Culturally Sustained Learning

Culturally sustaining learning not only affirms students’ cultural backgrounds, but finds ways to sustain them through their education. Culturally sustaining learning should take place throughout all of the types of learning, however to guarantee that it occurs, it is identified as its own approach.

When using place-based learning with your students, consider the following:

What role do students have in your classroom?
What are you classroom practices for discussions and sharing of ideas? What norms have been establish for you and your students?
What voices are you sharing in your classroom?
Are your practices inclusive for all students?
How can you remove barriers in your classroom?
How do you address real-world events in your classroom, if at all?
In what ways do you involve community members in your classroom?

Examples of place-based learning include, but are not limited to:

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Preview

Case Question 6

Case Write-up Questions
The following selected case has questions to be addressed and written up. Students should work in teams of three to four. The questions address aspects of the case that need further analysis.

In one page! What is the solution to the problem of income inequality in a developed nation?
Discussion Question – Ecology

In the transcript of Slavoj Žižek’s conversation from Examined Life, he says, "the true ecologist must also accept that nature is the ultimate human myth, that we humans, when we perceive ourselves as beyond nature, exploiting nature and so on, we also, through this opposition, create a certain image of nature. And that idealized image of nature is the ultimate obstacle to ecology. So, again, this is why my formula is ecology without nature. The first duty is to drop this heavily ideologically mythological, invested notion of nature." What do you think? What are the two notions of "ecology" he is comparing? Do you agree?