Review: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta Lynn Hammond
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Culturally responsive teaching is often miscategorized as merely including culturally-relevant material when possible or worse, lowering expectations of learners based on cultural assumptions and stereotypes (and racial stereotypes for that matter). As such, it's an approach to teaching and learning that is often taken up by educators who have a stronger sense of implicit bias, stereotype threat, racism and ethnocentrism along with the implications of each for teaching and learning. Contextualizing the importance and value of culturally-responsive pedagogy (CRP), Hammond moves into discussing exactly how the lens and approach of CRP actually blend seamlessly with everything we know about learning and the brain. She adds to the discussion by highlighting how CRP can go further in enhancing the learning of all students and create more meaningful teaching experiences. Overall, I loved how she chunked her material (practicing what she preached) and made sure to provide clear explanations and strong (i.e. culturally-relevant) examples on how the concepts work but also in how to enact the recommendations she offered. The biggest challenge that I found with the work was that so much of what she talked about was grounded in having additional space and additional time, something that many educators are hard pressed for. Regardless, this book should be something any educator or anyone thinking about to be more inclusive should be reading.

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