ED680 Reflection

1. How does understanding culture and power impact your teaching?
   Understanding culture helps me reflect on how unseen influences can impact my students and how my lens influences how I see things as well. The way I see things influences the way I interact with others and I need to be aware of that especially when with my students so  I can make sure everyone feels safe and welcome in my room.

2.  Pick three terms that resonate with you from the Multicultural Education word wall. Define the terms and discuss why you chose these three terms.

Meritocracy: Meritocracy is a word that resonates with me because its what I had previously believed was the system we had. I thought that anyone who worked hard enough could move up in the world but now i see that is not the case. Meritocracy works best for people like me, white middle class people. However meritocracy does not work well for suppressed people.

Tolerance: Tolerance is a word that resonates with me because it is what I thought we were trying to achieve. Acceptance for all cultures and a mind set of “you do your thing and I’ll do mine”, was the plan, now I see that there is way more to a multicultural education.

Celebration: This is not a word on the wall but it should be. I think this is what we should strive for in our classrooms. Everyone celebrating and embracing the cultures of the room. everyone seeing the value of the individual differences

3.  Describe your plan to teach in a culturally responsive way in the coming year. Include teaching strategies you might employ as well as content/units you will implement.

My plan is to conduct lessons that are relevant to the area i’m in, to conduct myself in a way that conveys love and patience to each and everyone of my students, and to build a classroom environment in which all students have the opportunity to succeed.