Culture Books literacy initiative with Erica Richardson
Episode Topic: Culture Books and Culturally Relevant Literacy
Former elementary school teacher Erica Richardson tells her story of how she founded the grass-roots literacy organization Culture Books. We discuss her concerns about elementary literacy teaching and assessment that is not serving the learning interests of elementary aged students. She also describes the programs that her organization conducts to promote develop culturally sustaining literacy development.
Outline
What was sometimes is missing in literacy curricula-particularly culturally sustaining literature
Problem with developing reading confidence in children because of predetermined testing dates
Culture Books programming
Why print books are important for emerging readers
Future plans for Culture Books
The problem with over-testing
Link
Culture Books Website: https://www.culturebookscha.org/
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:02
Greetings, friends and colleagues. Welcome to the ThoughtfulTteacher Podcast. I am Scott Lee. I hope you are safe and well. Today we continue our series on teacher created literacy programs. In past episodes this fall, we have met two different secondary level teachers who were concerned about a lack of culturally sustaining literacy opportunities for students. Our guest today is Eric Richardson, the founder and director of Culture Books, an elementary level teacher who faced a similar problem. She created a local grassroots literacy program to promote more inclusive literacy learning opportunities for students in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area. Welcome Erica Richardson to the thoughtful teacher podcast.
Erica Richardson 0:57
Thank you. Thank you for having me. How are you doing?
Scott Lee 1:00
I'm doing well, how are you?
Erica Richardson 1:02
I'm doing well. Thank you.
Scott Lee 1:04
I've had several conversations with a lot of people that have started homegrown or school based literacy programs, all schools are focusing on literacy instruction, especially now more than ever. So what did you find that was missing? That led you to start Culture Books?
Erica Richardson 1:24
Well, I have been a teacher in the same school for about nine years. And mostly all of the years, the thing that was missing was the foundation, as well as books that looked like the kids, we were teaching. And so I wanted to start a safe place where kids can, at their own pace with no pressure from the system or anything like that, learn to build that confidence in their reading, and literacy that they see every day and also mix it up so that they see different cultures in themselves in the books that they're reading. Because as you know, there are tons and tons of cultures out there. And many times kids only see about three or four of them. So I wanted to give them a little history and background about themselves, put books out there that actually looks like them and resembled things that they probably see every day, or even don't see every day and also give them a chance to build that confidence at a pace that they're, you know, they're
Scott Lee 2:29
able to go, you mentioned pressure and talking about literacy and pressure, what kind of pressure Do you think students are running into in literacy instruction,
Erica Richardson 2:43
they are pressured to be able to read at this particular level before the end of a school year. If not, then you're labeled as low level reading. And then you have to catch up for the next grade and catch up for the next grade. So it's so much person also pressure to be able to comprehend at the level that they're at, at a certain time, so that they can take a test and pass the test. If you pass the test, then you're golden, and you can go to the the next grade without any issues and everything is great. And if you don't pass the test, and oh, you're gonna be behind, we're gonna try to fix that. So it's it was there's there's pressure on every end, to be able to pass this test, pass that test pass this one read on this level, we don't that level be able to comprehend here and there and all of this. And it's so much coming in on the child at any given time, that they have anxiety about reading, they have anxiety.
Scott Lee 3:41
It has seemed to me that it has continued to grow this pressure and anxiety. I see kids afraid to go to school, not because they're worried about the other students. They're worried about what is expected of them by the adults. And I read things about, we want self motivated readers, and we want all of this stuff. And then but you've got to do it this way right now. So part of this part of what you started was a reaction to that, is that right?
Erica Richardson 4:14
Exactly. I wanted to like I said, build a safe place where kids can learn at their own pace. Like if it's something that I'm doing. There's I don't have to put pressure on the kid to be at this level at this time. It's all on just me doing fun things with the kids reading books, and teaching them different words and then when they get confident, they can take over it themselves. Like being having like a gradual release type thing where it's supposed to kind of be like that as a teacher, but with all of the guidelines and rules nowadays. It's kind of tough to be able to you know, have kids do that. You know that go Gradual Release where they are able to take the reins and have fun with it. And understand like this is this is supposed to be an adventure books have adventures and all types of fun things in them. It's not supposed to be like the military were one of the like, well, the the harshest portions of the military where it's like, up to three ball, I
Scott Lee 5:18
read this now!
Erica Richardson 5:19
ABCD. You know, it's not supposed to be like, something that is fun and inviting and makes you want to do more of it even when you're at home.
Scott Lee 5:29
Tell us a little bit more about your background. You said just a few minutes ago that you had been teaching for about nine years. Tell us what your background is with literacy and teaching.
Erica Richardson 5:42
I have a master's in early childhood education and elementary education. And I had been teaching pretty much in the same school in the same school for nine years before our I loved it. It just became too much. And I also before then, had been working in preschools and daycares and teaching there as well. Even with special needs kids and kids with autism, and teaching with that for about four years beforehand. Literacy and the foundation of it, I actually have been thinking about going back to school to be a reading specialist like oh, my gosh, I want to
do it again. Oh, no.
Lots of and I've done a lot of professional development as well like doing workshops and things like that to kind of understand child development in how they understand how they comprehend and how they read and how they learn and the different types of learning abilities, all that stuff. So just lots of learning. And I never want to stop trying to better myself and learn more about children and what they can do and what they're capable of
Scott Lee 6:53
sharing that curiosity with students is huge. And oftentimes, I don't think we we do enough of that as educators in general, for a lot of reasons. So tell us a little bit more about the programs that culture books operates, what are the kinds of things you're doing with kids?
Erica Richardson 7:13
So
Scott Lee 7:14
obviously, I know that right now, or what were you doing a year ago? What have you changed that you're doing now? And I guess we'll talk also about kind of what the future holds as well.
Erica Richardson 7:27
Yeah, so we actually just got our 501 c 3, like last year in November. So we are still in the baby stages, almost a year old, which I'm very excited about. And so when we first started, one of the things that we wanted to do was to create events and activities, where kids could come in with their families and learn about a culture each time and we were going to do about four events a year, do them quarterly, the kids could come in and they would get a book about that culture. They would eat some authentic food, they would learn some dances and calligraphy, they would just kind of be immersed and exposed to different cultures. And then of course, everything kind of blew up. And so we weren't able to do that. We've done a couple of events and helped with some events. We've done an event with the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra. We did an event with them, where we had a trumpet player, a trombone player come out and play music for the kids. And we gave away Melba and her big trombone and had a friend of ours read that. And so the kids were able to come out and get a paletta from one of our local the local juice friend Luis and like they were able to get popsicles and get snacks and food and get books and just sit and listen to the music and just be exposed to something new. Because who ever ever gets to listen to trombones just randomly, you know, record at all anymore, and no one knows those different instruments anymore. And so we were able to do that we're able to do a back to school book bash, where we gave away the book you matter. And that's one of the biggest things that we want to do. We want to give away books, from different cultures from different authors, all of that in order to build home libraries.
Scott Lee 9:25
It's interesting, you mentioned that because I was talking with somebody recently. And the term "book desert" was one that they had brought up. You know, I had never heard the term but when you hear it, you know exactly what it means. Yeah. And how huge a problem it is that really even switching to ebooks. There's still something very important about about having the books and the tactile piece of the books, I would think especially with younger kids. My area of expertise is more with older kids. But do you think that It's important that having the the actual physical book first absolutely,
Erica Richardson 10:04
actually, is so funny. I actually have books just like sitting beside me now that we're hopefully going to give away to kids really soon. But having that those pictures, because that's one of the ways kids start to learn about reading and books and like text, the content that's inside of it and print. Like, that's how they start doing that you like you don't just get up and you know, randomly start reading or teaching the alphabet, the kids start by looking in books, filling those pages, turning them creating their own stories from the pictures. When we first started teaching kids, we're not teaching them just to go on and read. They start off literally just by making up their own stories and turning that those pages in the books. Because right now they can't read them. So what do we do, we look at the pictures. And that's a way of reading for them making up those stories and giving their own happy ending.
Scott Lee 11:01
Yeah, Daniel Siegel, the neuroscientist, and one of the big things that happens developmentally, even at age one or two is starting to create your own narrative and your own stories. And a lot of people, I don't think are really kind of aware of how important that step is in development,
Erica Richardson 11:19
it is very important. And I know they have like that program, where use the you know, you can get books every month for your kid to age five, they have that program there. But the some of the books aren't always relatable, they aren't. And it's good to have those books there. But what culture books wants to do is we want to bring books that are relatable, that have different cultures that kind of educate the kids and their parents about what else is out there. And we give them away for free. Like, it's not something you have to pay for or sign up for you watch the videos that we do for to win. And you comment if you want the book. And it's on both of our sites on the Facebook one and on the Instagram one where you can just go in and you can see them, I want this book. And sometimes we'll have kids, you know, saying what they learned from the book. And the parents have videoed me have sent me videos of their children talking about a book that they watched me read and what they learned from it. And I was like, Oh my god, here you go, you can have the book. So it's the cutest thing I love seeing those videos of young children. Any these kids are not all the way five yet, like some of them are not even five yet. Some of them are a little older. But I love getting those types of videos where they're like, we love that book. We learned this from it, the chicken was wearing skinny jeans, whatever. And they get the book and it's free. Like we want to give more books away.
Scott Lee 12:53
Right now I know parents must be dying for anything, or as much as they can get things with kids at home so much more than they might be otherwise, post COVID are there, what are your plans in the future,
Erica Richardson 13:07
we are actually working on getting a brick and mortar. So hopefully, we'll be getting some type of place that we can have the events and activities that we want to have. Because I would love to create a book club for kids where I can sit down with the children and actually read the books that we have together. Especially some that are older, even those that are younger, we can find books on their levels and start reading and teaching them those words in the books. And as we continue to move forward, hopefully they'll get more comfortable with reading it with me and they'll want to just take over, I want to just help them increase that confidence and give them so much encouragement and empowerment to be readers all on their own. And not just with, you know, my help, even though I'll always be there. We also want to create the activities where the kids can come in, like take the book Tuesday's, like take it off the shelves, and they can just come and take the books on the shelves and it's free for them. And that'll be like an every Tuesday thing or something like the storytelling portion where it'll be inside an actual building. And they can we get to give them that book. And they get to have like authentic experiences with the different cultures, even if it's just something small. So we want to expose the kids to reading as much as possible. So in the future, like right now we're working on our website, because because it was just me doing it by myself. I am not the most tech savvy person. So I created the website and we're trying to make it tell more of a story about who Coachella is and what we do and working on what we need to do in order to get our brick and mortar and get our building going and like all those activity capital paying salaries, it's to like, that's another thing. So eventually, in the like by the future, I'm hoping to be able to give away scholarships and travel with the kids so that they can get more read, and then experience or connect the reading and the experience and bringing it all together. Oh, yeah,
Scott Lee 15:18
that is exciting.
Erica Richardson 15:20
We are very excited about that. Very excited, I'm ready to go. Like I know, like a five year plan. I'm ready to go. So, um, but yeah, so it's something that we really want the kids to have that experience for. And I know that we won't be able to take every child in all the world. But we do want to expose children, as many as possible to that. And of course, it will be that is in the future. Although I could go tomorrow. I'm ready. We really want to our kids to have that safe, that safe place to go to to learn and have fun with literacy and reading.
Scott Lee 16:04
Are there any common literacy practices in schools that concern you, besides just the pressure, about the way literacy is taught in schools now.
Erica Richardson 16:17
So the biggest thing for me, it wasn't for them. And I'm just speaking with, from where I, you know, I was teacher while I was teaching, the teachers that I worked with were amazing. They were innovative, and they had great ideas and ways to you know, get their kids involved, and hopefully, but we had to test almost every week, maybe even twice, that the thing, that's what concerns me that the kids are doing more testing, than they are doing learning and having fun with what they're learning. A lot of the fun was taken out of the school. And like even with, you know how with Halloween, they had, like, you come up with your favorite book character and you you know, go to school, and you just like that, and they took it away. I was like, No, we got to test this week, we got to do this. We don't want the kids to be too crazy and wild. And I'm like, it's just supposed to be fun. Fun. So that's one of the things that kind of like even the spirit week was kind of taken away because the kids had to test them. We didn't want them to be too crazy, or, you know, dress up too much or anything like that. And it's just, we're taking the fun, like we're spoiling, you know, the fun of education. And it's, it was crazy, because you know, I love the kids I loved you know, the teachers were amazing. Like, I can't say that enough. The teachers I worked with were absolutely amazing. They they did things with those kids that I'm pretty sure there are many people that couldn't do it. And they still do that to this day. But it was just one of those things where it was just we just test too much we just checked test too much. We don't have enough rich literature. And the time that we did have rich literature, they kicked it out the next year, because they didn't think it was good enough and in depth, finding out that that was like the day the year that the kids did their best. Because we put so much rich literature in there. We taught to their level, we we gave them what they need it based upon what we were supposed to be teaching. And they retained it. And it was like, it's not hard enough. We gotta go. You don't know that we don't want it was something else. And it was just like, oh my gosh. So just those are the things I don't think it's the method of teaching itself. Like the, like the teachers are amazing. And all they have is like too much close reading or I think it's too much testing, and like draining the the education system of all of its fun, and putting so much anxiety into learning.
Scott Lee 18:50
I did some consulting work in an elementary school. I don't know this was several years ago. And I was just surprised when I went in and it was I don't know, I guess maybe their spring break was in March. And after spring break came back. It was a month of there was almost nothing new. It was all review getting ready for state test. And I was like, this really concerns me because I'm thinking, you know, when I was a classroom teacher, I would be like you're you're taking away a month, and you think that's going to help improve test scores. And it just kind of confused me. But that seems to be a pretty common practice now. And yeah, it concerns me I'm like, okay, you know, one year, you know, but I'm like, Okay, if you do that over 12 years that a student is in school, or really 13 because oftentimes, but you know, kindergarten is There's really too heavily academic, I think as well. I'm like, that's 13 months that you're reviewing, that's the equivalent of losing a school year. Do you see that as the set as a similar issue or the same issue?
Erica Richardson 20:15
I do. It's just I wish it would change Really? Well, it was, it's very stressful teaching now is very, very stressful. There's a lot of pressure on the teachers, there's a lot of pressure on the kids, you have to do this test teachers, you need to make this test, or here's, we're not we're making it for you. So teach the kids so that they can understand what the test that we're making, and be able to pass it. It's just one thing on top of the other, it's just like a stockpile of different things. You know, then we watch a video and it's like, oh, this, this state is doing this. And it seems to work. Let's try a Porsche. Let's try like to tweak it, and try a piece of it. And here you go and see if it works. And then it doesn't, it's like, now we're going to something else. So it's like a short attention span type system, where nothing is seems to be ever good enough.
Scott Lee 21:09
I was about to ask if a local or state school board member was listening, what advice you might have? I think we sort of covered it, but it might be think about what's developmentally appropriate?
Erica Richardson 21:22
Mm hmm. Definitely. And a lot of times, they'll say, you know, this is we think this is the best, it's all about what's best for the kids. It's all about what's best for the kids, but it's testing them every week, best for them, when they aren't getting it, like, shouldn't we, you know, try to put more what they need, because each generation is different. You can't do the same thing, even if, you know, even if you're thinking because a lot of times as adults, we're like, you know what, when I was growing up, this system, this was happening. And if it's not broken, don't fix it. And that's fine. But each generation is different. So I understand that you kind of want to tweak it and change it, which we all as teachers have to do anyway. Sometimes the lesson don't go the way we planned it to go, right? It's a complete bust. And then so we go back and we tweak it and we try it again, if we as teachers create a curriculum, and they do amazing on it, but it's some of the lessons aren't as rigorous as they should be. Shouldn't we just go back and tweak it and try again, the next time? Instead of being like, it worked out, we got to do something that's research based and you know, something else. And so that's what I would think would be happening. Because the teachers know, the teachers know, because they're with the kids every single day. We know what what the kids need and how they should be learning. Why don't you get us together, which they did at one time, and we created a curriculum, and it was great. And they threw it out.
Scott Lee 22:56
Other work I've done in classrooms with teachers, same kind of thing. It's like, they're like, Well, here's my data, and this and this nurse, and I'm sitting in their class observing, and I'm like, Well, you've you know, you've got five kids that obviously weren't really with you on that. What did you do about that? Well, you know, I'm already behind. I'm behind, not talking about the kids. And I'm like, Okay, well, I see where you've got your data, and you're collecting your data, but data you see in the moment counts, too. And I think we're dismissing the same thing. You're saying we're dismissing what teachers know, oftentimes,
Erica Richardson 23:40
is they gotta keep up, you gotta you gotta be here by the end of the year, if you're not here, not going to be behind, and it's going to be too much. And, you know, then we're not going to make this state grade. It is boring grade is so much pressure.
Scott Lee 23:53
Is there something that you could suggest that teachers do, despite all of the issues that they have to help create a more literacy rich environment in schools?
Erica Richardson 24:06
I feel like I don't have anything to tell them that they already don't know, especially the teachers at least, because many times and just speaking with someone like the veteran teachers, when I was you know, teaching in the classroom, they'd be like, Look, we know, we get it, we know that you have to teach this. You have to teach that. Teach them the way they can learn, like, do what you have to do for those kids to get them where they need to be at the pace that they're, they're going, like don't try to rush them and do all of that stuff. They're going to learn it. Some kids just don't learn as fast as others, they don't just soak it all up. So do what you have to do for your kids. They will love you more for it. The district is just going to go from one thing to the next, your kids. They're the ones that you're trying to get to be a lifelong learner. And in order to do that, sometimes you got to do You have to do for what's best for the kids that you have in your class. And that keep coming every day.
Scott Lee 25:06
Once again, Erica, thank you so much for being a guest on the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast. And best of luck with Culture Books, we will have a link on our website for you and also a place for folks to donate to help the work that you do.
Erica Richardson 25:22
Yes, yes. So you can also find us on our page on Facebook Culture Books, Chattanooga, and on Instagram Culture, underscore Books underscore Literacy. So those are ways to kind of find out everything that we're doing slowly but surely, and so that we can get donations in order to buy more books to give away to kids. And this, of course, set up in our building.
Scott Lee 25:47
Wonderful and good luck. So thank you so much.
Erica Richardson 25:51
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Scott Lee 25:55
This has been episode number 21. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is hosted and produced by R. Scott Lee, who retains copyright. We encourage diverse opinions, however, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners, or underwriters. Guest was not compensated for appearance, nor did guest pay to appear. Transcripts are available following podcast publication on our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Sponsorship opportunities, or other inquiries may be made on the "Contact Us" page at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Please follow the thoughtful teacher podcast on twitter @drrscottlee and on Facebook at facebook.com/thoughtfulteacherpodcast
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