CCBC Hosts Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning Conference
Did you know that the American landscape of people is changing? As our population grows, we are given new opportunities to interact with people who think, act, and believe differently from what we’re used to. Just look at CCBC’s own student population! Not only are we lucky enough to welcome such a diverse crowd from our own state, but we are also fortunate enough to also host students from around the world!
With culturally diverse populations like ours, recognizing that the way in which we interact with one another isn’t a one-size-fits-all scenario. And for teachers too — how can we ensure that everyone is being as culturally sensitive as they ought to be? At CCBC, we continually strive for a fair and just education for all our students. To support that, we have hosted the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning (CRTL) Conference since 2004 — a two-day event of broadening perspectives, changing minds, and uncovering histories.
As the CRTL program organizers state, “It can be a challenge to know what to say, what to do, or how to respond to individuals who — like us — bring unique, culturally based expectations to the encounter.” This is where the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning program comes in. It’s all about asking questions and challenging the assumptions of staff, faculty, and students in a judgment-free space.
It does so by engaging them in “self-reflective processes that allow them to convey to others — students, in particular — the need for self-reflection, self-advocacy, and self-awareness in life’s ever-changing cultural contexts.” Simply put, before we can acknowledge and celebrate our differences, we need to look deeper. We need to look at what we think we already know and examine the basis of those assumptions, in order to make space for the truth. We also need to help ourselves if we feel we are not being listened to and learn how to help others experiencing the same situation.
This training program is based on the research of experts in cultural pedagogy, such as Gloria Ladson-Billings, Geneva Gay, Claude Steele, and others, and is continuously updated with recent research in the field. This year, the two keynote speakers included Dr. Asao B. Inoue and our very own Ingrid Sabio-McLaughlin.
Dr. Inoue is a professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University. He specializes in talking and writing about the links between writing assessments, race, and racism, and how we can support anti-racist teachings in our own classrooms and educational institutes. Professor Sabio-McLaughlin is an associate professor of Women’s Studies and History at CCBC who specializes in social justice, especially educational equity. Both speakers had a wealth of knowledge to share among all participants and we were very fortunate to hear what they had to say.
The CRTL conference is just one of the many ways we work to question the status quo of teaching and learning here at CCBC. We acknowledge that we cannot just simply go about our educational (and professional) careers without challenging our own assumptions of people different from ourselves. If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that there is power in education. We recognize that our younger generations have the drive and willpower to advocate for themselves and for those who are disenfranchised, marginalized, and often ignored.
We hope to continue our tradition of hosting the CRTL conference and will continue encouraging all members of our learning community to attend.