Bright Ribbons: Weaving Culturally Responsive Teaching Into the Elementary Classroom

About Lotus Linton Howard

Lotus Linton Howard Ph.D. has taught in a variety of elementary school settings including public private inner city small town rural and reservations schools. She created and taught for several years in a one-room country school grades 1-8. Over forty years of teaching she has worked with children from very diverse cultural backgrounds and has observed first-hand how culture influences ones perceptions cognition communication and attitudes. Lotus taught pre-service Multicultural Education courses at Seattle Pacific University and has presented at a variety of state and national conferences. She was also on the curriculum development team for the REACH Center for Multicultural Education developing sample lessons plans that could be infused into the normal curriculum at each grade level and that are now being used internationally. Collaborating with the REACH Center Lotus enlisted the cooperation of Native American elders and educators to create a course through Western Washington University The Indian Child in the Classroom to demonstrate how intelligence is developed accessed and appraised differently in Native communities. Lotus has offered culturally responsive in-service training for elementary teachers in numerous states. Lotus has also had extensive global experience observing cultures in twenty-two countries studying educational practices and learning about and from cultures outside our U.S. borders. Her Ph.D. thesis entitled Remembering the Circle is based on the commonalities of a variety of indigenous cultures and their continuing contributions to the emerging global community. Lotus received her B.S. degree in Early Childhood Education at Southern Connecticut State University 5th Year research and training in Orff Schulwerk Music Instruction and Waldorf Schools through Western Washington University and her Ph.D. in Transformational Education from Union Institute of Ohio. Lotus lives in Seattle with her husband Gary Howard. Their two grown children along with their partners and three amazing multi-racial and multicultural grandchildren live nearby.