This chapter provides middle school mathematics teachers with strategies to specifically address culturally responsive teaching goals. Authors provide background on culturally sustaining practices and use Ellerbrock and Vomvoridi-Ivanovic’s (2019) three goals for Responsive Middle Level Mathematics Teaching (RMLMT) as a foundation to suggest three specific tools middle level practitioners can use to enhance their students’ experiences. The first goal, advancing young adolescent learners’ mathematical thinking, includes getting to know individuals’ mathematical selves. Goal two addresses promoting equity in young adolescent learner’s mathematical classroom learning experiences. Goal three, attending to young adolescents’ characteristics, needs, and interests, includes an examination of ways to use young adolescent characteristics in middle school math classrooms. The three tools we are recommending include: reflection, literacy integration, and utilization of place-based, problem-based learning. Each of these tools reflect practices that sustain an environment operationalizing the goals of RMLMT.

The dual pandemics of social unrest and COVID-19 during the summer of 2020 in the United States has produced a renewed sense of urgency and agency for the interrogation of curriculum in K-12 education and the development of culturally sustaining practices. This urgency has encouraged more teacher preparation programs and middle school leaders to be intentional in developing culturally sustaining teachers. This paper offers two tools for professors to use to develop the skill of decentering whiteness/self in classroom practices. These practices are for teacher educators to integrate holistically and support middle level teachers’ development of their culturally sustaining practices. Decentering whiteness/self is the act of interrogating curriculum and classroom experiences to uncover places where professors can decenter whiteness and incorporate perspectives from historically marginalized populations. There is agency and need for strong experiential learning opportunities to develop culturally responsive middle school teachers.

The social unrest during the summer of 2020 in the United States has produced a renewed sense of urgency and agency for the interrogation of curriculum in K-12 education and the development of culturally sustaining practices. This urgency has encouraged more teacher preparation programs to be intentional in developing culturally sustaining teachers. This paper offers four pillars to frame classroom practices to be integrated holistically and support middle level preservice teachers’ development of their culturally sustaining practices. Pillar one focuses on understanding self. The ability to honestly self-reflect and to understand personal practice deeply and continually is critical. Pillar two is decentering whiteness/self. This is the act of interrogating curriculum and classroom experiences to uncover places where teachers can widen their frames and incorporate perspectives from historically marginalized populations. Pillar three is outreach. Personalized learning and examining asset based perspectives allow preservice teachers opportunities to develop their own outreach practices. Pillar four is communication. The ability to express ourselves in a variety of ways and view our individual cultures and experiences as assets are important in communicating what is important to us and the needs that must be met. These four pillars give agency and are a strong framework for developing culturally sustaining teachers at a time that is urgent.