Culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy is an asset‐based approach to teaching and learning. In this way, students’ identities, languages, and cultures are centered in the learning experience, creating a sense of belonging. The authors observed culturally relevant and sustaining approaches to teaching and learning while visiting schools in New Zealand as part of a three‐week study abroad program. Specifically, the authors observed how teachers in New Zealand centered Maori and Pasifika cultures into daily instruction and learning. Together as teacher educators, an inservice teacher, and a preservice teacher, the authors examine the importance of culturally relevant and sustaining teaching and share their observations of how students’ cultures are honored through writing and arts integration in the classrooms visited in New Zealand. The authors describe how a fifth‐grade teacher applied lessons learned from her visit to New Zealand in her own classroom context in the United States.