Cultural Curriculum Chat with Jebeh Edmunds

Season 6 Episode #18 : Teaching with Empathy: Fostering Inclusivity Through Multicultural Curriculums

• Jebeh Edmunds

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Discover how empathy can transform your classroom and empower your students! In this episode of The Cultural Curriculum Chat, we dive into practical strategies for fostering inclusivity through multicultural curriculums. Learn how to:

Understand your students' stories.
Diversify your teaching materials.
Engage families and communities.
Whether you're an educator or simply passionate about promoting equity, this episode offers actionable insights to help you create a classroom where every student feels seen and valued.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Cultural Curriculum Chat podcast. I'm your host, Jeba Edmonds, and today we're exploring a transformative topic teaching with empathy. In this episode, we're going to focus on how incorporating multicultural curriculums into your teaching practice can foster inclusivity, deepen our understanding and empowering our students to thrive in a diverse world, and by the end of this episode, you're going to walk away with actionable strategies to make empathy the cornerstone of your classroom. So let's dive in why empathy in education matters so much is it's just about understanding others. It's about creating connections that lead to meaningful learning experiences. In my previous episode season six, episode 14, my conversation with best-selling author Dr Erica Goodwin, she talks more about socio-emotional learning practices and empathy. So I highly recommend you going back to that previous episode and listen in depth of what we're really going to cover today and by piggybacking off of what we've created in that previous episode, I want you to understand that when we are building our empathy, it's about creating those connections to lead to meaningful experiences and understanding. We encourage respect for diverse perspectives, we build stronger relationships with each other, and it also prepares our students for global citizenship. And it also prepares our students for global citizenship.

Speaker 1:

We are no longer in that bubble of this is our classroom and we cannot interact with people of different cultures throughout the world. If you even peer into your classroom community now, each student in front of you is connected to somebody throughout the whole entire world. So gone are the days of thinking whoever is in my space, in my classroom community is who I'm teaching. You're actually teaching throughout the whole world and that understanding goes a long way. The role of multiculturalism in education and in our curriculum. It provides our students with a much broader worldview because, like I said, in that classroom space, you are teaching to the masses and you need to also understand that when we are broadening our perspectives and showing and immersing our students with that multicultural lens, it makes them question and think wow, my stereotypes or perspectives of people from this certain group has been changed. I'm also rethinking and reteaching myself of how I interact with other people, and that, to me, showcases us as critical thinkers. To teach our students to be critical thinkers of what is right in front of them might not necessarily give us the whole story.

Speaker 1:

All right, I want you to also think about promoting equity and inclusion in education. So many times we've been talking about diversity, diversity, diversity, and we are neglecting that pieces of equity and inclusion should also be in tandem, should also be in tandem. So many of us feel like we can only do one thing to the next by we just want to focus Jeb on the D in this acronym. It's like no, it all needs to be infused together. So when you are talking about equitable practices in your educational curriculum, I want you to make sure that it's equitable for our kids that are of hard of hearing, our kids that need multiple picture cues and clues. It's equitable to students that feel seen if their identity has not been seen in traditional senses, has not been seen in traditional senses. So I want you to you know, think about and discuss as a whole. Who are we leaving out? What is missing and how do I adapt and incorporate those new practices? I also want you to think about the common missteps and misconceptions. Right, Think about this.

Speaker 1:

Let me give you a little challenge. Is a multicultural curriculum only for students that are of diverse backgrounds? Spoiler alert no, it's for everybody. I don't want you to feel like you have to compartmentalize your multicultural curriculum because of who's represented in your classroom. That's a very dangerous road and we're not going to take it. Okay, and I want you to think about this too Will teaching certain topics take away from my core subjects?

Speaker 1:

No, it integrates beautifully. There are people of all walks of life that are in STEM fields and STEM careers that are doing the same units of study that you are teaching. Why not infuse it and integrate that you are not neglecting one for the other? They are supposed to be together and they're supposed to be infused. So some core strategies I want you to come away with.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to teaching with empathy we talked about following that previous episode with Dr Erica Goodwin. I also want you to think about knowing your students' stories, building those relationships. I loved my morning meetings, when I would get together with my students before we discuss our day. We'd get together and build those relationships, having those conversations right off the jump and continuing by understanding, asking those questions. That really makes your student feel that you really do value them as an individual in the classroom.

Speaker 1:

Diversifying your teaching materials we cannot be hanging out, you know, fast and loose with our basal reader on our hip, or that one supplement that we get every three years of piloting a certain curriculum program. That should not be your means to an end. There's so much out there, with so many digital resources at your fingertips that you can use to supplement and ensure representation is there, either in visual resources and even our assignments that we conduct for our students. I want you to model empathy with your interactions, having those open-ended, clarifying questions, really pausing and reflecting, taking that breath, being that model for your students to emulate when they are practicing as well. Encouraging collaborative learning. Use those project-based tools oh, I love a good group project right and bring those students, mix them up and make sure you have different perspectives that are working together and facilitate those discussions. Focus on problem solving and that mutual understanding. I know we are five years out of being out of COVID but we have lost that really important tool of problem solving and having that mutual understanding together. So encouraging that collaborative learning and really showing our students again modeling how it is effective to problem solve and working through it will go hand in hand.

Speaker 1:

I also want you to engage our families.

Speaker 1:

So many of us are so tunnel vision in creating the curriculum and the concepts and creating that empathic view, but again, we tend to forget that our families want to be invited in to be a guest speaker, to show and incorporate how they show empathy and social emotional learning in their families and in their community. I want you to think about your own reflections of how can I incorporate empathy and still not infuse harm and making people and my students feel tokenized because we're only going to infuse it in certain situations, Okay. And I also want you to think about including family members into your classroom, and even if it's a Zoom invitation, that helps too, but just leaving that family door open will really go a long way. Thank you so very much for joining me today on this episode of the Culture Quickening Chat podcast and if you're watching me, Mrs Edmonds Cultural Corner on YouTube, I want you to step away with this episode and thinking about your own empathic skills as an educator, because teaching with empathy is more than a strategy.

Speaker 1:

It's a commitment to creating classrooms where E, I and B in your Classroom, which is available now on our website, Also explore our educational mini courses for in-depth training on our cultural competency and inclusive teaching practices. You can literally go to the website, order that course and get all the materials ready for you on this inclusive teaching journey. Until next time, keep fostering empathy and inclusivity in your classrooms. Bye-bye.