Representative Curriculum

View or share this material on a Google Doc: Representative Curriculum

Objective

To review curriculum and additional remote and hybrid resources through a critical, culturally responsive lens. 

This activity is estimated to take approximately 30 minutes.

Explore this Website

On page 28 of the NYSED’s Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework, teachers are expected to:

  • Play a role in helping schools to understand and align curriculum to the variety of histories, languages, and experiences that reflect the diversity of the State population.
  • Pair traditional curricular content with digital and other media platforms that provide current and relevant context from youth culture.

Read and review this resource from We Teach NYC, which details four areas of consideration when you review and reflect upon your curriculum and resources. Then, individually or in pairs, reflect on the questions below that are presented in the resource.

  1. Will this digital resource give my students access to stories that celebrate them and their cultures?
  2. Will this digital resource give my students access to stories that celebrate a diversity of cultures?
  3. Does this digital resource ask students to learn about or process another traumatic situation?
  4. Does this digital resource present the multiple perspectives and counter-narratives of people who have the broadest view on the past, present, and future?
  5. How will this digital resource allow for students to grow their anti-bias viewpoints?
  6. Though you may not be able to change the resource, how can you use it to build students’ capacity to critique and challenge the material?

Take Action

NYU Metro Center created the culturally responsive curriculum scorecards linked below in order to support all stakeholders in determining the extent to which the current curriculum is culturally responsive. They define curriculum as the following:

  • Textbooks
  • Lesson plans
  • Stories/books
  • Worksheets and homework assignments
  • Teacher’s manual/editions
  • Online media and videos
  • Learning standards and expectations
  • Tests and assessments
  • Classroom activities

As a PLC or content-area team, determine a curriculum resource you will review and choose one of the culturally responsive curriculum scorecards below to use. You may print the pages indicated or reflect on your own paper/shared digital document.