As we have discussed in this module, the learning environment is an ecosystem where practicing self-regulation strategies ourselves can make it possible for us to coregulate with our students. However, a safe, supportive learning environment is not the end goal of culturally responsive and sustaining education. Culturally responsive and sustaining education is ultimately about improving student learning, engagement, and confidence, especially for institutionally marginalized students. As an adult, you play a key role in supporting students to behave in situationally appropriate ways so that they feel safe to take intellectual risks.

To encourage this intellectual risk-taking in your learning environment, all students need to feel like educators have high expectations for them, and also that they can trust educators to support their learning. Lisa Delpit calls this kind of rigor and support being a “warm demander.” According to Delpit, warm demanders are educators who “expect a great deal of their students, convince them of their own brilliance, and help them to reach their potential in a disciplined and structured environment” (2013).

Read

To learn more about what it takes to be a warm demander, read this short article from educator and former principal Matt Alexander called, The Warm Demander: An Equity Approach.

If you’re a principal or an administrator, read Becoming a Warm Demander by Shane Safir, about how being a warm demander can inform your approach to coaching teachers and other educators.

In what ways do you consider yourself a warm demander? Are there additional ways you might deepen this approach with your students or any educators you mentor or coach?