As Sonia Nieto explains in her book, Language, Culture, and Teaching,” ... caring and love are at the heart of all good teaching” (204). She goes on to explain that “caring and love are more than just sentimental or superficial affection,” like praising student work or “watering down” curricula. Instead, they require having “high expectations and great hopes for all students, believing in their abilities, and respecting their identities” (204). Here, Nieto underscores that teachers have to be invested in the holistic development of their students to genuinely help them succeed. This means demonstrating interest in their cultural backgrounds, passions, learning styles, and overall well-being. As Nieto points out, being “nice” is not enough. For instance,  “nice” teachers might inflate students’ grades or praise work that doesn’t meet expectations. Though students may appreciate these gestures (initially,) they do not help prepare students for the remainder of their academic careers and, as a result, can bear serious consequences for their futures. Failing to push students academically can also communicate to students that their teacher has low expectations for them or little investment in their growth. This can have particularly harmful implications for students of color and those with learning differences, as racism and ableism often underlie these low expectations. That said, it’s also harmful to set high expectations without giving students the tools to meet them. I believe that supporting students to achieve high expectations requires educators to adopt a power-based lens in the classroom, ask “profoundly multicultural questions,” and differentiate instruction to support diverse learners. In doing so, teachers demonstrate care for students and model crucial social studies skills such as critical thinking, empathy, and cultural competence.

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First, teachers must critically examine how social power dynamics manifest in their classrooms and ask the “profoundly multicultural questions” that could encourage them to work to change these inequities. Teachers use a power-based lens when they recognize that their classrooms cannot exist outside of a broader social context. Instead, they critically examine how broader, social hierarchies can manifest themselves in their classrooms (for instance, the power they hold, the ways students socialize with each other, the school’s behavior policies, or the curriculum itself). Critically examining power in schools also requires teachers to ask questions about how school policies and practices could better promote equity and access. Nieto calls these “profoundly multicultural questions,” with a few examples being “Which students have taken calculus?” and “Who is teaching students?” Like Christine Sleeter and Judith Flores Carmona describe in Unstandardizing Curricula, educators should focus on “getting schools right for students” rather than merely trying to get “students right for school” (125). Sleeter and Carmona also describe the prevalent achievement gap between low-income students and how those differences are particularly notable in standardized test results. This reveals that the tests themselves and the content they include are not adequately accessible to students. Thus, educators must transform the materials they use to prepare students for tests, and incorporate culturally relevant material to make it more accessible. 

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Showing care for students also requires educators to differentiate academic instruction to accommodate a variety of learning styles. As Tomlinson and McTighe highlight in Understanding by Design, “the most effective teachers use the evidence of variance in student proficiency to provide opportunities and support to ensure that each student continues to develop and deepen knowledge, understanding, and skill from his or her current point of proficiency, interests, and learning preferences” (5). In other words, it is essential to provide students with multiple means of representation of material and offer them a variety of methods to demonstrate their understanding of new material. It’s important to note that a holistic understanding of students is essential to perceive the barriers they may confront in their learning. By this, Tomlinson and McTighe suggest that teachers be conscious of “who they teach (students), where they teach (learning environment), what they teach (content), and how they teach (instruction)” (2). Tomlinson and McTighe encourage the cross-pollination of Differentiated Instruction (DI) and the Understanding by Design (UBD) frameworks. In particular, they suggest “uncovering essential understandings, connecting content to big ideas, focusing on essential learning, developing essential questions/performance tasks, and ongoing assessment and feedback” (2). Together, UBD and DI can be a structured yet flexible roadmap to meet learner needs. 

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In essence, good teaching involves asking “profoundly multicultural questions,” adopting a power-based lens in the classroom, and differentiating instruction to make academic content accessible to all students. Fighting for educational justice and building a community of care is particularly important for social studies teachers because empathy and compassion are intrinsic to the content we teach. Bruce Lesh elaborates on this concept in his book “Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer?” He asserts that “Historical empathy is not putting students in positions where they will have the same beliefs or feel the same emotions experienced by people living in the past: These are impossible goals for students and historians” (154).

Instead, he offers that historical empathy comes from understanding the institutions and social dynamics of the past, asking why people acted as they did, and making an effort to analyze historical events in context. Historical empathy and critical thinking allow students to examine the messages they receive. These skills also inspire students to be upstanding citizens when they are confronted with contradictory information. Because of this, it is necessary that social studies teaches create a compassionate classroom environment and oppose the timeless injustices present in the U.S. education system to adequately support their students and set them up for academic success. 

 

Bibliography

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Blessing, G. (2023). Final Reflection [Unpublished manuscript]. Education Department, Vassar College. 

 

Lesh, B. (2011) "Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer?": Teaching Historical Thinking in 

Grades 7-12. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.

 

Nieto, S. (2017). Language, Culture and Teaching: Critical Perspectives. 3rd Edition. 

Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 

 

Sleeter, C., & Carmona, J. F. (2017). Un-standardizing Curriculum: Multicultural 

Teaching in the Standards-Based Classroom. 2nd Edition. New York: Teachers College Press.
 

Tomlinson, C., & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding By Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.