C128 (Book Club): Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain (pg 1-13)

Confessions of a PYP Teacher

Welcome my friends to a new book study. I have wrestled with what to talk about next within my podcast series and I kept circling back to Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta Hammond. This book changed me this past year and I couldn’t wait any longer. There will be insights from Zaretta’s book, my thoughts, and my meanderings. If you’ve been listening at all, you know I tend to get off track a bit, but I believe these are the times that I make the most ahas. I hope you do too.

Let me start off by saying that, Zaretta Hammond is the first person in a long time that made me excited, weep, and find hope in a short span of time. This book made me excited to see all of the possibilities that are available to learners from diverse backgrounds if we just focus on building rigor instead of watering down curriculum. She made me weep, because I think of all the learners I wasn’t able to reach during my teaching career, because I didn’t have this book to guide me. Zaretta made me hope that if more people read this book, then we will have less learners falling through the cracks of the education system. I choose to focus on hope.
My hope is that you find nuggets along this ready journey that stay with you and help you think differently about our role as educators. Be sure to check out Zaretta's keynote address at Toddle TIES 2023. Here is the link to watch the presentation: https://www.toddleapp.com/ties/speakers/
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