In this keynote, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad offers a unique culturally and historically responsive approach toward the goal of cultivating genius and joy in education. This approach is essential for accelerating the growth of all students and uniquely youth of color, who have been traditionally underserved in learning standards, policies, and school practices. She will present her equity framework, called the HILL Model to help educators teach toward developing students’ histories, identities, literacies, and liberation. The HILL Model consists of five pursuits in teaching and learning:

• Identity Development—Helping youth to make sense of who they are and others.
• Skill Development— Helping youth to develop proficiencies across the content areas and state learning standards.
• Intellectual Development—Helping youth to gain new knowledge that is set into the context of the world.
• Criticality—Helping youth to name, understand, question, and disrupt oppression in the world.
• Joy—Helping youth to uplifting beauty, aesthetics, truth, and personal space fulfillment within humanity.

Participants will learn and understand history and policy as well as personal and instructional factors that justify the need and purpose for culturally and historically responsive education. Educators will be encouraged and motivated to be more inclusive of their teaching of these five collective pursuits while learning the importance of integrating cultural, racial, linguistic, and historical responsiveness into their learning goals, lesson plans, and the texts they use to teach. Additionally, participants will see sample lesson/unit plans across grade levels, moving theory into action.