Cultivating Genius

Understanding Students’ Identity: Starting the Year With a Student-Centered Focus

Posted on by Kathy Collier

Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s book Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy offers many excellent ideas designed to learn about the identities of our students and plan for joyful learning experiences. In this post, I want to highlight some ideas, especially those experiences that are powerful to explore at the beginning of a new school year in order to create classrooms where students feel seen, heard, valued, and loved. When students feel belonging, they thrive and can engage in deep learning. In addition to Dr. Muhammad’s ideas, I will explore ideas I have used with students and that colleagues have shared with me.

“Knowing self prepares young people to live joyfully in the world…. Young people need to know themselves as well as others who may be different from them…. This knowledge teaches young people how to love and live with differences as they grow older.” ~Cultivating Genius

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Unearthing Joy

Posted on by Kathy Collier

Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching and Learning, by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad is a book I have excitedly been waiting for! Now that it has arrived, I am savoring every chapter, both the content and the beauty. The playlist that accompanies every chapter and the images to color with each chapter are inviting and inspiring. The language is like poetry and I can hear Dr. Muhammad’s voice as I read her words. In this post, I want to summarize some of my first impressions.

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Student Agency, Feedback, and Voice

Posted on by Kathy Collier

Last year, I wrote about Pedagogy of Voice, as described in Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation. This weekend I am rereading the Pedagogy of Voice chapter: Redefine “Success” and striving to go deeper into the content. In this post, I want to share some of the passages that are standing out the most, and why.

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Feedback to Pedagogical Change: Focus Student to Teacher

Posted on by Kathy Collier

We know that, as educators, implicit biases show up in the ways we teach. We also know that the best feedback we can get is from observing and reflecting on practice with a critical lens and, more importantly, asking our dreamers for feedback. (Note that I am using the term Achiever instead of Scholar to honor the funds of knowledge and expertise each student already has.) In this post I want to synthesize what I am learning about the “Focus Student” process. Engaging in a Cycle of Inquiry around a focus student can increase a sense of belonging, which leads to an increase in learning and a change in teacher practice adapted to the achievers with whom we engage.

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A First Try: Unit Planning With Cultivating Genius

Posted on by Kathy Collier

I’ve been studying the work of Dr. Gholdy Muhammad for several years by watching webinars, reading and re-reading her Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally Responsive and Historically Responsive Literacy, and this year by working alongside her in a year long in-depth study of her work and how to use the Historically Responsive Literacy framework. In the past I’ve integrated the framework into lessons and last week I started my first unit plan using the tool. I’m excited to share some of my thoughts in this post.

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My Why

Posted on by Kathy Collier

It’s interesting to me that this, my 50th post, brings me back to my “why.” I’ve written in previous posts about the importance of knowing one’s why, and acting within one’s why.

“We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.”
– Simon Sinek

 

Today I want to delve deeply into my why and the reasons behind my why.

My Why:
“Be a mirror to reflect back to our students their beauty and brilliance
so they feel: belonging, safe, heard, seen, valued, joy, and LOVED.”

 

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Experiencing Success + Belonging = Thriving

Posted on by Kathy Collier

Anyone who knows me or follows my blog knows that Belonging is one of my core values. It is my goal that every student in my school feels a sense of belonging, based on how they define belonging. In this post, I want to synthesize Elena Aguilar’s definition of Equity with the model Dr. Amante-Jackson uses to highlight the importance of Belonging.

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Cultivating Genius: Joy

Posted on by Kathy Collier
In my last post, I wrote about Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally Responsive and Historically Responsive Literacy. Muhammad has developed a tool based on the rich practices of Black Literary Societies of the 1800s. The framework includes 5 Learning Pursuits: Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy. These pursuits are empowering and connected to the lives of students. They are used to design interdisciplinary unit plans through the use of multi-modal layered texts. In my last post, I focused on the Learning Pursuit of Identity. Today, I will focus on Joy. Let me preface by saying I am just a learner in this work, and have so much more to learn. However, I need to start somewhere and am taking it step by step. As always, I look forward to feedback!

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Cultivating Genius: Identity

Posted on by Kathy Collier

Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally Responsive and Historically Responsive Literacy presents background and a tool based on the rich practices of Black Literary Societies of the 1800s. The framework includes 5 Learning Pursuits: Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy. These pursuits are empowering and connected to the lives of students. They are used to design interdisciplinary unit plans through the use of multi-modal layered texts. Because most traditional unit planning is focused on Skills and Intellect, I am shifting to focus more on Identity, Criticality, and Joy in my planning and coaching. In this post, I will focus on the Learning Pursuit of Identity.

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Co-conspirators: Three Recommendations

Posted on by Kathy Collier

In How to be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi writes that an anti-racist is “one who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea.” Percy Brown and Rainey Briggs, in their Critical Consciousness training, define co-conspirators as “people who, no matter how hot it gets, stay and fight for you. They know that sacrifice is required and are willing to lose a friend” by standing up and acting. Now more than ever, I’m trying hard to listen to the voices of people of color who are often silenced and have so much to offer. I preface this post by acknowledging that I am a white, cisgender heterosexual woman trying to synthesize my own thoughts. In many of my recent learnings, recommendations from my valued colleagues and network, typically recommend three key ideas in antiracist work.

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