Beyond Pirouettes: How Dance Fosters Global Citizens in the Classroom

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I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what it too deep to find for words. – Ruth St. Denis As a proud dance dad with four daughters who eat, sleep, and breathe dance, I’ve come to appreciate dance’s impact on shaping young minds. It’s not just about pirouettes or … read more »


Supporting Refugee Students in the Classroom

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June 20th is World Refugee Day, established by the UN to honor the courage and perseverance of people forced to flee their home country. Among these refugees are school-aged children entering communities largely unknown to them. With that influx, public school systems have taken on the responsibility of welcoming and supporting these students. Supporting refugee … read more »


Let’s Talk About: Ma Rainey

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June is African American Music Month. Well-meaning teachers may take this as an opportunity to introduce a lesson about African American music. However, without context or connection to the curriculum, the class might fall flat and not engage students as intended. I want to suggest a more culturally responsive approach. Reading Teach Boldly for the … read more »


Bring the Sustainable Development Goals Into Your Classroom

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Critical thinking, social-emotional learning, culturally responsive teaching, authentic learning—these are a few of the latest terms found in many discussions of education and teaching. It might seem daunting to address all of them, but some issues offer the opportunity to embrace these concepts by providing lessons with a larger frame of reference. One such frame … read more »


Native Knowledge 360° Education Initiative

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On June 2, 1924, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. Although this act provided Native Americans with many rights of citizenship, individual state laws determined voting rights. Until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting, and it wasn’t until the passage of the Civil … read more »


What’s The Buzz: Storytelling

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World Storytelling Day is just around the corner. As the world gets ready to celebrate the art of oral storytelling, it seemed the perfect time to ponder the instructional case for storytelling.   Storytelling is an ancient interactive art form in which one conveys a tale with gestures, words, and sounds while encouraging the listener to use … read more »


Let’s Talk About Music In Our Schools Month

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March is Music in our Schools Month®️. This year’s theme – Music The Sound Of My Heart – brought to mind several ways that educators can leverage music to practice Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) in the classroom. Music is such an essential part of every culture that using it in instruction has been a strategy for ages. It … read more »


Building a Culturally Sensitive Remote Classroom

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Teachers and students were thrust into remote learning situations with little to no preparation at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Many instructional programs were able to carry over the  relationships and routines established in the physical classroom to the online environment. Teachers worldwide worked to keep the connections established in face-to-face experiences in … read more »


Reflections on Becoming a Culturally Responsive Educator

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Several years ago, I attended a county training that dealt with recognizing implicit bias and strategies for becoming a more culturally responsive educator.  As I walked in the room and thought about my long laundry list of items I needed to complete before the day’s end, I thought “here we go, another typical training”, but … read more »