Blog Post #11

 3 things that stand out to me this semester: 

Delpit, "The Silence Dialogue"- This story was one of the firsts that we read this semester and I feel like it is the one that stuck with me the most throughout the semester. This reading helped me better understand and open my eyes to talking about topics that are usually silenced or not brought up a lot because of how sensitive it can be. Once we learned about the cultures of power and how they are enacted in the classrooms it really made me think about how much power teachers truly do have in the classroom and school in general. Delpit has made me realize that educators have the power to change the way we teach our children, and we have to acknowledge there is an issue and come up with solutions. 

Alfie Kohn, what to look for in a classroom- After looking at this chart about the do's and don'ts of what a classroom should look like it made me look back at some classrooms I have been in in the past and the classroom for my service learning. Things are just as simple as how the tables are facing each other to create interactions among the students. Also, the artwork on the walls is by students and not just teacher instructions everywhere. The way your classroom is set up is really important for how the students succeed in the classroom. After seeing this chart, it better helped me realize how I want to set up my classroom in the future. 

Service Learning- This was a big part of my learning this semester. Being in a classroom and helping a group of students with their schoolwork has really impacted the way I feel about working with youth. This experience also helped me realize what kind of person I want to be in the world of working with youth. I started this semester wanting to be an elementary school teacher and now I want to further my options in working with youth in different settings other than a classroom or a school. I always knew I wanted to work with children I just never fully knew what exactly my path was. After the service-learning experience, I want to further my options with working with youth and not limit it to just being a teacher. 

Queering in our schools

 For this blog I am going to be pulling three quotes from the article and talk about them further by using some of my own experiences. 

"In a recent survey, six out of 10 LGBTQ teens said they felt unsafe at school and 82 percent had been verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation." (page 23) 

After reading this part in the article I stopped and thought about how the students in my high school reacted to other students who were part of the LGBTQ community. As someone who is not a part of this community I am as educated about the topic as I should be. During high school I have witness a lot of ignorant students who naturally picked on the students who just look slightly different than the rest of the students. If one thing wasn't "normal" about the student there would always be a person saying something negative about them. I have heard numerous comments about people who have bright colored hair, wear spontaneous clothing that someone else might not particularly wear. It is honestly a shame that some people think they are entitled to speak about how someone else dress or their appearance. 

"But no number of classroom discussions about gender stereotypes and homophobia will create a nurturing environment if teachers and parents are afraid to come out. A school that’s a protective community for LGBTQ adults is a school that’s going to be safe for kids." (page 24)

As someone who wants to be a future teacher you have to be willing to talk about topics like this in particular that even though may be uncomfortable or not know all the right answers. It is our jobs to do the research, become educated on these topics because there will probably come a time in our teaching career that we will encounter a student that is either being bullied because of how she expresses who they are, or if they need guidance about who they truly want to be. It is important for us to be able to give these students the help and guidance they may need. Speaking about these topics in the classroom is the first step to making everyone feel welcome, included and valued no matter who they are. 

“I’m going to keep wearing a skirt. It’s a big part of who I am.” (page 26) 

This quote is very important because even though they got the utmost amount of hate and disrespect from another student about how they express themselves they will still choose to wear what they want. This is truly important for people who struggle with staying true to themselves because of all the negativity and hate they get from students at school. Not changing for anyone and keep being yourself is a huge step forward in becoming someone you love and value. When other people make comments or look at you like you aren't welcomed you shouldn't let that effect how you feel internally and shouldn't let it change the way you look for someone else. 

LGBTQ+ Inclusive Curricula (apa.org) 

I added this link that talks about the benefits of incorporating talking about LGBTQ community in our school curriculum. 

Eliminating Ableism in Education

 For this blog I will be reflecting on this writing and sharing my own experiences with ableism in education. 

In Thomas Heir's article about eliminating ableism in education was very interesting to read because it is something I am not widely familiar with, but I do have experience with having a classmate in elementary school that was disabled. In the article Heir talks about how society conforms to the idea that people with disabilities are less than people are not. One quote that really stood out to me was, "that while disability is not a tragedy, society’s response to disability can have tragic consequences for those who have disabilities." (Heir 2) It is clear that in some cases society fails people with disabilities and do not provide them with the right thing they need to live their lives like education, job opportunities, etc... Society immediately thinks that people that are disabled aren't cable of being educated in a standard school, they are often placed in a completely different school specialized or students with disabilities or placed in "special classrooms" that satisfies their needs. This makes those students feel isolated from actually being with their classmates and learning the same material as them. 

In elementary school I had a classmate in my fourth and fifth grade class that was physically disabled. He wasn't always in the classroom because he would work with another teacher to help him with what he specifically needed. Although he had a hard time communicating my friend group at the time would always try and communicate with him. He was genuinely always a happy person and would always get excited when he would hear us talking to him. During lunch my friend group would get the pleasure to sit with him and his teacher aid and we considered him part of the friend group. He would always brighten our day and it was always great talking with him. I will never forget that amazing experience with him because it was one of the first times I ever constantly interacted with a person with disabilities. It was nice to be introduced to this at a young age because it opens my eyes to how different yet similar we actually are to people with disabilities. 

With this experience and after reading this article by Heir I am aware of the privilege that I had with education and with that I want to ensure that my future students in my classrooms have the same opportunities. I want to make my classroom as inclusive as possible for any and all students. It is important to make students feel like they are just as important as everyone else in the room. 

Understanding and Addressing Ableism in Schools (oregon.gov) 

This is a article that further explains Ableism in Education  

Reflection Post

 Aria by Richard Rodriguez 

This story highlights the importance of bilingual speakers within our school system. After reading it is clear that the public school system makes Spanish a private language rather than a public language that was used in the classrooms which is English. A part that truly stuck out to me was when the nuns went over to his house and asked if he could start speaking English instead of Spanish and the parents went along with it. This would ultimately change him and his parents' relationships since they couldn't communicate in their native language. "The special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then. Gone was the desperate, urgent, intense feeling of being at home; rare was the experience of feeling myself individualized by family intimates. We remained a loving family, bur one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness" (page 36) What the school system fails to recognize is that things like this is tearing apart families that have young bilingual students. As educators we need to encourage our bilingual students to stay in touch with their culture, background and continue to speak in their native language. This story reminds me of my service-learning classroom. There are a handful of Spanish speaking students some of them are bilingual and can speak both Spanish and English fluently. While there is one student who primarily speaks Spanish with knowing just a few English words. The teacher does a nice job trying to communicate with him by giving him simple directions in Spanish. She asks the other Spanish speaking students in the classroom to help him as well. It is important as teachers to still be able to include your bilingual students in everyday discussions and be sure not to exclude them just because they speak the same language as the rest of the students in your class. 

Here is a link to the benefits of bilingual learning and how it can impact a whole classroom. 

The Benefits of Bilingual Education | American University 

Finn Literacy with an Attitude

 Quotes: 

"All of us teachers and students were locked into a system of rules and roles that none of us understood and did not allow for much in the way of education." 

This is a good example of the Culture of Powers presented to us by Delpit. How these powers are enacted in not only the classroom but also the school environment itself. We have discussed numerous times how the school system is based on rules to show who is in power. The teacher at the front of the room, students sitting in chairs, bells that tell us when to move to the next class, schedules, etc... It is a system that is set to enable power amongst each other and so much that sometimes they are unaware because of how normalized this system truly is. 

"Don't be so damned superior." 

To be a good teacher is to know how to present yourself in front of your students. Knowing your boundaries in the classroom with the people you are teaching. Students will give you the same energy you give them. As a teacher, it is your job to give directions, guide, and teach your students but when you start taking advantage of the power you have against your students, they will not want to keep learning from you. You want your students to be able to connect with you on a professional and personal level and get them to want to learn from you. Don't set up barriers between you and the students that don't allow for that connection to happen because you will have a room full of students who will make your teaching career harder. 

Video Analysis

 

Alfie Kohn

 Reflection blog

Growing up I never realized how your school environment affects the way students learn. In my elementary school, the hallways were always decorated according to the specific season or upcoming holiday. There were also paintings done on our walls of animals and other nature things. Each hallway was reflected among a certain grade level and in those hallways, there was student work that was displayed whether it was an art project or classroom work.  It always felt comforting being in that school and felt like a little community. Once I got to middle school and high school things changed drastically in terms of feeling like a community, the only things that would be hung up on the walls were lunch schedules and events that were coming up in the school. I feel like the environment you are learning in has a huge impact on the students learning, I have been to schools in Providence recently and observed classrooms and walked through hallways and I can see students having a harder time learning and being successful. The buildings were old, and the classrooms had unfinished construction and the schools just didn't have the resources which made it difficult for students to succeed. 

After looking at Alfie Kohn's chart on What to Look for in a Classroom, I am going to use the "good signs" that are labeled and see if the elementary school where I am doing my service learning follows those characteristics.