Emphasize culturally responsive pedagogy
A conversation with Andrew Rothman (Mar 18, 2021)
By John Mitchell and Maxwell Bigman (Decade Ahead Project)
“The pandemic has disproportionately affected underrepresented groups and thusly has created this opportunity and created awareness,” says Andrew Rothman, who has taught in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) for over a decade, as an English teacher, as a computer science teacher, and as interim leader of the computer science program for the district. While he is pleased that the computer science teachers “were [well] positioned because the vast majority of our lessons were on the browser,” he explains that this allowed them to focus on issues that were salient outside the classroom. “The biggest topic is humanizing curriculum,” he says. “That is tied to the social movements of this year.” The SFUSD teachers focussed on “bringing cultural relevance into spaces that have been STEM focussed,” he says. How could the pandemic, highly visible social and political movements of a tumultuous year, and the transition to online teaching support culturally responsive care for students?
Gloria Ladson-Billings, now president of the National Academy of Education, developed the theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy that Andrew Rothman cites. She has proposed three main components: (1) focusing on student learning and academic success, (2) developing students’ cultural competence to assist them in developing positive ethnic and social identities, and (3) supporting students’ critical consciousness and their ability to recognize and critique societal inequalities. [Gloria Ladson-Billings, “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy”, American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 32, №3 , accessed January 2020.]
The “identification of systems and structures that were historically repressive — this was coming,” Andrew tells us. He then shares a link through the Chat feature of our Zoom session to a presentation with this quote:
Culturally responsive teachers: understand that we’re operating in a fundamentally inequitable system….that the teacher’s role is not merely to help kids fit into an unfair system, but rather to give them the skills, the knowledge, and the dispositions to change the inequity. (Gloria Ladson Billings)
“We have a series of cultural activities,” Andrew explains, including celebration of Black History Month and Women’s History Month. “These were extremely well received this year,” he emphasizes.
When we ask about the year in San Francisco schools overall, Andrew pauses and says, “A good place to start would just be the positives.” Thinking about technology, online teaching and online learning, he says, “Everyone is going to need the ability to deal with technology.” Historically, “we’ve had hesitancy on the teacher and organizational side,” he continues. But now everyone is all in, at least for the moment. While he estimates very roughly that 20% of district teachers were adept with technology before the pandemic, “That has now risen to close to 100%,” he says. “There’s no question. We will never go back. We will always teach with technology intentionally incorporated into our process.”
The SFUSD computer science teachers meet regularly in what they call a Professional Learning Community (PLC), which Andrew leads. Our “PLC attendance format has shifted” to online meetings this year, he explains. “Attendance has never been higher.” Many of these meetings include a presentation by one teacher or team, presenting a lesson they are developing. This gives all of the other teachers a chance to experience that lesson as if they are a student in a class. The teachers are deeply attuned to effective pedagogy, and also deeply committed to social justice and diverse student participation across the spectrum of schools of the district. These are clearly hallmark values of the San Francisco school system and the city around them.
The SFUSD Computer Science teachers want students to see digital technology as accessible and empowering. Judging from the projects that have been presented at the PLC, it is clear that their lessons do just that. Students debate the social impact and equity of technical advances. “In terms of comfort with curriculum that had to be digitally based, we were ready,” Andrew says. However, the emphasis on culturally responsive pedagogy and diverse participation increased. Looking forward, Andrew encourages teachers to “work on your teaching practice” so that “the classroom is a space” that engages “students who don’t generally engage.”
