Culturally Responsive Teaching & Leading: A Conversation With Three Educators

We are joined by three stellar educators for a lively chat about their personal experiences as students, the teachers who inspired them, the value of diverse educators, and what these Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading standards could mean for Illinois students.

Rudy Hernandez is superintendent of Cicero School District 99 — a large elementary district west of Chicago, with more than 10,000 students, most of whom are Hispanic.

Corey Winchester has taught history and social sciences at Evanston Township High School for more than a decade. In 2020, he was named Illinois History teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He has also been a Teach Plus policy fellow and a Golden Apple award winner for excellence in teaching.

Keisha Rembert has taught history and English at the middle school level, and is now an assistant professor of teacher preparation at National Louis University in Chicago. She was also a Teach Plus policy fellow and, in 2019, Keisha was named Outstanding Middle-level Educator in English Language Arts by the National Council of teachers of English.

Both Rudy and Keisha are members of our Diverse and Learner Ready Teachers Network, which helped develop these new standards.

We recorded this conversation in December, just before the holidays. Due to everyone's busy schedules, we interviewed Rudy first, and then Corey and Keisha together. What you'll hear in this podcast is those interviews mixed together and slightly edited for time.

Theme music by José Rivera.

Transcript

Culturally Responsive Teaching & Leading:  A Conversation with Three Educators

RHODES  0:02  

Hello, we are the Illinois State Board of Education and we love Illinois schools. I'm Dusty Rhodes in the Communications Office at ISBE. Today we have three guests. 

Rudy Hernandez is Superintendent of Cicero School District 99, a large elementary district west of Chicago with more than 10,000 students, most of whom are Hispanic. 

Corey Winchester has taught history and social sciences at Evanston Township High School for more than a decade. In 2020, he was named Illinois History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He has also been a Teach Plus Policy Fellow and a Golden Apple Award winner for Excellence in Teaching. 

Keisha Rembert has taught history and English and is now an assistant professor of teacher preparation at National Louis University in Chicago. She was also a Teach Plus Policy Fellow and in 2019, Keisha was named outstanding middle level educator in English language arts, by the National Council of Teachers of English. 

We invited these three educators to talk to us about Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading. Both Rudy and Keisha are members of our Diverse and Learner-Ready Teachers network, which helped develop these new standards. 

We recorded this conversation last December just before the holidays. Due to everyone's busy schedules, I interviewed Rudy first, and then Corey and Keisha together. So what you'll hear in this podcast is those interviews mixed together and slightly edited for time. 

Tell me a little bit about your personal experience as a student. Did you have a diverse cast of educators in primary and secondary school? 

HERNANDEZ  1:41  

Well, most of my teachers were not diverse. I attended school many, many years ago in Little Village, out of the West side of Chicago. Things were a little different, but they haven't changed much. We have very little representation of at least my ethnic group, which is the Latino group. 

WINCHESTER  2:03  

Did I have folks of color teaching me in elementary and secondary school? Not really, but I had, I had a black kindergarten teacher, Miss Christian. And then between first grade and seventh grade, I only had white educators.

REMBERT  2:24  

I am, girl, born and raised South Side of Chicago, southeast Side of Chicago, and I went to Catholic school for my elementary education. So I did not have a teacher of color until fifth grade. And I thought Miss Martin was the most beautiful thing that had ever walked the face of the earth. It annoyed my mother too. She was like, I look good, why are you always coming talking about Miss Martin? But it was because I finally got a chance to see an educator who looked like me. And not only who looked like me, but showed empathy and kindness toward everyone in my classroom. And that's what sticks out to me the most. It's not the color of Miss Martin’s skin, it's that she humanized us as students in our class. She just made me feel like I was understood and that I was seen, and there were things that I didn't have to explain. 

Through high school, I had a pretty diverse group of teachers as well. It was only when I went to college that that diversity stopped, and I had predominantly white educators.

RHODES  3:37  

So did you have a specific teacher who inspired you?

HERNANDEZ  3:41  

I did. I did. And one of the few Latino teachers that I had the fortune of having in my high school was an inspiration. And really the person that took me by the hand and said, no, we're doing this. You're going to school, and pretty much guide me through the whole process. And this was a Latino female teacher.

RHODES  4:02  

Do you remember her name?

HERNANDEZ  4:04  

Yes. Josephine Sanchez. Sure. Give her credit. Absolutely.

RHODES

What grade were you in when Ms. Sanchez took you by the hands?

HERNANDEZ

I was a senior in high school at that time.

RHODES  4:17  

Did you have a different goal that you've had your eye on?

HERNANDEZ  4:20  

I honestly hadn't had a lot of discussion about going to college. I had my own goals when going to college to go into a business administration. But wasn't very actively looking into applying or moving forward with that plan, not a whole lot of support also from guidance counselors.

RHODES  4:40  

Do you mind telling me how you would have rated yourself as a student? Were you a good student or kid who was good at something else?

HERNANDEZ  4:50  

I think I was a busy student. I wouldn't say good. Unfortunately, at that time I was holding a full paying job, just because that was the environment at the house. I had to help out at the house. I was the only one left with elderly parents. So I had to hold 40-hour job, which made going to school very difficult.

RHODES

Do you mind if I ask what your full-time job was?

HERNANDEZ

I worked at Browns Chicken, fast food restaurant. The reason why I wanted to go into business administration is because I started just readying chicken and cleaning. And I worked my way up to assistant manager. And of course, I have to deal with the business component of it. So that's the reason why I was attracted into business.

RHODES  5:43  

Did you have a specific teacher who inspired you?

WINCHESTER  5:47  

Yeah, I mean, I started in Ms. Gray. It's always weird when we talk about that word diverse. She was diverse, because she was different for me. You know, as a white woman, and she asked to keep our class together after first grade, and then after second grade. So I had Ms. Gray for three years and she got to know all of us. She got to know our families. You know, we kept in touch when that third grade class split apart. She went and taught a year in London. We were pen pals. I was in her wedding in sixth grade. We did like family dinners and took me to New York. I hung out with her aunt and her mom and her husband. You know, when my granny passed away in 10th grade, she was at the funeral, her and her mother came. She was at my high school graduation, she was at my college graduation, she was at my Golden Apple celebration, which also happened to be my 31st birthday. Like Ms. Gray is fam. And you know, she is someone that has been in it. You know, she's seen my brothers grow up. She's seen my parents grow up. And so she's been the one that I think has gotten me into teaching. It was actually me going back to see her class that taught me that I wasn't ready or cut out to be an elementary school teacher like I thought because she had kids like on the floor crying like shoes untied. I can't, I can't do that. Let me just teach high school. And, you know, do that part. Um, but Ms. Gray – she is my inspirational teacher.

RHODES  7:20  

And she didn't culturally match you.

WINCHESTER  7:24  

She's a white woman. No. I mean, like, there are lots of things that were different about how we grew up, but she was someone that made every effort to see us as human beings with all the complexities that came with our identities. She's someone who has been teaching and working in Philly public schools, her whole career. And to me, the energy and effort that she put in highlights her dedication, to learning and growth and understanding different systems of oppression. And yeah, she's been invested in it, and still keeps in touch with a lot of us.

RHODES  8:00  

Keisha, Corey took teacher's pet through a whole new level.

REMBERT  8:05  

I wish I could say that I have had that experience with an educator. And I hope that my students can say that about me. I want to be a Ms. Gray to students. But I had a couple of educators who really inspired me, one of which was my sixth grade teacher, Ms. Spanik. You talking about fighting for the love and attention of an educator -- that was me, and Ms. Spanik made it clear that she had no favorites. I loved her because she pushed us to be our best. Although she wasn't … Miss Martin was warm and fuzzy; Miss Spanik was not. You know, I can't remember her saying, great job! But I do remember her, giving me chance after chance to redo an assignment and stopping by my desk and kneeling at my desk and helping me with something. And not making me feel little because I didn't get it the first couple of times, to let me know that excellence is in me and I'm not sure if I knew that prior to having her. 

Then one of my college instructors, Boston College, Dr. Laura Tanner, and she was a quiet leader. You just felt her energy in the classroom and you wanted to do your best for her because I never wanted to let her down. She would always tell me during our talks, “you should be an educator!” And my refrain was always, they don't make enough. But she planted that seed and I think that is why I came back to it just thinking back to her words.

RHODES  9:45  

So your two inspirational teachers did they match you color wise?

REMBERT  9:50  

No. Ms. Spanik was a Polish lady and Dr. Tanner was a white woman from New Hampshire.

RHODES  9:58  

So how crucial is it to see someone who looks like them leading their classroom?

HERNANDEZ  10:03  

I think is so instrumental to be able to not only relate to the person that is in front of you, but to also seek guidance. Again, the only conversations that I had about post-secondary education were really with that one teacher and that was because she was asking, okay, so where are you going to college? And I had no answer. She just took upon herself and said, wait a minute, what do you mean, you don't have a plan? You have to have a plan. She must have seen something in me and that's the reason why. 

I think that facilitated this whole conversation, being able to have someone that relate and understood my situation and did not let me use it, not let that be a barrier. She motivated me, gave me a little loan to apply. Oh, yeah, the whole the whole works, and walked me through the whole process. But I felt comfortable accepting that coming from someone that I can relate to. So I think it's definitely, definitely essential.

REMBERT  11:07  

Well, I can give you a salient example, from my own household. My son was a junior in high school, and he comes to my husband and I, and he says, hey, I want to take rhetoric. Now, this is a kid who has written the same essay since he's been a sixth grade, he is not a writer, he is not a reader and he tells me that he wants to take a college level course. And my husband and I looked at him and like, what, why are you torturing yourself, son? Why would you want to do that? He tells us, it's because the only educator of color in his school teaches rhetoric, and he had never had an educator of color. And he wanted to have that experience. And so he did. He was really excited. He said -- she's now a friend of ours, so Uniqa, no, no shade to you -- but he was like, “It wasn't much different.” As any 17/18 year old boy says during the pandemic. But actually, she pushed him and he was able to open up in that content area in ways that we hadn't seen him do prior. So even though he might not admit it, we saw a difference in how he showed up in school. I just know how critical it is to have someone who shares an understanding and I won't say shares the lived experience, but might be able to relate to your lived experience, and draw you in in ways that others may not. 

RHODES  12:43  

Corey?

WINCHESTER  12:44  

Yeah, I need someone who also understands, like the implications of our, you know, very different lived experiences, right? Because we all have to understand how we're coming into the space. But across the nation, 80% of public school educators are White. And you know, there's a reason for that. And one of my favorite people is Bettina Love, she wrote this book, We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching in the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. And one of the things I really appreciate it is that she gives us a history of public education in the United States. Many of us who happen to education have very little historical context. And I think about myself going to school to become a history teacher, without the context of how education even came into existence. And I think it's a little ironic that I learned that, I don't know, eight years into teaching, nine years into teaching? I think so much of that informs or should inform educators of the social context of how they're stepping into this work. Who's in your classrooms and why? Who do you see it in front of you and why? Who are you and why are you doing this work? These are all questions that educators across the board have to really interrogate. 

And I think there's much more of an onus and responsibility that lands on white educators to do and to understand this work. Because, you know, they often step into this space without that context and are working with students, I think 2014 was the year where more public school students in the United States were students of color. The research is out there about the benefits of what it means to have educators of color standing in front of students of color who are able to see themselves in a society where everything about their lived experience has been deemed in deficit. Right? And to see someone who is teaching and working with students, families, communities, is really empowering and it disrupts this, this narrative that we've seen.

And for white students who have never had a teacher of color, it also disrupts this idea of what is deemed and seen as normal our society. We have defined so much of our realities in this context of this humanity that is actually quite dehumanizing, like this isn't normal. Racism isn't normal, you know? Oppression isn't normal. We haven't gotten to a point where we've even been able to acknowledge that. So I think that's what the power of our existences does in those spaces.

RHODES  15:27  

Okay, so you just mentioned that white kids need this too. Keisha, are students of color the only students who benefit from having teachers of color?

REMBERT  15:37  

Absolutely not. So I taught in a space where I was a teacher of color teaching to white students, primarily. And research, as Corey indicated earlier, suggests that not only do students of color benefit from having a teacher of color, all students benefit from having a teacher of color. The achievement levels rise, the socio-emotional needs of children are met. And guess what, I bring a perspective into the classroom that white students are often missing. And I do that just naturally. 

And I also, let's be honest, debunk some myths that society has perpetuated and show my own humanity. I think there's some liberation, even with white students, that they experience having a teacher of color. I actually think having a teacher of color is a student's civil rights, to be quite honest. I think they need it, I think it adds to their educational experience, as well as to the experience of them as just human beings.

HERNANDEZ  16:46  

I think all students will benefit from having teachers of color. I think it's about really making sure that our teachers are receiving the proper training, to deal with diversity, and different cultures. I think it's important, every culture is rich in so many ways. I think that teaching really has to embrace diversity. But we need to have better preparation programs at higher education institutions to be able to have the people that we need in front of our kids, because just because you're not from the same ethnic background, doesn't mean that you don't care. Sometimes you just don't know how to help or, you don't understand the culture to understand how to help your students. But I honestly believe that, the more diverse the better.

RHODES

So in five words or less, how would you describe the demographic situation of our statewide teacher workforce?

HERNANDEZ

In desperate need of diversity. What I mean by that is teachers of color, teachers and administrators of color, desperately.

RHODES  17:50  

Five words or less. Corey, this is a challenge to you.

WINCHESTER  17:53  

She just called me wordy. Keisha, don’t co-sign! We need more educators, hyphen, of color.

RHODES  18:07  

Keisha?

REMBERT  18:08  

Lacking parity.

RHODES  18:10  

Lacking parity, two words. Okay. 

State Board of Education just finalized Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading standards. They’re going to be incorporated in all that educator preparation programs in the state. What does it mean for something or someone to be culturally responsive? And why is that important?

HERNANDEZ  18:33  

It's certainly important that you understand and develop a love or respect of the culture of the students you have in front of you. How can you, as a teacher, get the most out of your teaching? Well, it's understanding the culture, understanding the background of the students you have in front of you. 

I'll give you a perfect example. In my culture, the Latino culture, when someone of respect is talking to you, you cannot look him in the eye, you're supposed to put your head down. That's how I grew up. And teachers expect for you to look at them in the eye when they're talking to you. It's just part of the culture, you know, different cultural things that could be misinterpreted.

REMBERT  19:11  

It means a deep dive into examining yourself, your own culture, the culture of others and bringing that into the classroom. And it's important because it is the nexus of understanding race culture in our practice. What I appreciate about the standards are that they are really reflective in nature, and that it is going to move educators and districts beyond purchasing a basal reader that has culturally relevant standards within them. It's going to cause some introspection, and it redefines ways of knowing. I think it seeks to topple what we think we know about -- and if you could see me, you would see my air quotes -- about “intelligence.” I believe it's going to shift the thinking of who our students really are.

HERNANDEZ  20:05  

Okay, do culturally responsive practices look different at different grade levels?

HERNANDEZ

It could be in some instances, but overall, it's basically the same at all across the grade levels.

RHODES  20:17  

Okay, it's more of an attitude than a rubric?

HERNANDEZ  20:21  

Absolutely.

REMBERT  20:22  

The implementation of them may look different. But I think the core of the principles, those are, again, introspective. They seek student input, and they require us to, as educators, learn more ourselves and be in partnership with students and communities. That is key to any grade level.

WINCHESTER  20:46  

Seeing somebody's humanity is something that don't change, no matter how old you are. See all of me and embrace it. Let me be me. Let me live. Let me thrive.

RHODES  20:57  

How did you develop culturally responsive teaching and learning standards?

REMBERT  21:01  

So we developed them by looking and seeing what students in Illinois needed and what educators needed. So what does it look like to have an educational system that acknowledged all students, that acknowledged all of the stakeholders, and we looked at what that meant, and then we started brainstorming tenets related to that. There were a number of things that didn't make the cut. And it was a pretty democratic process, but one that was also steeped in research. 

So we read a lot as we developed those standards to ensure that we weren't just throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what stuck, but that we understood the process of education for the teacher as well as the student as well as the community because the community is a piece that's often left out. We wanted to make sure that the community was also prominent in the incorporation of our standards. 

HERNANDEZ  22:03  

It was a lot of conversation about what does that mean? Because it means different, different things for different people. So we wanted to make sure that everybody understood that it has to have the same meaning. If we're going to train people in this area, they need to understand what it means. 

It's really having a respect for the riches that other cultures bring into our culture, how to use that to be able to teach our students, and to be able to welcome those other cultures into our culture to make them feel comfortable. And we did not want people to assimilate; we wanted to incorporate, so that instead of isolation, bring in and be more inclusive. 

So it's grown in our culture. We don't need to have the students change to the way we are. I think we have to adjust our teaching to meet the students’ needs. And that was really the main goal. How do we make sure that teachers understand and are equipped with the skills to be able to meet the students’ needs? Versus having the students adapt to the American way per se.

RHODES

I love that. Did you say incorporate instead of assimilate? 

HERNANDEZ

Correct. 

RHODES  23:19  

That's pretty much it in a nutshell, right? 

HERNANDEZ  23:22  

That's it. That's it, you know?

RHODES  23:24  

As part of this initiative, ISBE's going to work with all the teacher preparation programs, over the next few years to develop and implement recruitment and retention plans for educators of color. What are the most crucial next steps?

HERNANDEZ  23:38  

I think the next step is really to incorporate higher education representatives to help us work with how do you incorporate those standards, how do you provide a professional development to make sure that the same message gets across, and that everybody's working off the same blueprint? So it's going to be really bringing people that are key in terms of policyholders, policymakers, because we also need to look into, how do we finance these type of programs? How do we create incentives for our diverse population? Our teachers of color, future teachers of color, to get into teaching? So it's really working on how to build the pipeline with higher education, and then trickle down all the way. And this is something that I actually feel strongly about. It has to start at elementary School. Then by the time they get to college, they should already be able to claim their major to be in education.

RHODES  24:39  

All teachers have a heavy workload. But teachers of color seem to get tasked with some intangible duties due to their race. Talk about some of those extra responsibilities that you get tasked with.

HERNANDEZ  24:53  

I think as an administrator, let's just say as administrator in general, you look for your resources. So we tend to look to our teachers of color, to help us build those relationships with our students, to help us acknowledge some of the celebrations that we need to have highlighted for our students. I think that's where the pressure comes in more than anything else, it's almost like you can relate to them, so maybe you can communicate this message. That carries some responsibility because in a way, you're being asked to be the representative of the district with a specific ethnicity or diverse group.

WINCHESTER  25:38  

I can actually give an example of one, this happened recently. This year I'm teaching four sections of AP United States history. I am one of I think three or four teachers in the department, who is of color who is teaching this AP class. One of my students of color reached out to me and said, hey, one of my friends wants to come to your office hours. I was like, okay, fine. So when the office hours happened, the student came to me and said, I'm just lost, I'm so lost, and I don't know what's going on, I don't understand the feedback, I don't get what's happening here, and I just keep failing. And students of color have struggled in this space. It might not be something that is aired, but you know -- you hear what students say, you hear what they talk about. 

For the students that come to me to get the help that they needed, this is one of these examples of where I'm doing somebody else's work, where they're unaware that this is happening, and so that's something that happens, I think, often. 

And there are a lot of these anecdotal stories that people might just say, wow, this student just needed to get help from someone different. Like, yeah, you could say that. But when this happens over and over and over and over and over again, and the students that are coming to you from predominantly white spaces, and predominantly white teachers, are students of color, reaching out to another educator of color, there's something going on there. We really have to do our work to interrogate that. I mean that's just an example that's happened to me.

REMBERT  27:12  

I think about just being one of the only educated as of color, who always had to speak up about equity issues. You know, there's micro aggression -- I call it micro appreciation -- where nobody appreciated the fact that I was always going to say, Okay, well, we're talking about this achievement gap, but what about the opportunity gap? Or why am I walking past the principal's office and always seeing students of color in a building, that's 98% white? Why am I the person tasked to mentor a, b, and c? That's labor! 

Even my work was labor. So I talked about bringing multiple perspectives in the classroom, that's laborious to think about. Okay, we haven't talked about any authors of Asian descent, and I'm going to research and go out and find them. I'm going to make sure that we have a text that incorporate some bilingual language, because I want students to be exposed to that. That is labor that I see educators of color engaging in that I don't often see -- and I won't say that it is absent in my white colleagues, but I don't often see them doing that. In addition, to the ones that we could all probably name if we thought about their disciplinarians in our school buildings, who were they? If we talked about the kind of mother figures who you would go to where students congregate during lunch, when they didn't want to go outside for recess, and those educators didn't get a chance to have their lunch or to have their time because they were doing the mothering? I think that's labor. 

So not only are educators of color putting in that labor, but they're often not recognized for that labor. We know that education doesn't have this promotion hierarchy, like other fields. But there's, there's also just a way to say thank you that I also think evades educators of color.

RHODES  29:10  

And so last question: Recruitment is one thing, retention is another. So what advice would you give school administrators -- and you are one -- for retaining teachers of color?

HERNANDEZ  29:22  

It starts with the way you recruit your people in.  Why do you need them? You see value in them. Once they come in, then you need to respect the fact that they bring additional value to your staff and you use the value across your district. So it's giving the recognition, the ongoing support, and again, that support doesn't only come with professional development, it comes with mentoring. 

I think that is such a key to make sure that they feel that they're supported, and they don't need to go anywhere else, because we are going to meet their needs. That's what it's all about -- meeting the teachers needs. How do I help you? How do I grow you to be a master teacher? That's really the whole issue for all of us. 

WINCHESTER  29:22  

Don't place the burden on educators of color to save your district. Don't sign them up for every committee to serve on because they are the one or the few educators of color in your building. Check-in, make sure that they have a strong mentor, make sure they have time. We really have to invest time and energies and efforts, and without those investments, then they're going to leave. Acknowledge when great work is being done. Say thank you. Offer to compensate when extra work is being done.

REMBERT  30:39  

I would agree with everything Corey said. Also, I would say move beyond tokenism, because I think districts can hire teachers of color to say that they've hired teachers of color, and often don't then listen and value their work.

WINCHESTER  30:58  

Thank you. You know, make sure I'm growing. 

REMBERT  31:01  

Yes.

WINCHESTER  31:02  

You want to see me flourish, like I want to thrive. I come in as a little seed; make me a tree that's dropping other little seeds.

REMBERT  31:11  

And also when I become a tree, don't then also vilify me because I'm now spreading seedlings in gardens that need to grow. That was what I felt happened to me in my previous district -- that I was seen as an agitator. So that is my fear, too, that when people hear about whiteness, or read about white supremacy, which is in those definers of some of those culturally relevant standards, that they don't automatically tune out or say that, hey, I'm teaching in this part of the state, so I don't need those. That people would really just understand that as educators, we all need to embrace culture, because we all have culture. None of us are absent of it, and it's for the benefit of all.

RHODES  32:06  

That was Keisha Rembert, Corey Winchester and Rudy Hernandez. State legislators will be considering the rules for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading standards on February 16. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and share it with anyone else you think might enjoy it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai