ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how the focal teachers embody two specific aspects of the moral dimension of teaching, both of which are also linked closely with teachers as leaders: teaching as instilling values of empathy and responsibility in their students, and teaching as culturally responsive pedagogy. Culturally responsive pedagogy is not an explicit set of strategies to use with students of particular backgrounds, but rather a mind-set that respects and honors students' cultures, experiences, and histories, and that looks for ways to include them in the curriculum and pedagogy. Culturally responsive teachers can be a powerful influence on students whose identities and experiences have been invisible in the curriculum and pedagogy. In spite of the challenges of teaching in high-poverty schools, some teachers are successful at teaching students of diverse backgrounds. Teachers need to understand that their actions, attitudes, and practices may have untold and long-standing repercussions, although these may be unintended, on their students' lives.
