When teachers build relationships rooted in respect, trust, and empathy, it transforms academic achievement and nurtures healing school climates.
Our schools are becoming increasingly diverse. Latinx students represent the largest and fastest growing demographic (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). As our communities evolve, our pedagogies must evolve with them – not through assimilation, but through authentic recognition and celebration.
Culturally responsive pedagogy sees the whole student walking into the classroom with cultural funds of knowledge, assets, skills, and potential. Working from a framework of cultural responsiveness that is rooted in mutual respect, trust, and empathy has been proven to increase academic achievement, the quality of teacher-student relationships, and overall school climate and culture.
This holistic approach allows teachers to genuinely practice the art of facilitating knowledge while being in authentic relationships with students.
The human brain makes meaning by categorizing and drawing associations. Culture is to the brain as software is to hardware. Culture programs what we know, how we learn, how we see the world, how we interact with life, and many more nuanced aspects to the human experience.
“All instruction is culturally responsive. The question is, to whose culture is it responding?” (Gonzales, 2018)
Neuroscience confirms what ancestral wisdom has always known – emotion and cognition are intertwined. Researchers Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007) found that emotional thought isn’t separate from cognition but complexly woven into the learning process.
The way we feel directly impacts how much we learn. The emotional relationships and dynamics in our classrooms fundamentally shape knowledge acquisition.
In our education system’s obsession with standardization, we’ve overlooked the quality of interactions with students. We’ve prioritized pacing guides, standards, and test scores over human connection.
When teachers show authentic care, validate students’ funds of knowledge, and build positive relationships, students feel emotionally safe to take academic risks. A case study by Newcomer (2018) showed how 5th and 6th grade teachers who prioritized relationships helped students feel supported academically, gain social capital, and develop crucial social-emotional skills.
This isn’t “soft” pedagogy as patriarchal thinking would have us believe. It’s a humanized, scientific approach that optimizes learning by developing mirrored neural connections that feed our innate human interdependence.
The factory model of schooling – testing, sorting, and labeling students – diminishes the value of student-teacher relationships and the purpose of education. Standardized measures treat every student the same, contradicting what we know about the uniqueness of human experience.
Our life experiences, culture, race, gender, socioeconomic status, and relationships all affect who we are, what we know, and how we learn. Culturally responsive learning partnerships boil down to authentic, caring, trust-building relationships between students and teachers.
Emotion and cognition work together within an individual and the quality of interactions we have with students plays a significant role in the quality of education students receive. The quality of these partnerships can impact growth of critical thinking skills.
If we want to be in true learning partnership, we must focus on the quality of our interactions, address our biases and assumptions as they arise, and meet people with acceptance, understanding, love, and nurturing.
Relating is an art that takes honesty and vulnerability. I’d love to hear your thoughts at info@liberatedlearning.org.
In unity,
Dahlia
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