Introduction
Our recent report, Cultivating New Ground Curriculum: Shifts Towards Culturally Responsive Curriculum, found meaningful movement toward comprehensive, core culturally responsive curricula. We call this movement a shift from Old Ground Curricula to New Ground Curricula. (We’re hosting a workshop that teaches meaningful practices educators and pre-service teachers can use to implement culturally responsive curriculum, register here.) This new shift raised a new question: as we enter a new pathway towards educational equity, how ready are other parts of the educational system to support the actual use of culturally responsive curricula? Teaching and learning departments across the United States are responsible for preparing pre-service teachers to become classroom educators. A persistent challenge is that these programs have historically underprepared educators to work with students who don’t fit the typical white, middle-class mold. Often, there’s only one required diversity or multicultural class, even though more than half of all public school students in the U.S. are students of color. While some studies have found standalone courses related to diversity, multiculturalism, and cultural responsiveness to be effective in some ways, several have identified limitations of relying on a singular course, namely that they cannot equip pre-service teachers with all or even most of the necessary knowledge, skills, and competencies to culturally responsive pedagogy well (Gulya & Fehérvári, 2024; Akiba, 2011; Lambeth & Smith, 2016; Siluanas, Wan, & Edejer, 2024).

To practice culturally responsive teaching, educators must recognize and honor students’ diverse cultural identities, build trusting relationships with students and families, and be ready to facilitate conversations about difference, culture, power, and the real-world experiences students bring. Old Ground curricula typically miss these opportunities for deep connection and honest dialogue. In contrast, New Ground curricula creates opportunities for these moments. As such, the emergence of New Ground curricula prompts us to consider what it means for educators to be prepared to guide young people through these powerful conversations, including examining their own backgrounds and abilities to navigate topics of race, culture, power, social and political consciousness, and equity.

Dr. Erica Saldívar García, a Clinical Assistant Professor of TESOL, Bilingual and World Language Education and Co-Director of Teacher Education, and Dr. Natalia Ortiz, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Teaching and Learning and Director of the Office of School and Community Partnerships offer perspectives on what teaching and learning departments can do to help educators utilize culturally responsive curricula.

1. Prioritize Teaching Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Early and Incorporate It Throughout Pre-Service Teachers’ Training

Dr. Saldívar García describes how her department at New York University approaches this challenge: “We prepare pre-service teachers to implement culturally responsive curriculum from day one.” She explains that embedding these core principles at every stage of teacher training is important and that professors also model these practices in their own teaching. Additionally, her department defines culturally responsive teaching as the foundation for what it means to be an “engaged scholar.” Dr. Ortiz adds that teaching culturally responsive pedagogy is “more than just learning the theory, we have [students] practice self-reflection and practice with real school scenarios.” Students are also given “field mentors to help support [students’] understanding.” Dr. Saldívar García comments that her department:

“Intentionally partners with diverse school districts. During student teaching placements, our teacher candidates participate in community asset mapping -- learning the cultural, linguistic, and historical resources of the specific communities they are serving--among other activities. Importantly, our work with teachers does not stop when they complete our programs. We continue to engage the field in topics of culturally responsive curricula through programming for in-service teachers such as the Institutes of Teachers for World Languages, which just completed its 11th year, for early career teachers and continuing education for teachers with more experience. There is always room for growth but we take culturally responsive education seriously across our teaching in classrooms and departmental supporting structures.”

2. Develop Mindset Shifts to Help Pre-Service Teachers Move from the Old Ground Curriculum to New Ground Culturally Responsive Curriculum

The differences between Old Ground and New Ground curricula ultimately come down to the ways Old Ground curricula maintains the status quo and reproduces inequities and biases, and the ways that New Ground curricula humanizes, dignifies, and offers multidimensional representations of marginalized groups. The transition from Old Ground to New Ground curricula will require pre-service teachers to adopt new mindsets that likely challenge their prior worldviews. According to Dr. Saldívar García, one of these mindset shifts includes moving from seeing students “as consumers to recognizing them wholly as human beings with lived experiences that carry legitimate academic value.” Deficit mindsets that are often found in Old Ground curricula do not position or frame marginalized students’ experiences, histories, or assets as carrying that legitimate academic value. She goes on to share:

“In the classroom, conversations shift toward inquiry, a disposition to understanding different perspectives and lived experiences with empathy, and collaborative learning, where traditional power dynamics between teachers and students shift, and both see each other as valuable co-constructors of knowledge. This learning extends outside of the classroom where students are validated as agents of change.”

Dr. Ortiz suggests another mindset shift: students “get comfortable [with] getting uncomfortable,” so that pre-service teachers can “engage in conversations about race, gender, sexuality, disability and more.” Dr. Ortiz connects discomfort with vulnerability required for a culturally responsive learning journey, noting that:

“Educators must welcome vulnerability and prioritize community praxis, in addition to content teaching. Developing this trust also means having high expectations of learning with supportive, inclusive, differentiated scaffolding.” 

In addition to shifting to inquiry-based teaching and learning, another shift requires pre-service educators to learn to go “beyond multicultural celebrations, doesn't stereotype youth, but gets to know them, engages power structures, and requires critical self-reflection.”

3. Balance the Pressure to Get it Right with Embracing Mistakes as Part of the Learning and Develop Reparative Skills

As culturally responsive education has grown in popularity, so have the horror stories of well- and poorly-intentioned educators attempting to engage CRE practices that harmed students. For many educators, utilizing a culturally responsive lens is not obvious and does not come naturally, which means they undoubtedly make mistakes as they develop their practice. Those mistakes can have a deep and harmful impact on students that could make well-intentioned pre-service teachers hesitant to deepen this skill. Drs. Ortiz and Saldívar García offer several strategies to help teaching and learning departments better prepare pre-service teachers:

Strategy #1: Embrace, rather than avoid, the pressure to get culturally responsive education right and see it as part of their learning journey. Dr. Saldívar García shares:

“The pressure to "get it right" is real. In my courses, I remind our teacher candidates that culturally responsive teaching requires continuous effort and evolution. It is not a performance. Demonstrating genuine care, humility, and a willingness to learn matters more than delivering a flawless lesson or unit. I encourage our teachers to practice with existing protocols and cultivate the support of experienced mentors who have navigated similar spaces.”

Strategy #2: Build trust with students, families, and their communities. According to Dr. Saldívar García, doing this well “requires open-mindedness and transparency. Open-minded educators truly see their students and communities as co-learners who hold epistemic knowledge. They listen actively and are committed to collaborative relationships built on mutual respect.” Dr. Saldívar García advises:

“Spend time getting to know your students and/or audience and building a strong sense of community. When you have a strong community, with a shared purpose or goal, you have the infrastructure to own what transpired and focus on repairing and reframing. When you know your community, you can anticipate sensitive topics, but that won't always be the case. Active community/class agreements are helpful in establishing expectations for how to handle disagreement, discomfort, and accountability.”

Strategy #3: Make critical reflections a central practice for culturally responsive teaching. Dr. Saldívar García shares: 

“In our teacher education program, we emphasize reflection, [what I consider a critical practice of culturally responsive teaching]. By engaging in reflection, teachers can deepen their practice by regularly tapping into their own identity, implicit biases, and emotional triggers.”

Strategy #4: Developing and/or joining a community of teachers. Dr. Ortiz names “joining or establishing a community of teachers as critical practice for culturally responsive teaching.”

She shares that communities can: “help with practice outside of the classroom, [and] continue pre-service teachers’ work around developing political education and consciousness raising.” She also shares that these communities can foster “getting to know each other as individuals and spending time building trust.” The trust and relationship established here can be a place of support and guidance “when conflict or harm does arise… It's easier to move through conflict when a relationship has been established. Professional learning communities at schools and outside of schools are important.”

Meeting the Moment: A Way Toward a Better World

The gap between inadequate and singular multicultural and diversity teacher preparation and well-equipped, culturally competent, and practiced culturally responsive practitioners must be closed because there is so much at stake. Programs must now equip teachers with the skills and knowledge to teach New Ground curricula well, not only to improve student education, but also to meet this moment.

In this moment, the United States (and the world) is seemingly experiencing a rapidly changing landscape. There are federal policies and public debates with opposing views on whether diversity, equity, and inclusion matter; debates about who deserves humanity; conversations about whether the world is worth saving or whether inevitable self-destruction is already our end; conversations about what a government owes to its people versus what is owed to corporations and tech companies. Students encounter these mixed messages alongside meanings tied to cultural difference, identity, wealth, and power. They are experiencing the immediate impacts of climate change and emerging technologies like AI. They are hearing that these factors are shaping their lives, their jobs, their futures, and their planet.

This moment impacts all students, and culturally responsive teaching and curricula can empower both students of color and white or privileged students to make sense of their world, build meaningful relationships and communities, and develop solutions to real-world problems. CRE builds students’ knowledge of history, math, art, and language arts; lived experiences; critical thinking; creativity; cultural competency; sociopolitical consciousness; and cultural assets as a way to learn and make a difference.

The Call to Action 

Recently, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad released a K-5 English Language Arts curriculum, Genius and Joy, which was included in our recent report Cultivating New Ground Curriculum. During the curriculum release, one of this blog’s authors was inspired by and reminded of the important role pre-service and in-service teachers play, the purpose of teaching and learning, and what it means to ensure that our teachers have and are ready to implement a culturally responsive curriculum that fosters Genius and Joy for our children. 

New Ground curricula provides a way forward, but teachers must be thoroughly prepared to use it effectively. To achieve this, pre-service teachers should be trained to:

• Meaningfully connect content to students’ lived experiences, local contexts, and opportunities for shared teaching; 

• Elevate the visibility of social groups and communities in curriculum that have been historically marginalized without harming students; and 

• Increase their capacity so that they can implement culturally responsive guidance shared in the teacher’s materials section of curricula. 

To that end, teaching and learning departments have a responsibility to push the boundaries of not just preparing new teachers with pedagogical teaching approaches, but to ensure they are equipped to reimagine curriculum and instruction: “student-centered learning environments that affirm cultural identities; foster positive academic outcomes; develop students’ abilities to connect across lines of difference; elevate historically marginalized voices; empower students as agents of social change; and contribute to individual student engagement, learning, growth, and achievement through the cultivation of critical thinking’ (NYSED, 2019).

If you enjoyed this post, you will also want to read our final blog post in this series, “Rooting Ourselves in New Ground Culturally Responsive Curriculum” coming out in November. You should also join us for a workshop where we explore: practices and strategies to reimagine curricula and draw inspiration from New Ground culturally responsive curricula using the new culturally responsive curriculum guide and manual. Register HERE by Monday, November 9, 2026.

References

Akiba, M. (2011). Identifying Program Characteristics for Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for Diversity. Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 113(3), 658-697. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811111300304

Gulya, N., & Fehérvári, A. (2024). Fostering culturally responsive pedagogy related competencies among pre-service teachers: A systematic review of the recent research literature. Research Papers in Education, 39(2), 348–378. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2023.2228312

Lambeth, D.T., & Smith, A.M. (2016). Pre-service Teachers’ Perceptions of Culturally Responsive Teacher Preparation. Journal of Negro Education 85(1), 46-58.  https://muse.jhu.edu/article/802796.

Siliunas, V., Wan, G., & Edejer, E. (2024). Teacher Preparation for Culturally Responsive Teaching: Implications for Teacher Education. Action in Teacher Education, 46(4), 313–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2024.2358912