How can you have a classroom where students make their own deadlines and are responsible for their own actions?  It’s all part of building trust and community.  In Teach like Your Hair’s on Fire, Rafe Esquith shares his ideas on creating an environment of respect, learning, and motivation.  RAPSA recommends this book focused on a classroom in Los Angeles, where ninety-two percent of the students live below the poverty level.  He continually strives for success with his students, pushing them to achieve and being their biggest supporter.

Building trust isn’t automatic.  It takes time and nurturing, and there isn’t a magic formula on how to achieve it.  How do you keep your students engaged?  How do you build trust and community?  Share your ideas with others here in the RAPSA Lounge.

We’re talking about race and culture, but what does it mean to have “culturally relevant curriculum”?  In 1994, Gloria Ladson-Billings defined the term as “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes.” Essentially, teachers enhance the curriculum and state requirements to include connections between the students’ home and school lives.

What do you do in your classrooms to be culturally relevant?  What books would you recommend?  What other ways do you enhance the learning for your students?