Learning Resources

5 Pursuits @ Home 

Adapted from Dr. Gholdy Muhammad's Cultivating Genius, this resource extends PPS's culturally responsive framework beyond classrooms and into family spaces. The five pursuits - identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy - reflect the District's commitment to holistic student development and align with PPS's goal of strengthening family engagement. By offering home-based examples, it reinforces the MOU's emphasis on inclusive teaching and learning practices and supports PPS initiatives that connect school culture with family partnerships, ensuring equity practices are lived both in and out of school.

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Which pursuit can you see yourself implementing at home first? 

Creating Safe Spaces for Conversations About Race

Talking about race with children can feel challenging, but it’s also one of the most powerful ways families can build understanding, empathy, and belonging. Children begin forming ideas about identity and difference early on, and the guidance they receive at home helps shape how they see themselves and others.

"Creating Safe Spaces" is a guide to help parents and caregivers navigate meaningful conversations with children with their children was first introduced at the PPS Parent University in September of 2024. This is a resource to help parents and caregivers navigate meaningful conversations with children about identity, diversity, and belonging.

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Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) Tenets

Gloria Ladson-Billings’ CRP framework directly aligns with PPS’s commitment to culturally responsive pedagogy, a cornerstone of the District’s professional learning systems. The three tenets - academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness - mirror PPS priorities in the Strategic Plan to close achievement gaps, integrate culturally responsive curriculum, and build socio-political awareness. These tenets provide teachers with actionable practices to ensure equitable outcomes for all student groups.

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The Five Pursuits - A CRP Framework

Building on the foundational work of Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s Five Pursuits - Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy - offer an equity-centered framework for lesson design that nurtures the whole child. This approach supports educators in creating learning experiences that are academically rigorous, culturally affirming, and deeply connected to students’ lived experiences.

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Together, these five pursuits guide educators in planning instruction which ensures that all students see themselves as capable, valued, and inspired learners.

CRP & Me

Gloria Ladson-Billings created this approach to make learning more meaningful, affirming, and empowering for all students. This definition of CRP is the District's adopted definition.

In simple terms, CRP focuses on three core tenets:

Academic Success: Ensuring students master essential knowledge and skills.

Cultural Competence: Seeing culture as an asset; supporting students to affirm their culture while gaining fluency in others.

Critical Consciousness: Giving students the ability to analyze and challenge societal inequalities so they can work to change the status quo.

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How does learning at school help me understand myself, understand others, and help make things fair?

Building Your Learner Identity & Belonging 

This guide helps students build self-efficacy (believing you can do something, even when it feels hard), a strong learner identity (how you see yourself as a learner), and a sense of belonging (feeling accepted, included, and valued).

It supports one of the District’s priorities -Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) - understanding our feelings, how they affect others, and how to handle them in healthy ways - and culturally responsive practices, which help all students feel seen, heard, and able to succeed. Together, these efforts strengthen positive learner identity and ensure that every student gets what they need to succeed in a fair and supportive way.

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What are some steps you can take to start building your Learning Identity today?