Reflection Journals
Zoom Discussions
Zoom Session 01/25
During this Zoom session, we discussed Lesson D. Lesson D covered chapter 4 of the Levine & McCloskey text. This session focused on how to organize the classroom in a way to best suit language learners. I enjoyed this session in particular because it entertained the idea of having a physical space conducive to learning. This is an idea I’ve discussed in previous classes and am passionate about. I think normal seating, AKA desks and chairs, are boring and outdated.
One idea that stuck with me is the idea of provisioning. Provisioning is basically the act of preparing your space for a new language learner. In class, we touched on the idea of practicing the correct pronunciation of a student’s name before they are welcomed into the classroom. I think this is something I honestly would not have thought to do. Coming from a Caucasian background, I hardly ever think about pronouncing my friends’ names because they are usually not ethnic names. Now that I am aware the pronunciation of a student’s name can alter how comfortable they are in my class; I definitely plan to practice ahead of time each of my students’ names. This will help them to feel at home.
Another great idea within provisioning is writing their name in their home language. We did not necessarily touch on this in class during discussion, but I saw it on the PowerPoint and thought it was worth mentioning. This idea might not be something I have to do often, because where I plan to teach is mostly Caucasian and Hispanic students. However, I think this is a great way to show appreciation of the student’s culture.
The next main idea we touched on in class is public and private spaces. Prior to this discussion, I had no idea furniture was such an important part of language learning. I know in my past classrooms, I loved comfy furniture for reading and a quiet place to be by myself. This would be classified as a private space. As Dr. Hurd said, it is easy to find a cheap (or free) couch to make your room more welcoming. The private space, like the quiet reading space, serves as a restful space for an over-stimulated ELL student. Another private space is a computer area. This serves as a spot for ELL students to work on individual assignments for their level. In my future classroom, I plan to not only have flexible seating in the public space to give students options, but also plan on incorporating those important private spaces for students to take a break.
Reflection 7: Zoom Session 2/17
This Zoom discussion covered chapter three of The Reflexivity of Pain & Privilege. For some background, this chapter follows David and Lisa in their own respective journeys. David is a Palestinian and Salvadorian man who identifies as gay. He is bilingual (English and Spanish) and has taken the steps needed to become a United States citizen. David also has a learning disability. Lisa is a Croatian American (3rd generation) and is also part German. She identifies as a white woman and is pursuing her Ph.D. in education. She also is disabled, having a learning disability in perceptual organization. All of these pieces build their identities and come with their own pain and privilege. This is what we discussed during our class time. I mainly want to focus on David’s story, as I connected with it the most.
To begin, we went into Zoom breakout rooms to discuss our individual questions with other members of the class. I was put into Group 4 with Zach and Grace. The question we were assigned was “Describe the pain and privilege for David in being dis/abled? Think resistance and resilience.” Zach started a shared Google Doc and we began discussion. First, we thought it would be easiest to discuss his pain, as it was much more prevalent in his life than his privilege. We decided to find quotes to showcase his pain, then explain it in our own words to deepen our understanding. The first quote we found was regarding his learning disability. Being in special education traumatized David because of the intense stigma it carries in school. It made him feel like an outcast. He then talks about resiliency, which he says is hard when having a learning disability had scarred him in the past. We then moved onto his privilege. David acknowledges that his access to education was a privilege. He says that education allowed him to educate others about learning disabilities and intersectionality. With that, he says he is able to reclaim his power and resist the system that hurt him so badly.
After we discussed in our small groups, we posted to the Forum tab and came back together as a class. Dr. Hurd called on each group to explain their posts and inform the class. This style of teaching allows each student to receive all the material while only having to do the work for one question. It also helps us as future teachers explain ourselves to a class and teach them material they are unfamiliar with. I like this type of exercise a lot because it gets me out of my shell as a student and as a preservice teacher.
Each group shared their thoughts on their questions and then we moved on to talk about the Cultural Iceberg. The Cultural Iceberg is an infographic that depicts different levels of culture and how visible they are to the outside world. This opened my eyes to all the layers that culture has to it. I think culture goes extremely deep into our identity, as the picture shows.
Zoom Session 3/22
This was a class session that really had an impact on me. Dr. Hurd talks about how he was a teacher during the 9/11 attacks on the United States. I was only one at the time, so obviously I do not remember it. However, for many Americans it was a horrific experience that they experienced in real time. Dr. Hurd explains that he was on his break period at the time of the attacks, and had to continue throughout his day with students. What shocked me was the reactions of the students he was teaching. He basically says it was the quietest day of his life, saying that “you could hear a pin drop” in his classroom during the subsequent periods following the attacks. He said he didn’t continue on teaching as usual because he wanted to stay true to his roots in “equitable, anti-racist pedagogy” and remain culturally responsive. I think this is the perfect example of how I want to teach. I want to keep my students informed and use momentous historical events as teaching platforms for good, equitable teaching.
My grandmother works in a predominantly white, conservative elementary school. She said she overheard some teachers talking about the Inauguration that was about to happen, and many of them were saying that they didn’t want to show the students because it would “make them [the teachers] want to throw up.” How horrible is that? These teachers were willing to put their own beliefs and biases in front of their students’ participation in a huge historical event. It made me feel awful for the students because I remember how excited I was to watch Barack Obama’s inauguration on TV and then to learn about it in class. These types of experiences can spark a child’s interest in that certain topic, so why would you, as an educator, want to prevent that from happening?
This zoom session really opened by eyes to biases in the classroom and made me want to be as unbiased as I can be. That means checking my unconscious bias and educating myself as much as I can about the different ethnicities, races, and cultures represented in my class and the school.
Zoom Session 3/31
This Zoom Session was one of my absolute favorites! We used a discussion/presentation tool called Nearpod to facilitate our discussion. I really want to focus on Nearpod and the utilization of technology in the classroom for this reflection, as I think it is important as younger teachers to be up-to-date with the new, hip tech :-).
To start, I’ll give a little bit of background on Nearpod. Before this class period, I had never used or even heard of Nearpod. I was a little apprehensive about the website and its functions, but ultimately it was easy to use. Basically, Nearpod is a classroom version of Twitter. A student can post a little sticky note, and other students can “like” their post and write their own. The teacher can create various slides for different topics that will help facilitate the class discussion.
Pertaining to our discussion, Dr. Hurd broke us up into groups of about 3 people each, and we discussed different theorists in education. We completed our slides, then came back together as a class to discuss our findings. We got to see firsthand the process each group went through and what they discussed through the sticky notes on their respective slides.
Like I said earlier, I was a little apprehensive about trying this new application. Once I noticed Dr. Hurd having some issues with it, I was even more nervous. However, once he got everything sorted it was much easier to navigate. It took patience, but I loved it once we got it figured out! The most similar tool I could equate it to is an even more immersive Padlet. Padlet allows each student to put sticky notes on the page, but Nearpod allows for real time collaboration and even allows different slides for different topics.
As a teacher, I think incorporating new and exciting types of applications and technologies is so important to class morale and participation. Learning about new technology takes me back to the first time I ever played the study game Kahoot. I didn’t even feel like I was studying! I loved the newness and excitement. I don’t want to be a traditional, boring teacher that lectures and the front of the class all day. I think by incorporating these new technologies, I’m giving my students not only a better education, but a more fun one as well. Why should school have to be boring when there are so many ways to make it fun?
Zoom Session 4/12
This zoom session focused on youth homelessness and what that means inside the classroom. As we already know, homelessness has a bigger impact on a student than just the loss of home. Homelessness can lead to bad grades, declining mental health, and generally low well-being. One thing I found interesting is that the author says you can have a roof over your head and still be homeless. Homelessness includes staying in hotels, RV’s, trailers, and public spaces. It is more the loss of stability than anything. Staying in a hotel does cover the basic need of shelter, however it does not provide a stable home for a long period of time. The stigma that is attached to the word “homeless” is something to be mindful of as an educator. People have very different definitions of homeless, as we see above. In class, we came up with what we define homelessness as, then talked about the statistics surrounding youth homelessness. The article states that 1.3 million school-aged children experience homelessness, which is such a heartbreaking fact. I think the most important thing to keep in mind as an educator is to always practice empathy with your students. Don’t scold for bad grades or bad behavior, instead get to the root of the problem and find ways to effectively support your students.
Levine & McCloskey
Levine & McCloskey Chapter 5
The Levine & McCloskey chapter 5 discusses different strategies for oral language development. The first thing the authors talk about in the chapter is the conditions for oral language learning. It outlines how language is most efficiently acquired. The first point says that learning a language is a social idea. Students use collaboration with their peers to develop interest and common language skills. This also helps ELL students gain socialization skills. Another condition for oral language learning is that language learning happens over time, stemming from prior knowledge. This knowledge includes both cultural and linguistic experiences. These experiences could be the deciding factor for how easily they can learn language. Determining what students know before beginning language acquisition is of utmost importance when lesson planning.
These optimal conditions are not usually part of a traditional classroom. What we focus on in a traditional classroom is called academic language. Academic language is typically more difficult to acquire because of the differences in casual, spoken language. Academic language is more proper and advanced. Children will eventually adapt to this type of language through complete immersion in it. At school, this is the majority of the language used. This means that for eight hours a day, five days a week, ELLs are immersed in academia. Overall, this will help their outcome as a scholar.
There are different stages of an ELLs oral language development. The stages are:
“Level 1 Starting: ELLs can communicate basic needs and use high-frequency vocabulary.
Level 2 Emerging: ELLs can communicate about routine experiences and use generalized academic vocabulary, phrases, and short sentences.
Level 3 Developing: ELLs can communicate on familiar matters and use some specialized academic vocabulary and expanded sentences in writing.
Level 4 Expanding: ELLs can use language in abstract situations and for new experiences and specialized vocabulary as well as a variety of sentence lengths with varying complexity.
Level 5 Bridging: ELLs can use a wide range of texts and recognize implicit meaning and use technical academic vocabulary in a variety of sentence lengths and with varying linguistic complexity” (p 91).
These different stages allow teachers to gauge what level ELLs are at and where the need to reach. I think as a teacher, this would be the hardest part. I would tend to put students into too low of a category, simply to ensure they had that category down pat and are ready to move up. However, when you teach students material that is too simplistic, they may become agitated and burnt out. I would have to walk a very fine line and take the students prior knowledge into consideration.
Levine & McCloskey Chapter 6
This chapter was a super interesting one to me. The chapter is titled “Oral Language Development in the Content Classroom” (114). Since beginning this class, I have wondered how to apply these ideas and practices of language development in my ELA or Social Science classroom. Chapter 6 totally solved that for me! In this chapter, Levine and McCloskey highlight the different content areas within our field and outline how to incorporate language development into each content area.
To start, the chapter says that including ELLs in the content classrooms is extremely important to their language development. This helps with their development by putting their learning to practice through aural and oral activities. Not only should these activities include ELLs, but should also be mindful of cultural differences in the classroom.
Language Arts is one of my content areas, so I was excited to finally learn how to put these ideas to practice. I had assumed Language Arts would be one of the easier content areas to integrate an ELL into. This chapter gave some new ideas like storytelling and reader’s theatre\. Storytelling might seem pretty basic, but chapter 6 shows that this basic idea can be pushed into a new realm. One idea that I liked was a graphic organizer. After reading a story, students create a graphic organizer of the main ideas and connections. This allows them to work on their writing as well as comprehend the story. In school, I always liked making graphic organizers to keep track of the story and its themes.
Another idea from the storytelling section is having the students read the newspaper. Who knew something so simple would be so good for language development? Students would be asked to pick out stories that interest them, find the main points, then place those points and connect the points in a graphic organizer. This is an easy idea that I plan to incorporate into my classroom. I think this will help expose students to different stories and also help their language development.
Next up in Language Arts is the fun idea of Reader’s Theatre. The basic premise of Reader’s Theatre is students take a text they are reading, develop a script, gather props, and perform their play. As a student, I never saw the learning behind it, I just thought it was fun! As a future teacher, I can see where the language development aspect comes in. Through creating, practicing, and performing a script, ELLs further practice and develop those important oral language skills. Not only that, they also deepen their comprehension of the text by repeating it into a script.
In my future classroom, I plan to incorporate both storytelling and Reader’s Theatre. As a student, I loved when teachers would read a story aloud. It was a relaxing way to receive a story. I feel ELLs could benefit from this relaxing way of storytelling. Learning a new language is hard, so through storytelling I can offer them an escape. Similarly, I think Reader’s Theatre is a good way to sneak learning into something fun and exciting. Ideally, I want to do a formal production of a Reader’s Theatre in the future. It doesn’t have to be crazy, but I think performing in front of an audience would be a good confidence builder for ELLs as well.
Levine & McCloskey Chapter 9
This chapter is titled “Developing Literacy with English Learners: Focus on Writing.” Throughout this chapter, we learn how important writing is to English Language Learners. Offering writing as a form of English instruction early on allows for new ways for ELL’s to construct meaning in English. One idea the book covers in regards to the importance of writing early on in an ELL’s journey is positive transference. Positive transference is when a student uses parts of their first language to help them learn to write in English (or any new language). This was a brand new idea to me. As a person who does not know another language, I was a little confused at first. I did not understand how writing in Spanish can help you write in English. The book goes on to explain that students use organizational frames called schemas to help understand and organize the information, which makes a lot more sense to me.
Later in the chapter, they give some really great ideas about how to incorporate writing into your ELL students’ curriculum. One great idea was message boards and mailboxes. I had both of these growing up and loved them, but I obviously am speaking from a different perspective. For an ELL, this gives them short bursts of writing practice in a fun, interactive way. This could be sticky notes on a bulletin board or even an email/chatroom group chat! This gives an encouraging outlet for students to practice writing. Another idea was a dialogue journal, which I love. In a dialogue journal, the student will write a passage either based on a prompt or a free-write. Then, as the teacher, you would collect these journals and respond individually to each student. This is a space where you should be encouraging and ask questions to your students, building relationships through these journals. Not only does this help with the trust-building aspect of teaching, but within these journals you should be looking for common errors to cover in mini-lessons. This is all around a great way to engage ELL’s in writing.
Finally, we learn about the writing process. First is pre-writing, which I had no idea was so important. It involves reading, listening, experiments, and interviews depending on the content area. In the case of an ELL, this will include practicing the vocabulary involved. The next step is drafting, which is solely meant to put ideas on paper. Teachers can give feedback on these through the aforementioned mini-lessons. Sharing and reviewing drafts is up next, which involves peer-editing. This helps ELLs learn to respond to their peer’s writing effectively. Fourth is revising, which might be harder for ELLs. They may require support to continue to develop their language. Next up is editing, where they polish off the piece and check their grammar. Finally, we come to publishing. This is a sort of celebration stage, where learners can share their final pieces. All of the steps combined help ELLs become better and more effective writers.
Levine & McCloskey Chapter 10
Chapter 10 of the Levine & McCloskey text is centered around how to structure and plan for content-based language integration. The first main point this chapter covers is what the characteristics of a good language-learning lesson are. One characteristic is teacher-directed instruction. The language the teacher uses during each and every lesson can make a major impact on ELLs language acquisition. When a teacher is having high-quality exchanges with their students, they are more likely to excel in language acquisition. However, it is not common to find these types of exchanges in the mainstream classroom.
So, how can I as a teacher facilitate these higher-level conversations? One great way to do this is by asking open-ended questions. These types of questions do not have a specific answer in mind, but are more geared toward higher level cognitive processes and will often lead to a discussion. Discussion is a major way to help ELLs with their language acquisition because it allows them real-time oral language practice.
In addition to these benefits, teachers who have high-quality exchanges often with their students are actually able to better track their ELL students’ progress through the levels of language acquisition. This is something I mentioned in a previous reflection that I was worried about being able to do effectively. I am soothed by the notion that having quality content-related discussions are the key to tracking my students’ progress.
It is almost bizarre to me that it is “uncommon” to find high-quality exchanges in a mainstream classroom. I think these are the kinds of conversations we should be having every single day in every classroom. If we aren’t providing our students with a higher-level of thinking, they are ultimately going to be at a deficit because of the lack of oral language skills and deeper thinking. In my classroom, I want to start each day with an open-ended bellringer about something pertaining to my class or lesson. I will then have students write down their answers and be prepared to present and discuss their answers. This gives them time to prepare, which I know I always appreciated in school. However, it also gets their minds ready for a high-quality discussion as well.
Levine & McCloskey Chapter 11
The Levine & McCloskey chapter 11 focuses on assessment techniques and tools that can be used in the classroom. The first type of testing discussed in the chapter is standardized testing. Standardized testing is the most normalized way of testing across America. This style of testing allows for extreme reliability and validity. There are specific tests designed for ELLs to gauge their language development. However, standardized tests have their downfalls. These types of tests do not allow for any sort of variability, such as cultural differences, learning disabilities, or ELLs. Each student gets the same test, no matter their ability. This could skew the results between schools depending on the levels of diversity and the culture of the school. Standardized tests are becoming more and more looked down upon by educators across the country.
The second type of assessment is a classroom-based assessment. This type of assessment is a longer, more ongoing type of assessment. It includes: “monitoring student achievement, planning and improving instruction, providing communication to parents and school personnel, and providing students with information and feedback about their progress” (p. 266). To do this, teachers should develop lessons with tests and other forms of assessment to track student progress. These should all include rubrics so students understand the requirements for projects and assignments.
Classroom-based assessments are the most common in the college classes I’ve been in. I prefer this style of assessment because it allows the student freedom. I’ve always enjoyed being creative and allowing my projects to show my personality. In standardized testing, there is simply no way to convey any personality in that type of a test. Personally, I would like to incorporate mostly classroom-based assessments into my classroom. I feel this is the best way for my students, native speakers and ELLs, to allow themselves to be creative and overall learn in a more whole way.
Pain and Privilege
The Reflexivity of Pain & Privilege Chapter 1
Chapter 1 of the Pain and Privilege text is written by Dian Mitrayani and is titled “Navigating the Ambiguity of Mixed Identity as Chinese-Indonesian” (p 3). Mitrayani first describes her own identity as she sees herself. Dian Mitrayani refers to herself as a millennial woman of Chinese descent. She was born in Indonesia and grew up in Surabaya. She was technically a minority in Indonesia. Her race was Asian, whereas her ethnicity is Chinese. Her culture, however, is Chinese: but not. Also Indonesian: but not. The word in Indonesia that describes a mixed Chinese-Indonesian person is peranakan. It is the "state of in-between." People who identify as peranakan do not speak Chinese, but rather speak Indonesian. Also, this word may refer to the possibility of some Indonesian in their lineage. Mitrayani eventually emigrated to the US, specifically to Hawaii. She felt liberated from the peranakan label. She says she started to reconstruct her identity after this. Identity-negotiation is something she is still doing today. She feels her identity is fluid.
One thing I found interesting about people who identify as peranakan is that while they do not adhere to all of the traditional Chinese customs, they do still marry within their ethnicity of Chinese. I found this interesting because it seems people who identify as peranakan tend to lean more toward their Indonesian side, yet they plan to marry someone Chinese. I wonder if this is to keep bloodlines pure or if there is another reason
Another part of her identity is her Christian faith. Her family abandoned their traditional Chinese beliefs to adopt Christianity. She attended a Christian school where her mother taught. I can relate to the Christianity aspect of Mitrayani’s identity. I grew up in a very Christian household so I understand the ins and outs of Christianity and what that can entail. I attended Sunday School, which my grandmother taught. I think relating to the author helped me better understand her identity as a whole.
The Reflexivity of Pain & Privilege Chapter 4
Chapter 4 of the Pain & Privilege text is written by Hwa Pyung Yoo. It is titled “The Unidentified Nationality.” I did not personally read this chapter. I was assigned to read chapters 6 and 7, but when I was taught about this chapter, I loved it so much I had to reflect on it. Anna Carson actually taught me about this chapter over Zoom during our in-class breakout rooms, so major props to her because she gave me a great understanding of the chapter without actually having to read it myself.
To begin, Hwa Pyung Yoo is a Korean man who has dealt with being a TCK his whole life. A TCK stands for a third culture kid. He came from a traditional, collectivistic Korean household. He says he was taught to embrace his culture at home, yet felt ashamed of it at school and with his friends. He felt culture guilt. Growing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he lacked representation and he hid his Korean identity as much as he could. Hwa learned to flip between identities, saying it was natural. Compartmentalizing each identity became easy for him. In grades 4-6, he struggled with his identity. Hwa experienced a lot of push and pull. He wanted to be more American, but the snide comments and microaggressions at school began to wear him down. Even at home he felt like his family was not trying to accommodate his American side enough.
Hwa eventually came to the identity moratorium stage in his development. This is a period of self-exploration and includes steps on finding oneself. In Hwa’s case, this meant understanding his identity as a TCK. He grew tired of the compartmentalization and finally accepted himself as Korean and American and the inbetween. It was a liberating experience for him to be who he truly wanted to be.
In our discussion of this chapter, we went over five ways educators can support their students. This was outlined in the chapter as well. The five are..
Educators should be actively promoting the engagement and exploration of ethnic identities.
Personal conversations are necessary and need to acquire into students’ language, cultural heritage, or country of origin
Important that discussions about sensitive issues are had to help develop students’ ethnic identities.
Design lessons to spark students’ interests in other cultures. Help spark conversations between TCK’s and classmates
If TCK’s have a space that allows their identities to interact, it can prove to be beneficial to their identity exploration.
The last point connects back to chapter 4 of our Levine & McCloskey text. Students need a place to feel safe and welcomed. Chapter 4 of that text gives great tips and advice on how to manage a classroom in a way to ensure proper learning and development for ELL’s. As we can see, this advice can also work for TCK’s as well. Giving any diverse student an outlet to explore their identity is a great way for them to grow and develop as a person.
The Reflexivity of Pain & Privilege Chapter 5
Chapter 5 of the Pain and Privilege text is written by Paloma E. Villegas and is a poem titled “Mis Roots” (p 89). This poem is all about Villegas’ roots and how her Mestisxs background has been wiped from society. The first stanza is all about food, which immediately grabbed my attention. She describes the foods she grew up with, such as frijoles and sopes. She says it’s nothing like crunchy tacos and Taco Bell. She is conveying the picture of rich culture and not what her culture is portrayed in America. The hegemonic “Mexican” identity hurts Villegas because it is not what she wants her indigenous roots to become washed away by the mainstream culture. She asserts to the reader that she doesn’t come “from Puerto Vallarta, or Cancun, or “Cabo,” from all-inclusive deals, with margaritas and “guac”” (89). This line is especially cutting. Americans have completely diminished native Mestisxs culture to margaritas and guacamole. How sad is it that we have diminished a whole indigenous country to only the aspects that we like? Americans look past the small towns in Mexico that have rich cultural history and only visit the all-inclusive resorts, toting that they went to “Mexico.” That is not Mexico. Villegas experiences much pain from her culture being completely white-washed. She hopes for a better future with education and persistence.
I absolutely loved this poem. I connected to it in a way I’ve never connected to a poem before. I think it is horrific the way we’ve white-washed the Mestisxs culture. I’m sure if I asked many of my friends what they thought of as “Mexican food” they would say tacos and quesadillas. This is such a reduction of an entire culture’s cuisine. I want to further educate myself on Mestisxs culture and cuisine so I can be a better advocate for that culture.
The Reflexivity of Pain & Privilege Chapter 6
Chapter 6 of the Pain and Privilege text is written by Susan Y. Leonard and is titled “A Different Kind of Asian Persuasion” (p 91). For this reflection and specific chapter, I thought it would be beneficial to use some of the forum discussion questions to guide my thinking. I did not get a chance to answer them in our class discussion, so I wanted to challenge myself to do it now.
How is race a political-social construct?
Race has always been a social and political construct. Racism is as rampant in today’s society as it was during the Civil War era and as it was during the 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement. Race becomes political when laws dictate the types of treatment minorities receive. People at the top make race a political construct to classify them. Politicians love putting people in little boxes to “better understand them” (which literally doesn’t help them understand minorities at all). As Leonard says, race isn’t biological. All people belong to the human race, therefore are scientifically the same. She says that once people started adding these “subcategories” that race became a bargaining tool.
What are funds of identity?
Funds of identity are basically inseparable cultural products that through social interaction and participation in life activities creating unintended cultural biases. These biases are a key to understanding identity as a whole. The whole “funds of identity” concept is extremely confusing to me. I did my best to put it in my own words, but I think Leonard tells it best in her chapter.
Who are Fasians?
To start this question off, I just want to say I hate the term “Fasians.” Something about it feels extremely derogatory and just plain mean. Fasians means “fake asians.” These are people that have Asian attributes, such as physical characteristics, but have been raised culturally as white. I hate this term because a child does not get a say in how they are raised. Leonard would not have looked at her parents and said “can you not raise me so white?” That’s just not a conversation a child would have with their parents. Calling an Asian person fake because their parents chose to raise them with different values is so hurtful and wrong.
The Reflexivity of Pain & Privilege Chapter 7
This chapter of Pain & Privilege was written by Hannah R. Stohry. It is entitled “Transformative Consciousness Raising Questions.” The introduction basically asks the reader whether they understand the world around them on a deeper level. Stohry gives this definition the term “woke,” which is an extremely popular term in today’s society. Before reading this chapter, I really did not know what woke meant. Stohry helped me understand this much better.
The next section goes on to introduce the questions that will appear further on in the chapter. She refers to these questions as consciousness-raising and change-producing. I think one great thing she says is, “We can no longer conform” (107). This is hugely important in the education field today. Conforming to the typical education style is no longer benefiting our students. I believe this new generation of teachers will teach our students in a way that reflects the world as it is today, not how it was thirty years ago. If we teach differently, such as being more conscious of diversity in our classrooms, I think students will reap the benefits of a more well-rounded education.
I thought it would be interesting to answer two of the questions outlined in this chapter from a pre-service teacher’s point of view. Not only do I have a unique perspective on education because I am being taught how to teach right now, but I am also a young college student who is passionate about education and diversity training.
Q: Do the images I present in my class activities and curriculum reflect and represent the diverse experiences of my students? Why or why not?
A: As a preservice teacher, I cannot answer this with certainty as I have not made or taught lessons yet. However, I think this is something important to touch on. I plan to be as aware as I can about my students’ experiences with diversity, whether that be culturally, ethnically, or religiously. I do not expect myself to be perfect at including diverse images all the time. Sometimes it slips my mind. I recently did a project in another class regarding a book about a young black student, and I only included imagery of white individuals. I was using stock photos that matched the themes of the story, yet I did not once stop to think about the almost racist messages I was sending by not including primarily black people in my presentation. This has taught me to be more aware of the images I am selecting, especially when it comes to a lesson being taught to a diverse classroom.
Q: Am I teaching just to teach?
A: This is a question I’ve found myself asking recently. This semester has been especially hard, and I’ve wondered what it means to be a good teacher, and if I’ll ever be one. I’ve decided that no, I do not want to teach just to teach. I love knowledge and the thought of being able to share that with young people makes me so incredibly happy. However, the sharing of knowledge is not the only reason I want to teach. I want to teach to show students how to have compassion, how to love, and how to be aware of the people around them. I am ultra-compassionate, and I know without a doubt I’m going to be one of those teachers that says she loves her kids and truly means it. I think I can teach these future generations these important qualities through my behavior towards them and others. I want to teach the future generation to be good leaders, not just to know perfect grammar or historical dates. I want to teach them to be good, kind, awesome people.
Virtual Clinicals
ATLAS Analyzing Historical Fiction Texts and Making Connections in Literature Circles Case #1644
This clinical resonated with me because it embodies both of my endorsements into one lesson. My endorsements are English-Language Arts and Social Science. I am always looking for ways to bring the ELA element into a History classroom.
It is important to note the style and functionality of this classroom. This class consists of twenty-eight sixth graders. Their reading levels range from 3rd-7th grade English and Spanish. In addition, their language proficiency levels range from beginning to native speakers. This is another interesting point about this classroom: is it a dual-language classroom. This means they alternate between full English or Spanish instruction every other week. This model is over all curriculum, not just ELA or Social Science. I think this is a very interesting model to use in a classroom. Personally, I have never experienced this type of classroom nor do I think I will with my background. That being said, I think alternating between languages forces students to become fluent in each and helps their overall language development.
This teacher starts her lesson with a recap of what they have been learning, as well as student expectations. We know that they have been reading a book and have written a response based on their own experiences. The teacher then asks the students to share in literature circles. She assigns each student a job:
Area Managers: gather all supplies necessary
Reporters: report back what the group has done
Connectors: connect their reading to real life or other texts
Checkers: check to see that the work is correct
Facilitators: ensure the discussion is running smoothly
These jobs all fulfill necessary collaborative work requirements within the curriculum.
Overall, I found this lesson to be very well thought out and inspiring. However, as a pre-service teacher with little to no diverse language background, I found it hard to relate to the exact ideals. I did find ideas within the lesson that I could incorporate into my own classroom. For starters, I like the idea of literature circles. It allows us as teachers to scaffold goals and monitor student progress in real time. Another aspect of this lesson I would like to incorporate is the leadership roles. As a student, I always enjoyed classroom jobs and similar things. It gave me a sense of responsibility not only to my teacher, but also to my fellow classmates. As a teacher, this is a great way to ensure participation from all students. It also holds each student accountable for their portion of the presentation, which can be hard to do in a group setting. Overall, this lesson had aspects that I would love to incorporate into my future classroom.
ATLAS Classifying Figurative Speech as Simile, Metaphor, Hyperbole, or Personification Case #971
This clinical video follows a sixth grade ESL class of three students. The gender make-up is two boys and one girl. The students are Korean, Indian, and Uzbekistanian. Their English language proficiency levels all are in the Developing range.
The lesson is meant to reaffirm the figurative speech lessons taught in both their English core classes and their ESL classes. The teacher challenged the group to give three examples of each figure of speech: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and personification. After this, she realized they were still struggling with grasping these ideas, so she created a game. In this game, students were given eight different cards with half sentences on each. Each student read a card aloud while the others searched for the matching half. They then decided which type of figurative language the sentence was using and said why they thought that.
The teacher says in the notes that the purpose of the lesson was not only to clarify simile, metaphor, personification, and hyperbole, but also to strengthen their individual and group language skills. This helped their speaking, listening, and reading skills. Not only was this a group activity, but each student had an individual goal as well. One student was to listen attentively and work on his impulsiveness. Another student was given ample time to formulate their sentences to ensure confidence and was also tasked with helping the shyest one of the group with their confidence as well.
Overall, I liked this video. To be honest, I do not think I’ll encounter this style of classroom often in my teaching career. I do not know another language, so it would be hard for me to communicate with the students that have a hard time using English. That being said, I appreciate the teachers that are able to teach these students. In this lesson, you can see how hard this teacher works on creating lessons and adapting to each individual student’s needs. ELL students need someone competent and caring to help them with their language development. Not only is this teacher helping these students with language development, but also their confidence as well.
Clinical- 2 Heated Cultural Debates the Bible Addresses
The author of 2 Heated Cultural Debates the Bible Addresses is Rebecca McLaughlin and she wrote this article in April of 2019. The main focus of this article is to discuss two very controversial topics in today’s society: racism and homophobia. McLaughlin approaches this from a biblical sense and brings light to the church and racism.
The first section is titled “A Multicultural Church.” This section talks about the failures of the Christian church over the 2000 years of its existence. The bible teaches us that one day, every person from every nation, tribe, and tongue (language) will be surrounding Jesus worshipping him. This is inherently the prophecy of a multiracial, multicultural, multi-everything church. So, why aren’t churches preparing for this now? Why are churches being hateful and spiteful? Christians could be the first to advocate for other races and to advocate for love. Jesus started Christianity as a movement for love and acceptance, but obviously the meaning has changed over time.
The next section is titled “The Big Picture of the Gospel” which looks at sex and gender in the church. One interesting idea that McLaughlin throws out is that God chose to create two genders. She says he easily could have made one human that would reproduce asexually, yet he chose to create male and female. He does this to create a metaphor about the incredible love of Jesus toward humanity. Jesus is the bridegroom. The people are his bride, they keep running away from his love yet all he wants to do is to shower his people in unconditional love. Without the big picture of the gospel, the definition of marriage is broken. But if we keep it connected, we learn the love of Jesus in addition to the advocacy for racial and sexual equality.
This clinical really stuck with me because I grew up in the Christian church, but not the nice type. The church I grew up in is extremely racist and homophobic. I remember on multiple occasions in church praying that the homosexual people would repent and realize how wrong they were. Similarly, when the protests and riots began during the recent Black Lives Matter movement, I specifically remember my pastor referring to the protestors during during as “thugs” and “those bad people.” I completely understand the need to confront Christianity and hold it accountable for the way it acts towards these minorities. It is something I have done over the past few years of my life. My family believes I am being unreasonable by refusing to go to church with them, but I cannot actively support a church that is so inherently racist and homophobic.
Clinical- “Race, Ethnicity, and Family”
This clinical video entitled “Race, Ethnicity, and Family” takes a deep dive into the American family. The American family is often portrayed as a sort of sanctuary, safe from the scary outside world. The major part of the family is race. Stereotypes infiltrate the family, causing much tension. All American families are similar, such as the ideal of the nuclear family. However, minority families face more struggles than a typical white family would. The video touched on the idea that passed down wealth is the way non-minority families retain their wealth from generation to generation. It has a snowball effect that can be detrimental to minority families. Similarly, the job hunt can be extremely hard for minorities to infiltrate due to racism in the workplace. Some employers may have unconscious biases for minorities, and won’t hire them because of this. Another major issue in American families is religious differences. The typical white household is generally Christian. After 9/11, it was extremely hard for Arab-Americans to practice their religion, Islam, without fearing for their safety. These people faced extreme discrimination simply due to their appearance and religion.
Even though there are major negatives and differences between majority and minority households, many households share commonalities. Like the Hispanic culture relies on a strong church. This shields them from the harsh despair that other minorities might experience, like divorce. Finally, the multi-generational aspect of minority families allows them to band together and stand up for themselves and their families.
This video was super informative and showed me the struggles many minority families have. I come from a white, Christian household, so I do not know first-hand the experiences of the minority families. However, I feel that this video educated me so that I can better support my students in the future. Each student comes from a different family environment. This makes me want to educate myself on each student’s background so I can be better fit to their needs. I will accept each student as they are, regardless of their family life.
ATLAS Analyzing and Discussing "The Scholarship Jacket" by Marta Salinas Case 181
This ATLAS virtual clinical is titled Analyzing and Discussing "The Scholarship Jacket" by Marta Salinas. After a quick Google search, I learned that “The Scholarship Jacket” is a short story about a Mexican-American girl living in Texas.
In this sheltered English class, there were 24 seventh grade students. None of these students are immigrants themselves; they were all born in the United States. 90 percent of the students speak predominantly Spanish at home, and their community supports the native culture which is AWESOME. Seven percent are students who receive special education services and four percent are English language learners. In addition to these statistics, multiple students in the class are labeled as “high achievers.” I am unsure of what this label means at this particular school, but would imagine near perfect grades and excellent participation in class. The teacher outlines that the exceptional needs in the classroom includes visual and auditory processing deficits. This affects the student’s ability to remember what is heard and seen. In this lesson, the teacher is facilitating a high-quality exchange like we saw in Levine & McCloskey chapter 10. She is creating a discussion based on the short story “The Scholarship Jacket.” To begin the discussion, she asks the students “what makes a good leader?” in relation to their prior knowledge and the text provided.
After watching this virtual clinical, I took away many things I would like to incorporate into my future classroom. One thing that I loved is how she gave each student that participated some sort of positive feedback. I think that positive feedback allows students to feel more comfortable participating in those discussions, leading to the high-quality exchanges I am looking for. I also loved that the teacher allowed students to prepare their answers before sharing out. I remember in middle and high school that I hated being put on the spot for discussions because I would become flustered and lose my train of thought. By allowing them time to prepare an initial answer, she’s giving them time to formulate a higher-level answer. This especially helps to support English language learners. They might not be comfortable sharing out organically, so by writing down their answer it gives them something to fall back on if they get messed up. I really liked this clinical overall and took many great ideas from it.