This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to Episode 140 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast.

In this episode, we're going to talk about nine ways to make students from diverse backgrounds

feel more welcome in your classroom.

As a group, at least in the United States, teachers are overwhelmingly white.

While our student population grows more ethnically and culturally diverse every year.

This mismatch is fertile ground for problems, as well meaning white teachers take what

they think are the right steps toward making all students feel included.

Unfortunately, those steps are often missteps that can make anyone who's different

feel conspicuous, uncomfortable, or even invisible.

My guest today, Hedrick Nichols knows firsthand what it feels like to be one of those few

students of color in a mostly white school, and subsequently one of the only black teachers

on an overwhelmingly white staff.

This background has given her an acute awareness of the things teachers do to make students feel

welcome and seen and the things they do to create the opposite effect.

In this episode and in her blog post on Cult of Pedagogy, she shares nine different strategies

for helping teachers become more truly inclusive of students from diverse backgrounds.

This episode is longer than most of my others.

That's because before we get into the strategies, we talk about Hedrick's own experiences as a student

and a teacher.

And these experiences really inform some of the stuff she says later.

Her stories are valuable and will be interesting to anyone who wants to add more depth and

texture to their understanding of the intersection of race and education.

...