How does the curriculum affirm multilingual learners through Culturally Responsive Education?
Aug 08, 2025
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- Both the content and instructional practices in our curriculum are designed to foster a sense of belonging for all students.
- Whether multilingual learners come from a different country or are born in the U.S. (the majority of multilingual learners), they bring their own rich set of linguistic and cultural identities to school. It is imperative to honor the experiences, beliefs, and perspectives of multilingual learners so that they feel seen and supported.
- We encourage teachers to acknowledge, celebrate, and incorporate student knowledge and experiences. Throughout the lessons, we have included texts and activities that honor the cultures and backgrounds of our students and their families. Students are asked to reflect on how their own experience connects to the content and are invited to bring language, stories, books, and objects from home to share and discuss.
- Students are encouraged to use their home language, when comfortable, to begin negotiating particularly challenging tasks or to bridge their understanding as newcomers. Teachers are invited to get to know students well and, in turn, share their own national, family, and personal traditions, value systems, myths, and symbols.
- The concept of culture is intricate; any given group is not monolithic and should not be stereotyped. Furthermore, each person may identify with several layers of culture—national, community, family, personal—that may shift with situation and time. Therefore, the cultural supports in the curriculum are intended to suggest the infinite possibilities of different student experience, not to essentialize or label any single student or group.
- Module topics and culturally responsive texts provide “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors.” “Mirrors” build student pride and self-esteem in their various identities; “windows” reduce bias and foster empathy for various identities in a diverse society; and “sliding glass doors” allow students to identify injustice and understand the role of activism for social change.
