Culturally Responsive Teaching

Connection to something greater than self

Selfactualization

Esteem needs

Belonging needs

Safety needs

Physiological needs

Source: Adapted from Maslow, 1943.

Figure I.2: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs .

and teachers must have their lower-level needs met in order to work up to the higher-level drives, so too must a school or educational program focus on the needs at different levels from an organizational level to achieve their ultimate purpose. In addition, simply referencing research or employing strategies in the traditional model will not result in authentic, substantive, evolutionary shifts in schools. The paradigm shift only happens as a result of changes in the educators’ hearts and minds. Thus, each chapter covers a critical cultural shift that must happen for healing- and resilience-centered education to take root.

• Chapters 1 and 2 provide the deep theoretical and philosophical underpinnings that form the foundation of the school wellness wheel. They also relate specifically to the first three levels of Maslow: (1) physiological, (2) safety, and (3) belonging needs. Teachers must recognize these needs and understand what happens to students who are stuck in these levels before they can address academic content. Thus, chapter 2 focuses on the changes that must take place in the hearts and minds of the adults in the school building, as well as the continued professional growth and understanding of mastery-based learning, trauma-competent principles, and culturally responsive teaching in order to bring the school wellness wheel to fruition.

• Chapters 3–7 explain how to implement and merge the three pivot points in a day-to-day school setting. Chapter 3 centers around cultivating a culture of mastery and presents a vehicle for addressing traditional standards and curriculum through the use of established learning goals and proficiency scales, and the impact such a model has on the engagement of students and optimism of teachers. Since mastery-basedlearning schools typically see increased trust between students and teachers (as evidenced through higher levels of academic optimism), creating a culture of mastery is empowering and serves as the foundational academic component of the school wellness wheel. Along that same vein, since relationships are the antidote to trauma, chapter 3 also stresses the importance of developmentally appropriate adult relationships in terms of trauma-sensitive and culturally responsive teaching, and explains how those relationships can help lead to higher levels of student mastery. • Chapter 4 focuses on the need for schools to exist in a continuous culture of high-level learning—for the students as well as the adults—and thus, presents a new vision for classroom assessment as a tool for providing feedback and driving instruction as opposed to students completing tasks or earning grades. Mindfulness and motivation, two hallmarks of trauma-responsive and culturally responsive teaching, form the foundation of preparing young brains for optimal learning. In addition, chapters 3 and 4 also relate to the hierarchy’s fourth level—the need for esteem in a community. • Chapter 5 focuses on building a culture of connection and presents research indicating that the ability of teachers to regulate their own emotions is critical to teaching students how to regulate theirs. The power of connection is inherent in mastery-based learning programs.

This chapter then addresses how connection can lead to high-level implementation of personalized instructional strategies from The New Art and Science of Teaching (Marzano, 2017) that are based on student needs as opposed to teachers creating blanket lesson plans. The chapter also draws from the third level—the need for belonging—from Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs. • Chapter 6 discusses creating a culture of empowerment for teachers and students, and how—specifically—encouraging student voice, choice, and agency, as well as trusting that every learner is held to high expectations, are necessary elements in all three pivot points of the school wellness wheel. This chapter relates to the hierarchy’s fifth level—self-actualization.

• Chapter 7 looks at the school wellness wheel from the larger organizational structure perspective and presents ways to address subjects such as school discipline and effective implementation of the school wellness wheel model.

This chapter also relates to the hierarchy’s sixth level—the desire to connect to something greater than oneself.

All chapters contain vignettes, quotes, examples, and advice from educators who have been actively engaged in the work of transforming their schools into centers of healing and resilience. Also, since the shift to educational models that use the school wellness wheel is a heavy lift that will be very difficult to make happen without focused, strong leadership, each chapter ends with the leadership qualities that are critical to bring the transformation to fruition. Chapters 2–7 have reproducible proficiency scales for assessing your school’s mastery level in creating each type of culture, and each scale includes components of all three pivot points.

A final, and important, word on the structure of the book entails the following three pivot points.

1. Mastery-based learning 2. Trauma-responsive schooling 3. Culturally responsive teaching

All the pivot points are equally important to the cultivating of a healing- and resilience-centered school model, but we assert that trauma-responsive schooling and culturally responsive teaching form the foundational level—the true bottom line—that must be sound before the academic excellence piece can be recognized and brought to full fruition. This is similar to the concept from Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs in that people must have their most basic needs met in order for them to progress to higher levels of self-actualization. Thus, we will begin each chapter discussing the trauma-responsive schooling and culturally responsive teaching components of the school wellness wheel in order to ultimately reach mastery-based learning and subsequent improved academic growth.