1 | © 2012 by ASCD. All Rights Reserved. English Language Learners and the Common Core > Module 6 > Reading: The Culturally Responsive Teacher The Culturally Responsive Teacher Ana María Villegas and Tamara Lucas To engage students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, we must see them as capable learners. Belki Alvarez, a young girl one of us knows, arrived in New York from the Dominican Republic several years ago with her parents and two siblings. After a difficult start in the United States, both parents found jobs; their minimum-wage earnings were barely enough for a family of five to scrape by month to month. As the oldest child in the family, Belki soon had to assume caretaking responsibilities for her younger brother and sister. At only 8 years old, she was responsible for getting her siblings ready for school, taking them there each morning, bringing them back home at the end of the school day, and caring for them until her parents came home from work. On weekends, she worked with her mother at the community street fair to make extra money for the family by selling products pre- pared at home. She astutely negotiated prices with customers and expertly handled financial transactions. Belki often spoke enthusiastically about having her own business in the future. She spoke Spanish fluently at home and in the community, and she often served as the Eng- lish language translator for her parents. Belki’s teachers, however, did not know this competent, responsible, enthusiastic girl. They perceived her as lacking in language and math skills, having little initiative, and being gener- ally disinterested in learning. Such profound dissonance between her in-school and out-of-school experiences is not unique to Belki. Sadly, this is typical for an increasing number of students in U.S. schools today. Over the past three decades, the racial, eth- nic, and linguistic demographics of the K–12 student population in the United States have changed dramatically. In 1972, 22 percent of all students enrolled in elementary and secondary public schools were of racial/ethnic minority backgrounds (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2002). By 2003, racial/ethnic minority students accounted for 41 percent of total enrollments in U.S. public schools. In six states and the District of Columbia, students of Source: From “The Culturally Responsive Teacher,” by A.M. Villegas and T. Lucas, 2002, Educational Leadership, 64(6), pp. 28–33. Copyright 2002 by ASCD. Reprinted with permission.