Identity Safe Classrooms, Grades K-5: Places to Belong and Learn

Every child valued and empowered to learn--this book shows you how!

This book focuses on strategies that positively affect student learning and attachment to schooling, in spite of social inequalities. Research shows that students in identity safe classrooms learn better and like school more than peers in other classrooms. In identity safe classrooms, teachers strive to ensure that students:

• Feel their identity is an asset rather than a barrier to success
• Experience diversity as a resource for learning
• Form positive relationships with fellow students and their teacher
• Learn in an environment with a challenging curriculum and high expectations
• Develop a sense of belonging and empathy for others as they learn to use pro-social skills and practice cooperation

Author: Dorothy M. Steele, Becki Cohn-Vargas
Publisher: Corwin Publishers
Published: 09/05/2013
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.90h x 7.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9781452230900

About the Author
Cohn-Vargas, Becki: - Becki Cohn-Vargas, EdD, is the coauthor, with Dorothy Steele, of Identity Safe Classrooms Grades K-5 Places to Belong and Learn. In 2020, she coauthored Identity Safe Classrooms Grades 6-12: Pathways to Belonging and Learning. She designs curriculum, publishes articles, coaches schools, and produces films for Teaching Tolerance, Edutopia, Not In Our Town, and other organizations. She presents internationally at conferences and provides professional development in schools and districts. Dr. Cohn-Vargas began her 35-year career in early childhood education in Sonoma County, California. She lived abroad for five years where she did earthquake relief at a hospital in the Guatemalan Highlands and produced educational films for the Nicaraguan Ministry of Education. She returned to California and worked as a teacher and principal in Oakland, curriculum director in Palo Alto, and as superintendent of a small district in San Jose. She also served as an adjunct professor at University of San Diego, Mills College, and Cal State University, East. Bay. In each setting, she focused on educational equity and effective strategies for diverse populations. Dr. Cohn-Vargas and her husband live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have three adult children and one grandchild.Steele, Dorothy M.: - Dorothy M. Steele, Ed.D. is the former Executive Director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. She is an early childhood educator who is interested in public schools including teaching practices that are effective for diverse classrooms, alternative assessment processes that inform teaching and learning, and strategies that build inclusive communities of learners in schools. Her work with the Stanford Integrated Schools Project was an attempt to look at these various aspects of schooling in a large urban school district.
Dr. Steele began her work with teachers and children in 1968 in Columbus, OH as the Director/Teacher of one of the city's first Head Start Programs. During the 1970's, she served as the Curriculum Coordinator for the City of Seattle's Children's Programs, an early childhood teacher educator, a parent educator, and, for eight years, the director of a large, university-based child care center.
In 1987, Dr. Steele began her doctoral work in early childhood education and, with her advisor, developed an alternative assessment process for early childhood education, the Work Sampling System that is being used throughout the world. Her dissertation explored the negative impact of standardized tests on Kindergarten teachers' educational decisions for their students.
Dorothy Steele received her AB degree in music from Hiram College, Hiram, OH in 1967; the MA in Early Childhood Education from the Ohio State University in 1971; and an Ed.D. in Early Childhood Education from the University of Michigan in 1994.
She lives in Stanford, CA with her husband, Claude M. Steele. Their family includes a son and daughter and their spouses and two energetic and loving preschool-aged boys who make life ever more sweet.

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