Culturally Responsive Teaching Alternatives: How It Works

Culturally responsive teaching methods have become a significant focus of teacher certification and professional development programs across the United States in the past decade.  As an international organization that works with educators and students from many different cultures, our programs have set a standard for educating students about human rights and pluralism across many different environments.  And while the culturally responsive teaching movement in the U.S. has sought new ways to adapt to and draw from the culture of the students, Hardwired employs a unique and innovate method to help all educators and students, regardless of their diverse backgrounds, come to a deeper understanding of human rights and pluralism by working outside of their culture. 

The training program centers on a simulation designed to have participants develop new cultures in groups of diverse students that will face various challenges and learn to live in peace with other new cultures – and these new cultures are created around fictitious fruit tribes.  The fruit tribes and their fictitious cultures serve as an analogy for pluralism and help educators and students experience how people live together in peace, outside of their frame of reference.  The simulation uses techniques and methods that most educators and students in the cultures where we work are not familiar with.  This works because our goal is to teach participants to recognize the inherent dignity of each fruit – or person – and the rights they require to express their unique culture, which includes their beliefs about the world and how they express those beliefs, among other areas of human rights.  Through a rights-based curriculum and conceptual change pedagogy, we lead educators and students to think outside of their conceptual framework to develop a deeper understanding of the importance of belief and expression in human culture – and ultimately, toward greater respect for the dignity and rights of others, regardless of their differences across all cultures with their diverse backgrounds and beliefs.  Educators and students emerge better equipped to recognize the inherent dignity and rights of others rather than focusing on the external differences exhibited in culture.  And by understanding these rights, including the need for freedom of belief and expression inherent in cultures, they are better equipped to engage with one another in meaningful dialogue across their deepest differences.

Our Impact

Hardwired uses some comparable techniques to those used in a culturally responsive teaching approach, but the goals are distinct. Like culturally responsive teaching and related pedagogies, we help educators and students from diverse backgrounds understand their rights and freedoms from within their own cultural or religious context.  However, our approach is grounded in conceptual change theory and a rights-based curriculum that enables those we train to develop a deeper respect for the dignity and rights of others – especially the role of freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief in human life for all people worldwide. Therefore, whereas culturally responsive teaching focuses on teaching to cultural differences, Hardwired focuses on teaching to the dignity and rights common to all people, regardless of their culture.  And by doing so, we lead those we train to a deeper understanding of the human impulse to believe which may be reflected in their culture to change how they engage with others across their deepest differences in order to embody pluralism and respect for the dignity and rights of others in the classroom.  Educators who have experienced a conceptual change through our program begin to model the values of pluralism in their classroom.  And we have observed that changed educators lead to changed classrooms, which can be sustained long after the initial training regardless of the curriculum. We have also observed students be able to move beyond tolerance and embody pluralism – through changes in their perspectives, attitudes and behaviors which have extended well beyond the classroom, into their homes and community. 

What We Offer

Hardwired's Educational Programs are designed to equip educators with the skills needed to facilitate respect for the dignity and rights of others as evidenced by students' engagement with one another, especially across their deepest differences, through understanding, self-reflection, critical thinking, dialogue, and the open expression of diverse ideas. Through a human rights-based curriculum and unique pedagogy, Hardwired equips educators to incorporate the values of pluralism into their lessons and classroom – including the right of each student to dignity, equality, non-discrimination, the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, and the freedom to express differences of opinion and belief with others among others.  Throughout the program, they learn how to engage in more meaningful dialogue with one another across their deepest differences and respect a variety of human rights. 

Resources

Hardwired's training programs support curriculum development, equipping educators from diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and environments to apply the lessons of pluralism within their local context.  Our series of Children’s Books were based on lessons written by teachers in different countries who built an analogy for pluralism and human rights from their own cultural context.  Through our proprietary simulation – Fruitopia – participants (teachers and students alike) are immersed into a fictitious culture of fruit that navigate various challenges as they interact with other fruit on the island of Fruitopia.  They take on the role of a tribe of fruit and work in groups to create a fictitious culture with its own language, set of beliefs, rules, social structures, practices and celebrations.  The goal is not focused on existing cultures but rather on developing a new concept of culture to better understand how cultures develop, including the unique beliefs about their existence that inform their lives, which can ultimately be related back to real-life situations to strengthen peace and pluralism in their communities.  As the groups face various challenges to their cultural identity, they learn how to navigate the different values, obligations, needs, and fears of others.  They develop skills to overcome their misconceptions, bias and fear of others, and engage with people who are different from them.  The simulation builds a deeper understanding of the rights they and others need to exist in dignity and freedom.  And by the end, participants are better equipped to articulate and express their own culture and beliefs, engage in meaningful dialogue and interactions with people from different backgrounds and beliefs, and exhibit respect for the dignity and rights of others.

Testimonials

What is so amazing about the United States is that here we protect our basic rights and freedoms, and we respect the value of all people. When you grow up in a country where that is not the case, as I did, these concepts can be almost incomprehensible at first, and are astounding and beautiful when understood.

Enes Freedom, former NBA Basketball Player and Human Rights Advocate

(cont.) Similarly, teens that have grown up in America will find it hard to believe that these concepts aren’t a given for their refugee peers. What’s great about this program is that it helps establish a bridge between these different baselines and the students come away with a better understanding of each other and of the inherent value of every individual. 

Enes Freedom, former NBA Basketball Player and Human Rights Advocate

We have gained a new and vast repertoire of modern educational strategies, a passion to keep learning more, and a broader network of like-minded colleagues...

This training will support and protect the students of my nation from the hardships and misery of the current situation they are living.

Teacher and Educational Supervisor, Lebanon