Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain was published in late 2014. This places its publication date after the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old Black teenager who was killed by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. In the aftermath of Martin’s death, a petition with over two million signatures demanded that Zimmerman be prosecuted (Leitsinger, Miranda. “How one man helped spark online protest in Trayvon Martin case.” Nbcnews.com, 2012). People protested throughout the country when Zimmerman was acquitted of murder charges (Williams, Matt; agencies. “Trayvon Martin protests being held in more than 100 US cities.” The Guardian, 2013).

Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain was also published after the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was an unarmed, 18-year-old Black man. Darren Wilson, a police officer, shot and killed him. Protests erupted in the wake of the shooting. Wilson was not indicted (“Michael Brown is killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.” History.com, 2014).

Educators around the United States sought to understand the role of education in the aftermath of these events. Hammond is a Black educator who specializes in equity practices. Her book is framed by a historical moment in which Black and brown students were once again impacted by high-profile acts of violence against Black bodies. Systemic social factors, such as the school-to-prison pipeline, contextualize the pedagogical approaches Hammond defines and recommends. Furthermore, Hammond denounces teaching practices that rely heavily on rote memorization and lecture as perpetuating factors in the “pedagogy of poverty” (14).

Hammond argues that understanding students’ cultures is not merely an ideological choice but a professional necessity. Hammond says that while the racialized structures at work in the United States today may not be as overtly oppressive as the Jim Crow laws of the pre-Civil rights era, they still can suppress academic achievement and maintain inequality. As she writes: “[Inequality] takes the form of seemingly benign institutional practices or structures that reduce and limit opportunities for people of color, poor people, and immigrants” (28).

Hammond positions her work at the intersection of socio-politically conscious teaching practices and neuroscience. The focus on neuroscience shifts the spotlight to objective, scientific truth, devoid of any specific political ideology.