Act

Conduct an equity audit of your own curriculum, materials, or classroom library. Identify inequities & strive to correct them. The Culturally Responsive Education Curriculum Scorecard can help you get started. Share an artifact (text, link, image, file, or tweet) that shows evidence of your action.

https://scsdpl.padlet.org/LJACKS66/Gr3Humanities

the biography and civil rights unit is all about Standing up for Change and Activist Biographies. This unit uses civil rights activists and other books that represent that population of our district. At Franklin we have a high Asian ENL population so we add in books and texts with Asian characters or people.

our first habits unit uses books from many different cultures and races to represent our choices and lessons learned unit.

our Food deserts unit looks at food deserts and doos oasis in the city of Syracuse. 

Syracuse has major construction projects coming our way.  These construction projects require skills that can allow our students to join apprenticeships in various trades. These trades offer a tremendous opportunity for financial security and an improved quality of life. However, in order to apply for those apprenticeships. individuals must be able to pass the reading and math entry level exams. I want our students to be able to take advantage of these opportunities as well as any other opportunity that comes along.

I am presently teaching an Algebra I class.  In doing so, I saw how large a math skill deficit existed in the class. In order to ascertain just how large that deficit was, I gave them a 3rd Grade NYS Math test without them knowing that it was the 3rd grade test.   I was very saddened by the fact that none of them could pass it.

As a result, in order for them to meet the Algebra I requirements, we had a to do more than just teach the Algebra I curriculum.   We also had to catch up on the basic math calculation and vocabulary skills.  That is what we are attempting to do. While it is a struggle, we are making progress.  Students are encouraged to work on both targets and students are rewarded for their "overtime" work.

We have short discussions daily on how students CAN control their future by making themselves valuable assets in the employment pool. Employers need employees who have specific skill levels to keep their business running. Our kids CAN be a highly desired skill source.

Last year, a colleague and myself looked at our curriculum and decided that the POC that were represented were often negative representations so we came up with a new unit that centers around Malcolm X (using the graphic novel version of his autobiography). Since last year, we've expanded on the unit and found more and more resources for students. We also changed up our social justice project that we complete with our English 11 classes to add more recent news stories and more culturally relevant events. 

The score card really was helpful in thinking about how I am working with my students and meeting them where they are at. I scored mostly in the culturally aware, and so I strive to be more inclusive and inviting to the students to share with me on how I can support them more. The area I am advanced in is Teacher Materials, which I know is because I have worked with the ENL department in previous years and learning how to make the learning accessible to all students. I’m hoping that involving the students in the decision making of how class is run, and to a certain extent what is taught will value all of their cultures and engage them in the curriculum. Representation: Culturally Aware- Previewing content with images, students are able to connect with their cultures. Social Justice: Culturally Aware- Students are not marginalized Teacher’s Materials: Culturally Responsive- Meeting students where they are at. Materials and Resources: Culturally aware- Accessible for students.

First, I loved how the scorecard was offered not only just in English, but also in Spanish. I think it should be offered in more languages as well. One aspect on the ELA scorecard I liked was: Social situations and problems are not seen as individual problems but are situated within a societal context. I liked this one specifically because our district's vision is to prepare all students to be global citizens and contribute locally as well as globally and I feel this characteristic helps build students' understands of community and intersectionality and get them to see "the bigger scope" of issues not just the effects on an individual. For example, understanding institutional racism vs. looking at a specific school.

I have used this scorecard before and I have loved it! For the purposes of today, I found that my curriculum is culturally insufficient. Though my curriculum attempts to show characters of various backgrounds and races, most of the authors are white men and the character representation is lacking within ethnic groups. For example, Hispanic families are often Mexican and Asian families are often Chinese or Vietnamese instead of Burmese, Karen or Nepali like most of our Asian population in Syracuse Schools.