“Our challenge as culturally responsive teachers is knowing how to create an environment that the brain perceives as safe so it can . . . turn its attention to learning.”

Most often, “culturally responsive teaching” focuses on students of color and students who are linguistically diverse.  After reading iGen by Jean Twenge, however, I would argue that students born between 1995 and 2012 have unique cultural characteristics that we need to be aware of.  Twenge notes the “teens’ depressive symptoms have skyrocketed in a very short period of time” (100). In the American Collegiate Health Association survey, “college students are now more likely to say they feel overwhelming anxiety and that they felt so depressed they could not function” (103).  How do we create a safe environment for these students?

Hammond, Zaretta. Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain. Corwin, 2015, p. 50.