Responsive workshops that build off of these categories. We include the term responsive in the label for each category to ensure that instruction centers on culturally and linguistically appropriate activities.

Courses & Workshops

To Start Your Responsiveness Journey

Whether it’s online learning or an in-person workshop, you’ll be able to immerse yourself into your CLR revolution.

Online Learning

Browse our courses on VABB academy or dive into our CLR online workshop for remote learning. The choice is yours with our on-demand online courses.

In-Person Learning

Explore our in-person workshops and deep dive bundles. Discover hands-on learning opportunities today.