I teach in a Title 1 school in Wayne County, that has an ever increasing number of ESL students. My school has just began to embrace Culturally Responsive Teaching by sending several teachers to training. However, the pandemic occurred and those trainings have been placed on hold as of now. I found this unit to be very informative and found many strategies I can use while lesson planning. 

In the video, Unintentional Bias, it was stated that bias is often looked at as intentional behavior. However, we often do these things outside of our awareness. A teacher must have knowledge of themselves to avoid this as stated in the video, Expanding Teacher Self-Knowledge. Teachers must know the students they teach. This begins with adding these trainings to educational programs, a school's professional development, and most importantly, teachers must focus on building relationships of trust and respect with their students. 

According to  Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz, page 62 states culturally responsive instruction is related to several things:

1. Ways of Knowing- students from various backgrounds bring different ways of knowing and questioning, as well as interaction to school.

2. Funds of knowledge- provides a framework to recognize a students' interest and their background knowledge.

Effective teaching is culturally responsive. In the article, Culturally Responsive Teaching (Brasha Krasnoff 2016) it stated that teachers must hold high expectations, use eye contact with lower performing students, greet students by name and arrange the classroom to accommodate discussions. These strategies will help with the building of trust and relationship that creates a classroom culture conducive to everyones success. 

Two of the strategies mentioned in our reading made reference to visual think aloud and visual thinking strategies. I have used these often when modeling strategies of how readers should read and think. Visual thinking strategies can be used regardless of the readers reading level. This allows all students to feel confident and builds a classroom culture where everyone's input is valued while it also encourages students to think beyond the literal by discussing multiple meanings, metaphors, and symbols. 

We are currently reading Esperanza Rising in our class. When Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz made reference to it, I can honestly say I chose it because of the high number of Mexican-American students I have. I did not take into consideration that these students have not seen Mexico, let alone know about or have experienced life in Mexico. However, we are listening on Audible and each students has a copy so students can see their native language in print, which is something they do not normally see or can write themselves. In the future, I will choose multicultural books not based on one sub-group but for everyone to relate too a theme. This will allow students to see that all cultures value the same things. 

Culture has been defined as the shared beliefs, values, and rule-governed patterns of behavior that define a group and are required for group membership. (Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz 2017) We as teachers must go beyond limiting the content we teach based on celebrations or thematic lessons once a year.  We must expose our students to multicultural lessons consistently as we prepare them for a multicultural world.