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Critical Consciousness

Instructional Framework - Heart Tree Icon

Together, educators and learners actively identify, examine and challenge systems of power, oppression, and inequity while reflecting on how our own beliefs, actions, and positions can serve to perpetuate or disrupt those systems. This process requires ongoing reflection, dialogue, and a commitment to practices that promote justice, dignity, and liberation in learning spaces. 

Dimension: Environment

Descriptor What it Could Look Like & CSTP Connections
Decentralizing authority 
  • Establishing classroom traditions rooted in community, connection, and belonging (CSTPs: 1D, 2A, 2D)
  • Students decorating walls and designing learning spaces (CSTPs: 1B, 2A, 2D)
  • Creating acceptable and respectable systems/guidelines of communication and listening for student-to-student interactions and student-to-teacher interactions (CSTPs: 1C, 2A, 2B, 2D)

    • Students co-creating micro-community agreements

  • Leading a classroom from a place of curiosity, joy, calmness, and love (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2A)
Decentering dominant structures
  • Showcasing posters of BIPOC and other historically oppressed groups’ histories and invisible or erased narratives (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2D, 3A, 4A)
  • Creating spaces of co-ownership (students know what they can access without “permission” and understand the systems of maintenance) (CSTPs: 1B, 2A, 2D)
  • Utilizing improvised learning spaces and orientations (students stand, walk, circles, movable/modular orientations, micro-communities, etc.) (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2A, 2D, 3B, 4C)
  • Leveraging and inviting students’ full linguistic repertoire (multilingual students are encouraged to think and use their native language) (CSTPs: 1B, 1D, 2A, 3C, 4C, 5A)
Creating emotionally safe learning environments
  • Welcoming students always and regarding their presence as a celebration (CSTPs: 1A, 2A)
  • Explicitly teaching digital citizenship and responsible online behavior, including discussions on safe internet use and ethical digital engagement (CSTPs: 2B, 2C, 3D, 4C, 5A)
  • Greeting students every day and using their names and preferred gender pronouns (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2A, 4A)
  • Using therapeutic language stems and having check-in routines that center basic human needs like, “How have you been sleeping? Eating? What brings you joy lately?” before academic conversations (CSTPs: 1B, 2A, 5C)
  • Using non-violent and low-anxiety forms of communication (“I noticed __, how are you feeling? What do you need?”) (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2A, 2B, 3B, 4D, 5A, 5C )

    • Using language that emphasizes permission and restorative conversations/language

    • Understanding that students will make mistakes but they can learn from them

    • Not conflating student behaviors or choices with student identity 
Encouraging freedom dreaming
  • Co-generating norms that invite student inquiry, questioning, and critique while being adaptive to the context of lesson or activity (CSTPs: 1A, 1C, 2A, 2B, 3B, 3D, 4B, 4D, 5C)
  • Providing agency to students to consistently re-design learning spaces, rituals, and practices (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 2D)

 

Dimension: Curriculum

Descriptor What it could look like & CSTP Connections
Creating opportunities for students to build critical consciousness
  • Analyzing all texts (routines, practices, books, stories) for Eurocentrism, imperialism, white supremacy, colonialism, classism, commodification, patriarchy, cis-heterosexism (CSTPs: 1D, 2D, 3C, 4B)
  • Modifying curriculum to accommodate the multiple perspectives and needs of students in the classroom (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 3C, 4D)
  • Critiquing curricular materials through an antiracist/anti-oppression lens (CSTPs: 1B, 1D, 2A, 2D, 3A, 3C, 4B, 4C)

    • Representing multiple perspectives, centering BIPOC and other historically oppressed groups.  

    • Critically examining what knowledge is being centered, which groups are most/least advantaged, which groups are left out, and what assumptions are present in the approach to building knowledge

  • Encouraging students to analyze and identify dominant narratives; ie., whose voices and perspectives are included or excluded in traditional curricula (such as able-bodied, heteronormative, western, white Eurocentric, patriarchal, and/or capitalistic perspectives) (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2A, 3B, 4B, 4C)
Leading student-informed curriculum 
  • Utilizing student feedback to modify/enhance curricular choices (CSTPs: 1A, 1C, 2A, 3B, 4B, 5C)
  • Providing student agency by having students teach their peers, analyze curriculum through multiple lenses, and engage in activities that help deepen their own criticality (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2A, 3B, 4C)
  • Prioritizing learners' collective and individual needs versus curricular timelines (teachers stop, pause, reflect, and reteach as needed) (CSTPs: 1A, 1B, 2A, 4D, 5B)
Establishing a rationale of learning 
  • Creating/co-creating thematic units centralized around critical questions or concepts (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 4A)
  • Providing transparency to students about why choices were made (CSTPs: 1C, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A)
Developing authentic practice
  • Aligning with standards that emphasize social justice such as those referenced by the California Department of Education (CSTPs: 1D, 2D, 3A, 4A)
  • Facilitating projects rooted in real-world application that are designed, led, and implemented by students (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2A, 3B, 4C)
  • Engaging and refining work that seeks to undo internalized, interpersonal, and institutionalized oppression (CSTPs: 1D, 2D, 3C)

 

Dimension: Instruction

Descriptor What it could look like & CSTP Connections
Developing collaborative learning structures
  • Co-creating student protocols to teach one another (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 3A, 4C)
  • Creating micro-communities in the classroom or having rotation stations with critical questions (CSTPs: 1A, 2D, 3D, 4C, 5C)
  • Socratic seminars and dialogue are used when speaking to students – less talking at, more talking with (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 3A, 5A)
  • Explicit teaching of self-regulation and conflict resolution skills to build awareness of personal responsibility and equitable participation (CSTPs: 1D, 2A, 2B, 5A)
  • Implementing trauma-informed practices and explicitly teaching empathy, respect, and inclusivity (CSTPs: 1D, 2B, 2D)
Inviting student curiosity, input, and agency
  • Using an inquiry-based approach to learning that promotes the development of voice, agency, and criticality (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 3B, 4A, 4C)
  • Designing for agency and choice on how the activities are implemented (CSTPs: 1A, 2D, 4A, 4D)
  • Using protocols that invite students to critically examine materials, learning, and processes such as “Notice and Wonder, “Glows and Grows”, and examining counternarratives (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 3B, 4A, 5A)
  • Celebrating and acknowledging the curiosities and inquiries that arise from students (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 4A)
  • Facilitating discussions that encourage students to critically examine power structures across disciplines (CSTPs: 1D, 2A, 3B, 4B)
  • Encouraging students to research and present on topics that connect subject matter to social justice issues relevant to their communities (CSTPs: 1A, 1D, 2D, 3B, 4B, 5A)
Embedding reflection rituals
  • Providing strategies to interrogate content through academic and critical dialogue (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 3A, 3B, 4A)
  • Utilizing one-on-one check-in protocols which prioritize students who exhibit physical, social/emotional and/or academic needs (CSTPs: 1B, 2A, 2B, 4D, 5D)
  • Embedding weekly temperature checks (CSTPs: 1B, 2A, 2C, 4B, 5B, 5D)
  • Beginning of the week goal setting practices (e.g. Monday Intentions) (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 5A, 5D)
  • Using and implementing strategies that gather street data to understand when to celebrate, stop, pause and revisit standards/materials when necessary (e.g. empathy interviews, check-in surveys, exit tickets) (CSTPs: 1B, 2D, 4D, 5B)

 

Dimension: Feedback and Appraisal

Descriptor What it Looks Like & CSTP Connections
Engaging in cycles of reflection 
  • Evaluating performance data of BIPOC and historically oppressed groups to understand areas of growth for future modifications to curriculum and instruction (CSTPs: 1D, 2D, 3C, 4B, 5A, 5B)
  • Establishing systems for learners to provide feedback to educators (CSTPs: 1B, 2A, 5A, 5C)
  • Engaging in collective and individual reflections about one’s own critical consciousness (CSTPs: 1D, 2A, 3A, 5A)
Celebrating students individually and collectively  
  • Conducting one-on-one check-ins that emphasize students growth and achievement (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 4C, 5A, 5D)
  • Reflecting back anonymously what learning trends/patterns/gaps are emerging for the entire class (CSTPs: 1B, 4B, 5A, 5B)
  • Embedding student structured talk routines/activities where students have the opportunity to showcase their learning with others (small or large group, virtual forums, public presentations, etc.) (CSTPs: 1A, 2D, 3D, 4B, 4C)
Valuing growth over time
  • Encouraging/engaging learners to take academic risks without fear of penalties being reflected in grades (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 4C, 5A)
  • Coaching students individually and collectively towards proficiency through specific corrections and directions (CSTPs: 1A, 4C, 5B, 5D)
  • Providing multiple opportunities for revision/retakes with embedded reflection prompts that guides students to metacognitively identify what adjustments were made (CSTPs: 1A, 2A, 4D, 5A)
Creating authentic learning assessments
  • Interrogating assumptions of what needs to be assessed to disrupt compliance-based models of learning (CSTPs: 1D, 2A, 4A, 5A)
  • Interrogating the implicit biases and power structures present in objectives, outcomes, and assessments (this may include Eurocentric, classist, colonial, sexist, or ableist assumptions) (CSTPs: 1D, 3B, 4B, 5B, 5D)
  • Developing assessments that:  (CSTPs: 1A, 2D, 3C, 4B, 4D, 5A)

    • are adaptive and flexible to meet the needs of the learner

    • have clear rationale and purpose to students’ lives

    • guide students to be reflective, innovative, creative, and critical 

    • invite modification based on students’ feedback 

    • invite students to explore, identify, and disrupt dominant narratives and ideology

    • invite students to reflect on the effectiveness of their work