Everyone is back to the grind, and so are our kids, who are in most instances bogged down by conforming to educational environments that do not meet their diverse needs.

As my first guest of I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY for 2023, I’m delighted to talk to Dr. Latasha Casterlow-Lalla, an Educator, Author, Motivational Speaker, and Agent of Change who is on a mission to provide equitable programming to students reflecting modern, popular and traditional musical genres as well as embedding cultural relevancy into teaching curriculums. She’s an advocate for culturally responsible pedagogy that leverages students’ culture and lived experiences to help them learn in the classroom.

 

Dr. Casterlow-Lalla says that we have to stop seeing students as empty vessels because they come to school with a lot to offer: culture, lived experiences, different perspectives, abilities, histories and a plethora of talents that often go untapped and underdeveloped. “We need to see ourselves as collaborative, a ‘sopa’, where we take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and then combine those things. And when we get it brewed right, we can create something, a really good soup – a good ‘sancocho’ – that fills the belly and warms the soul. That’s kind of what my gig is,” she shared.

A proud product of the Passaic Public Schools (NJ), Dr. Casterlow-Lalla has been in Education for two decades, supporting students in different roles: as a teacher, leading student organizations, in programs for gifted children, and assuming administrative responsibilities.

With a Bachelor of Arts in Music, a Master of Arts in Counseling, Human Development, and Guidance, and having recently defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Advisement Challenges and Opportunities in Pre-Service Teacher Education: Insights into the Experiences of Diverse Pre-Service Teachers”, let’s just say she’s an expert in how to engage kids today so they are active participants in creating meaningful and effective learning experiences.

Dr. Casterlow-Lalla is committed to ensuring the Arts are acknowledged as core academic subjects and to sharing diverse career opportunities with the 15,000 students she serves. She stated: “In just a few years, most of our learners will be students of color, and to continue to encourage them to move on and to continue to have a very robust and innovative nation, we have some serious dissonance that we need to fix, and we need to continue to advocate. It’s important to understand culture to figure out how we can infuse it in school for our students to be successful.”