Category: 680Final

1. How does understanding culture and power impact your teaching

Culture is something that each person not only has, but takes pride in. Each person has a special, unique, and individual culture that they come from, and so it is our duty to understand that as educators, and use it in our classrooms because it is so powerful. I feel as though many people in our society have forgotten about this aspect, and in return it has made its way into our school system, and so we at times look at classrooms as just a group of students we can blanket teach, instead of a group of bright and amazing individuals. By understanding and recognizing them culturally, we can help make them feel more comfortable, create that sense of community, and that will result in a better learning environment.

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

Being in education, it is our duty to expose our students to a variety of topics and cultures in order to not only expand their horizons on what all is out in the world, but to expand their knowledge on how other cultures operate. In order to give them that exposure, we have to teach them and introduce to them different cultures and different traditions that exist both inside and outside of the classroom.

We need to influence our students to help them feel safe in our classrooms, and help them learn more by not just standing and lecturing at them. We need to influence them to change the way they think so they go past the exterior of a question, and really dive deep into topics and create a deeper understanding of what is trying to be taught.

The idea in giving my students the ability to use critical thinking is what learning is. There are many different ways to learn and understand a subject or a problem. If they do not know how to use their critical thinking, then they will have  tougher time solving the issue that they have.

 

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

Teaching in culturally responsive ways means that the teacher will employ a variety of tactics and ideas to help reach the students in the classroom. It is important to understand the type of class on hand and the backgrounds of the class and the students. This will help the teacher better understand how to approach and teach the class. Then, when the values, knowledge, and experience of the students are learned, it will be important to put that information into the lessons. This also means that the context of the lesson must be relevant. I plan on implementing some project based learning as I believe it gives the students many skills to practice that they will need in more than just the classroom. I will also try to use all of the resources available to me to help my teaching, which means bringing in an elder, place based education, and identifying the culture that exists in the classroom. Overall, I hope to implement all of these and more tactics to be the best teacher that I can.

I have selected Hope, Influence, and Uncomfortable from our word wall. These words are all words in my vocabulary that I thought I knew the definition of. I originally questioned why such simple words would be up on this wall. It is true that they made it onto the wall because they were subjects that we touched on during these last few weeks, but also because they play a large role in teaching.

I want to say that each word has changed slightly in their definitions. Hope use to be nearly the same thing as luck, but now I found that hope is more of a verb than a noun. Originally I thought hope to be an outcome to be reached for, but it is a verb of hoping. Which then translates through my mind as goal-setting and striving to reach that bar.

Influence, as we know, can be positive or negative, but I have never really heard the word Influence spoken unless it had a negative connotation. As teachers, we will be an influence to our students, and will need to stay away from creating a negative environment. The definition didn’t change, but it made me think a little bit.

Uncomfortable, it is simple to dissect this word into NOT and COMFORTABLE. Like influence, we need to stay away from bringing this into the classroom. However, in most cases we cannot control how a student feels directly, but through discussions and this class I have realized that teachers fill their classrooms with positive energy and indirectly make the students more comfortable. This can be achieved by setting classroom norms and standards early on.

Uncomfortable, Hope, and Influence are all common words, but I am surprised that I have not looked at them from a teaching perspective until this class. These three words impact students in the long run, even if the effects aren’t felt immediately.

For the future I plan on designing a comfortable learning environment that inspires hope and faith for a better tomorrow. I also want to help the students find the hope within themselves. Influence is important and I believe that it comes in to play naturally when in the position of teacher. If done right, students will look to the teacher for guidance and influence. I plan to be there for each and every one of my students.

1. How does understanding culture and power impact your teaching?

Understanding culture is understanding your own identity. Teachers must provide a safe environment within the classroom where students are seen, valued, cared for, and respected. As a teacher you can show you value your students’ culture by learning about their culture, building curriculum around personal narratives, or incorporating identity-based responses into the study. It is important to bring community members in your classroom, to share their knowledge and to help create a feeling of openness. The classroom should be the place where students feel comfortable defining their own cultural identities. As a teacher you should take time to explore each culture within your class, and infuse in your students the fact that they should be proud of their culture.

 

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.

 

From the Multicultural Education word wall I chose: Tolerance, Transformation, and Respect.

Tolerance means to accept and embrace other races, religions, cultures, ideas,and values without prejudice or judgement. Tolerance ties with respect; respecting others even if they might have different opinions, values, and beliefs. Children are brought into this world without biases, but even from early age they adopt values from their peers or the adults in their life. It is our job as teachers to introduce tolerance in our classroom, by deeply listening to what others have to say and to reflect about the feelings, and wisdom behind what they say.

 

Respect in the classroom is defined by trusting the integrity of others, believing they have the right to their opinions, and valuing them even if they are different than yours. As teachers we need to make sure, everyone’s voice is being heard and valued.

Transformation

In order to transform others, you need to start with the transformation within yourself. As a teacher you need to let go of all biases, and create a sense of belonging in your classroom. Be open to learn new things every day from your students, and from people around you.

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.

I feel I learned so much in the last three weeks, from all the wonderful teachers that came to share their experience with us. I would like to create in my classroom a community based on strong relationships where students will feel comfortable sharing their ideas. We each have a curriculum that needs to guide us, but how we chose to teach it is up to us. By engaging students to question, consult original sources, make observations, test hypotheses, collect, and analyze data, you teach them not to settle with the obvious answer. I want to use in my classroom story books to introduce new concepts, Math Trails to apply skills and knowledge with other peers, place-based learning to acquire a deeper knowledge through exploration, and community members.

1.  How does understanding culture and power impact your teaching?– These last three weeks have really lead to a lot of self reflection and learning about a culture that is new to me.  Listening to other’s advice and knowledge really helps me gain a better understanding for the culture’s past, present and future, and that will be powerful in my classroom.  All aspects are important in a classroom, no matter what culture they identify with.  Although I have a developed a better background knowledge of Alaskan cultures, I will always continue to learn.  The self reflection I have seen in myself and others definitely gives my peers and I some power when it comes to our future in teaching.  It has become very apparent that addressing what I identify as my culture directly relates to how I can understand another human being’s culture.  We all come from different places and we can all learn from each other.

2.  Picking just three words was difficult. I went over there and ended up writing down seven.  BUT, if I have to pick three, uncomfortable, hope, and transformation would be the ones I will write about.  Uncomfortable: causing or feeling unease or awkwardness.  As talked about in the last three weeks, being uncomfortable is important in a classroom.  It is one of my jobs, as a teacher, to inform and openly talk about things that may make the students and/or I uncomfortable.  If I think back about my time in public school, I can’t remember a time where the teacher talked about something that made me uncomfortable (at least that was memorable).  But I do remember a time in college that the whole class was uncomfortable during a topic about consent and rape (it was Human Sexuality).  The teacher spent a couple of weeks creating trust, respect and openness within the classroom.  When it was time for her to bring up the “lesson” of the week, things started off very quiet.  To her, this subject/topic needed to be discussed because the stats that she knew were true (1/4 experience sexual abuse and that most victims/survivors of rape, knew the person) needed some awareness.  Thinking back on this class, I learned a lot about facts, experiences and was able to do some healing for myself.  I think that this uncomfortable feeling was resolved with support and a better understanding on what WE can do to spread awareness and how to stop this awful and harmful crime.

My second word was hope.  This sits so well with me because if I have anything, it’s hope.  I have hope that Alaska can change over these unfortunate statistics and I have hope that kindness and appreciate can be shown.  Actions are much louder than words, and I plan to be a model for these things; but I will never stop telling my students how much hope and confidence I have in their smarts and ability.

My third word from the word wall was transformation.  I think this word encompasses a lot of the work we did in this class.  I think it also directly relates to what I wish for my classroom.  It’s the transformation that directly correlates to if the student “got it” or not.  To see this happen in my class, is something I’m very excited to experience and be apart of.

3.  I plan to teach in a culturally responsive way by making sure to include all of my student’s culture within my class.  I think it’s important for them to know that I truly care about understanding all of their cultures as well as sharing mine.  Because I will be in a science class, I think place-based approach is something I plan to use most often.  Going out into the community is important and I think the kids will really get a different look at things with me.  I also realized that bringing elders and culture bearers into the classroom isn’t as difficult or intimidating as it seems!  Alaska has so much to offer!

1. How does understanding culture and power impact your teaching?

Recognizing each student’s cultural strengths and building on them is something that I feel I have learned over these three weeks. We all have a story and each and every one of us brings something to be appreciated and reflected upon. I think the bootstrap analogy really speaks to me in regard to power. Realizing that I didn’t get to where I am today simply by putting forth effort is extremely humbling as well as infuriating. The fact that other people are not offered equal opportunities is not ok and we can do something about it. This is something that I will find the time to talk about in class once a safe place is created and I get to know my students and they feel they can trust me. Like Ernestine said, you are either perpetuating colonialism and institutionalism or you are taking a stand against it.

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.

White fragility is a term that I heard for the first time a last week. White fragility “is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation” Instead of listening, many times white people turn the conversations around to “what about me” type of situations. Unfortunately, this type of behavior closes the person off when instead he or she should listen and talk through whatever it is. And this type of behavior was happening within our classroom even yesterday. This blockade that people put up is not getting us anywhere. We need to learn to be receptive and really listen to others.

A safe place is somewhere that everyone is welcome, appreciated, and is both relied upon and can rely upon others. A safe place is something I want to create in the classroom. I would like to create a safe place where students feel like they can speak up without judgement or ridicule. In order to have a productive class, this is paramount.

Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. I hope that I can teach my students to believe in themselves by expressing and showing that I believe in them. I hope I can teach my students to put their hearts into everything they do. “Remember hope is a good thing, and no good thing ever dies.”

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.

I plan to get involved to contribute to the community. I don’t want to be that teacher who just hangs out with other teachers and leaves every summer. I want to involve parents, families, elders, and culture bearers as much as possible. I think students will learn more and be more responsive to having guests in the classroom. I plan to incorporate place based practices into my lesson plans and to research ways to teach lessons with that in mind.

One of my favorite television programs of all time, and one I still like to watch today, is Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Fred Rogers never tired of telling his television friends, “You make each day a special day by just your being you.” I was reminded of Mister Rogers and the word “being” when David Katzeek said that it was one of his favorite words. Being is an empowering idea. Being a teacher is a great privilege because we are being in the presence of our students. Our being is for them. That being is ideally true for all of us as teachers, because it’s how we’ve chosen to define our lives. Irrespective of how any of our students choose to define themselves as cultural beings, it is important and imperative for them to be awake to their feelings, possibilities, and ambitions. If they can reach that point of being, then we teachers have done our jobs. But “being” isn’t one of the words I’ve chosen.

1. The first word that drew my attention was “another.” In these past three weeks, I’ve come to appreciate and rely on the help of my peers, particularly with respect to the iBook project. At first I was a little overwhelmed with what seemed like a daunting endeavor, but I quickly came to rely on the support and encouragement of my teammates. I recognized that I was not alone. For years, even into adulthood, I thought I was alone. In feeling alone, I often felt like I was a failure. It was only when I came to appreciate that I had many advocates, I knew I could succeed. Relying on another, or others, is not a signifier of failure, but an empowering opportunity to reach our highest potential.
2. “Understanding.” This word goes hand in hand with listening. One of the most important tasks we have as teachers is to listen to our students. Sometimes young people will have difficulty expressing themselves, and they may not always do it verbally. But active listening will open up channels of communication that are otherwise shut off. We can’t allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in a lesson that we don’t take the time to model listening to our students. By doing so, we help ourselves and them to gain a better understanding of another, or others.
3. “Together.” As I mentioned, the iBook project was so successful because each team came together. Each of use is unique in that there’s never been another person just like us in all the world, and there never will be another person like us again. Yet, in being together, we accomplished our goal. The same will be true for every student we will encounter in our careers. Many young people may share similar characteristics, but each one is unique. That uniqueness is what makes them special. Once they understand that they’re not alone in their struggles, they can come together to a place of being that enriches their lives and others.

In the coming year, my intention is to listen and learn as much as possible from my host teacher at JDHS. I will follow her lead in approaching culturally responsive teaching. My own strategies as a teacher will evolve from the point of intersection with my colleagues and students. As I have expressed in class, I feel like I am in a period of great self-discovery in my life. Having said that, certainly, the inclusion of Elders into a discussion of Southeast Alaska history is an enriching prospect. As for specific content/units, the iBook introductions and lesson plans may be a good starting place when teaching about regions of Alaska. For me, teaching history will be about finding my way into the curriculum. That is, making it personal enough for me in oder to communicate what I feel is important for my students to internalize. What is the core story in the history? Like analyzing a script, I tend to think in terms of the work of an actor, discovering intentions and motives. I would like to bring history dramatically to life, whether through historical videos, film clips, or some sort of interactive performance.