Every year, millions of people tune in to professional sports championships. Adorned in their team colors, fans rally behind the players. During these big games, whether fan, foe, or advertising exec (commercials = $), we are captivated.

Unfortunately, most people are not as mesmerized by education. In fact, I’d bet (if I were a betting person) that most people would groan, twitch, or have some other apathetic response if the topic of education stumbled into a room. This is understandable, I guess. For most of us, schools don’t exude enough “je ne sais quoi” to sit with for four hours at a time.

Yet there are a few folks willing to don face paint and go toe-to-toe with big, bad monsters (let’s call them poverty, limited literacy, and homogeneity) every day in order to alter real fates. They tackle variances in learning, family origin, and their own “stuff” in an effort to promote progress. No “shade” to my sports-loving family, but teachers are part of a critical team in American society. By empowering them, the culture of American classrooms will change.

Teachers are in an invaluable position to shift classroom culture because they can do the following:

• Insist on individual understanding—Classrooms are dynamic, living organisms and cannot survive if suffocated. Teachers (and students) need to know, appreciate, and reflect continuously on their individual and collective identities. The adage of “know thyself” both as a practice and as a vision for classrooms can help dismantle cultural, linguistic, and geographic barriers. When everyone in the classroom knows he or she is valuable, the team functions better.
• Play around—Too often, “boring” is the adjective of choice when people describe learning. For the most part, however, teachers are masters of improvisation. When I instruct teacher candidates, I model methods that engage their senses. Although there is debate on the notion of multiple intelligences, it is a fact that most people would rather get up and do rather than sit and stay. To “learn” is an active verb, so whenever and wherever possible, do so.
• Garner feedback from students—This may very well be akin to asking teachers to willingly kiss death, but student feedback harkens back to insisting on individual understanding. I’ve had my fair share of prepubescent or righteously indignant adolescents but, more often than not, there are worthy compromises to be made when teachers hear directly from their students.
• Never, ever skip or skirt around major issues—Abortion. Eric Garner. Rape culture. Yes, they’re uncomfortable, but students (with appropriate disclosure based on age) confront these issues too. Don’t be afraid to “suspend” or postpone a planned lesson when history is in the making. Heck, the Philadelphia Phillies winning the MLB World Series in 2008 opened a discussion in my classroom that may not have occurred if I were adamant about sticking to the schedule.
• Connect and collaborate—Not only with students, but also their parents, other teachers, and the community. Sometimes changing the culture of a classroom means providing everyone involved with an alternate reality. Do authentic community service (I avoid “raising” money whenever possible) and maintain those relationships. When I taught at The Haverford School, my boys worked with the Norris Square Neighborhood Project to beautify community gardens in North Philadelphia as a co-curricular service learning and field trip. I wanted my boys to see real connections between our readings and in the region where they live. Invite other voices into the classroom so that students recognize knowledge is multinational, multigenerational, and exists in multiple ways.

Teachers need fans. In the age of 21st-century skills, Common Core, and intense scrutiny in education, classrooms have become a unique gridiron. And although policy, administration, parents, and other stakeholders play a role, shifting classroom culture requires everyone to be tuned in to the huddle.

Nakeiha Primus is an assistant professor in the Educational Foundations department at Millersville University in Millersville, PA. Prior to that, she was an English teacher at the Haverford School in Haverford, PA. She completed her undergraduate studies in English and American studies at Tufts University, obtained her masters in teaching from Duke University, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Delaware. Her research merges curriculum and literary theory and sociocultural approaches to learning. Visit her blog mid/scribble and follow her on Twitter.