Class Presentation

 Here is the link to my teach out project:)

Eliminating Ableism in Education

     

    Thomas Hehir argues that there is a large problem of ableism in schools and that we must take steps to creating an inclusive and supportive environment for students with disabilities.

    The first point I would like to address is the ableist assumptions section. Hehir begins to tell the story of Joe Ford and how his mother had to process his disabilities and getting him the support he needed. There is a quote that says "she would have to fight constantly for her child to have the most basic of rights." Unfortunately this quote is very accurate from everything that I have seen thus far in my life. I am currently enrolled in a special education class and I had to interview a mother of a child with a disability and she spoke of the same experience. How if she did not educate herself on the rights she had as a parent and the rights that her child had she would not have been able to help her child nearly as well. It seems that Joe's mom, Penny, was able to find support from someone to help her but not everyone knows a person who is knowledgeable enough to support you in this way. This is one of the biggest things that needs to be changed in our special education process. I feel that we spend so much time focusing on what the child's diagnosis is that we forget to inform the parents of what this means for their child's education and often we do not explain all of their rights. Many times parents do not even understand the jargon used in IEPs. This may be such a small quote to zero in on but it is something that needs to be paid much better attention to in the special education process at schools.

    Next I would like to address the quote "the belief that disability could be overcome led to the rise of the other dominant image of disability: the inspirational disabled person, or the 'supercrip.' Shapiro arrgues that this image is deeply moving to many disabled people and the press, but is widely regarded as oppressive to most disabled people." This is a concept that I have never thought of, there are many times as a child I remember learning about people who are disabled doing these amazing things and using them as inspiration. It's a strange concept when you really think about it because we are amazed to learn about someone who is disabled doing something successful but the concept is really used to show able bodied individuals that if someone who is disabled can accomplish those things surely you can. It doesn't actually make society more accepting of disabilities because those same days at school that we would learn about an inspirational disabled person, students would still make jokes about "the short bus". If you have not seen the TED talk "I am not your inspiration, thank you very much," I invite you to watch it. The speaker, Stella Young,  does an amazing job of really putting things into perspective. 

    The final point I would like to discuss is the section "The education of the deaf." I was very surprised to see how we had made so much progress in the 1800s and then had worked our way backwards. I had no idea that there was so much history with deaf education in Martha's Vineyard and it was very interesting to read about, however it was disapointing to see how that progress did not last. Growing up in a world where I was always taught the value of ASL or even just manual language in general I almost did not understand why we went backwards and decided that deaf people utilizing manual language was wrong and they should be learning oral language still. But it all goes back to a section from the beginning of thhe reading that says something along the lines of the most of the time, the goal of educating disabled students is to get them to function like non-disabled students. I am glad to see that we have made it very far in our journey with manual language because it is extremely beneficial to deaf students to have a form of communication they are comfortable with using. My mom is a special education teacher of grades K-2 and in her classroom she has a few students who are non-verbal but are able to use some ASL and seem to feel more confident using ASL as compared to point to words and pictures on a paper to show what they are trying to communicate. The point being, that manual language provides a voice for those who may not have one and I think that it should be encouraged in a school setting.

Literacy with an Attitude

    

    Patrick J. Finn argues that there are two types of literacy taught to students: powerful literacy and functional literacy. He argues that powerful literacy is often taught to upperclass students which "leads to positions of power and authority" while lower class students are taught functional literacy which "makes a person productive and dependable but not troublesome."

    Finn discusses a study that was done on different class levels of schools and highlights the main similarities and differences between the schools. The first thing that I noticed is that I teach at a working class school and I can confirm that my school does run very much like the study describes. The school thrives on discipline and students are rewarded for good behavior rather than creativity. In many ways they are graded based on discipline as well. Reading this study was a rude awakening when compared to other schools because you see the flaws in how your own school is run however, I have to say that the issue feels a lot more complex than it reads on paper. In my school, we deal with many safety concerns due to behavior. If we do not run a tight ship where the teacher is an authoritarian model students start fights, are inappropriate in the bathrooms, and have even left the building many times and this is in an elementary school. Now, not all teachers are necessarily yelling at the students at all times but teachers who do not run their classroom in the way described in the study for working class schools, have typically had more safety concerns from what I have observed and since I see every class in the school, I would like to think this is a fairly accurate observation. I can also speak from my own experience as a first year teacher. I had student taught at a school in Providence and the fifth graders there were tough and I thought that everyone was exaggerating and they just needed more freedom and creativity with assignments that mattered to them. So when I found out that I was going to be working in Providence I had already started brainstorming creative projects that the students would be interested in doing but even though I set clear classroom expectations, giving them the little bit of freedom led to them walking all over me and losing control of the classroom. This could be due to my lack of experience but I'm just not sure it's as simple as teaching in a different way because these students grow up differently than students in other classes and not all idealistic methods may be best. 

    Another point that I found interesting is that this almost conflicts with Delpit's argument in a way. Delpit claims that we must explicitly teach our students because by teaching them implicitly we are doing them a disservice. We should provide our students with the exact steps to succeed rather than probe them to come to what they think the answer should be. Finn on the other hand seems to believe that by explicitly giving lower class students these step by step tasks that lead them to the answer we are doing them a disservice and that the affluent classes who are probed to come to what they believe the answer to be on their own are much better off. In my opinion there should be some sort of middle ground between the two where students are given the exact steps needed to succeed but then are given further learning activities that probe students to use what they've learned to try to discover something else or to think creatively. 

    The final point I would like to discuss is that, at least in my personal experience in education, I have not really been taught about overall how to run a classroom to create a productive learning environment for students, I have instead been taught about how to simply manage a class. This may be the downfall of not being educated as a regular classroom teacher but I found that most of what I learned about running a classroom I have learned this year as a first year teacher but I have learned it based on how other teachers model their classroom that is "effective" in a working class school. Now I fear, that I may be continuing this cycle and I'm not quite sure how to break it as of now. This is something that I would like to continuously work on as an educator and I hope that with more experience I come to correct my flaws so I can create a safe classroom environment where students are looking forward to learning. An interesting article I found about equity in school systems based on funding can be found here and is worth a read to see part of the problem with why working class schools may not be able to achieve the same things as affluent schools.

     

    The author of "Queering Schools" argues that an environment must be created where students and teachers are able to express themselves freely and without fear for their safety. Firstly, I would like to say that I agree with this author on all fronts and thought they did a nice job of putting into words how things should be addressed in education and the complexities that comes with educating students on the LGBTQ+ community. I specifically liked the similarity drawn between educating students on racial oppression and discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. It should not be a topic only discussed during June but it should be woven into the curriculum to better normalize the concept to children. A quote from this article I would like to discuss is the quote "when you invite kids to talk openly and ask questions about gender and sexuality, you have to be ready for whatever happens." While I completely agree with this statement, I believe the problem is that teachers are not being properly prepared on how to have these conversations with children and how to deal with possible backlash from parents. As a recent college graduate and first year teacher, I was not educated at all on how to properly have these conversations with children and I am uncomfortable doing so because of my lack of knowledge. This is a flaw in how we are educating future teachers, especially considering that many teachers who have years of experience started teaching in a different world and need that education as well. Schools seem to only address the problem when there is a student who forces the school to address their lack of training on educating, nurturing, and including the LGBTQ+ community. Most of my writing on this topic is thinking about younger students as I am an elementary teacher; I am aware that most secondary schools do a better job of educating teachers and be inclusionary to the LGBTQ+ community but it needs to start as early as elementary level as complicated as it may be.

    The Guidance for Rhode Island Schools on Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students was kind of exactly how I expected it to be. I feel like since I've grown up in a generation where it is much more normalized to ask about pronouns and to be accepting of those who are transgender and gender nonconforming it seemed like common sense to me. However, the one thing that shocked me was the section that addressed other students being uncomfortable with transgender students being able to use facilities that are aligned with their gender identity. The guidance says "some students may feel uncomfortable with a transgender student using the same sex segregated restroom, locker room or changing facility. This discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender student." I really appreciated that this line was included as the guidance continues to suggest that school administrators should work to create an understanding of gender identity instead of telling the transgender student that they cannot use the facilities that align with their gender identity. Some students who are transgender or gender nonconforming may not feel comfortable in either bathroom due to fear of judgement, safety, or just being uncomfortable choosing one. For this reason, gender neutral bathrooms have been increasingly more common. However, many schools were built before gender neutral bathrooms were needed meaning that creating this accommodation may be difficult. For example, when I was student teaching at a high school, there was a need to create a gender neutral bathroom but the only single stall bathroom was in the nurses office, even the teachers restrooms were multiple stalls. The solution was to turn one of the teachers restrooms into a gender neutral bathroom. The problem was now that students who did not need to use this bathroom were using it as a hang out spot. Students would vape and lock the doors for other inappropriate behaviors. Suddenly the students who were supposed to finally get the bathroom they deserved were afraid to use a restroom that was originally created for them. Because when a student went in there to use the bathroom for its actual purpose, it was often locked or they were met by judgemental students who wanted to use the bathroom for other purposes. As a result that bathroom was closed. The point of this is to say it is sometimes difficult lay out wise when many schools were built before it was accepted to be a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

    The video was interesting to me because I thought the execution of the video was really well taught but in my district we aren't really supposed to teach children about different pronouns. We are told to respect the pronoun choices of children but we aren't supposed to teach about it. I am wondering if this is common in Rhode Island. I also feel as though it is a good thing to educate young children about accepting peoples pronoun choice but it may be confusing to introduce pronouns such as ze and tree to them in kindergarten (which I believe is the mentioned targeted age range for the video). As much as I wish we lived in a world where it were not complicated to teach exactly what is taught in this video I think there would be a lot of parent and district push back. I think currently the best we can do as educators is push primarily for acceptance, especially in younger grades where it may not be as common to educate students on these topics. An interesting article to read on this topic can be found on the New York Times.

Teach Out Project Proposal

     The texts that have stayed with me the most so far this class is the reading by Delpit and article I chose to read called unmasking the patriarchy. These two texts stuck with me the most because Delpit challenged me to really think about how I am educating my diverse population of students and Unmasking the patriarchy challenged the sexism that is embedded in society and that is a very important topic to me. Both of these articles inspired me to take a deeper look at how I am teaching and how I could adjust to be more inclusive and effective. Since I work with a majority of minority students it is important to me to choose a topic that is designed to help me and others learn how to teach them more effectively.

    In general, I have wanted to discuss these articles with anyone who will listen. I have spoken about them to my family members, my best friend, and other teachers. These topics do not just apply to education since oppression and privilege are embedded everywhere in society so I tend to discuss articles that really have an effect on me with others. In terms of this project, I hope to discuss this with other music teachers because I think there can be a lot of improvement in the inclusion in the music classroom.

    What I would like to do for my teach out project is a professional development about de-stigmatizing the music room. The professional development will cover how basic curriculum can be morphed into an inclusive and diverse curriculum that works towards fighting stigmas and stereotypes in the music world. I will cover main stereotypes in music that are based in race, culture, and gender and give examples on how to start making changes starting from slight adjustments to lesson ideas.

Bilingual Education

     The two authors, Rodriguez and Collier, make different arguments about the topic of educating English language learners. Rodriquez argues that learning English creates individuality in the public world and if his teachers did not push him to learn English so much he would have delayed it and not have realized that he had the right to speak a public language. On the other hand, Collier argues that both languages should be appreciated in education and used to benefit the child's education.

    The first point I would like to make is that somewhere in the middle of these two perspectives is the perspective of Delpit. In the beginning of Rodriguez's article he says "I considered Spanish to be a private language. What I needed to learn in school was that I had the right- and the obligation- to speak the public language of los gringos." This reminded me much of how Delpit discussed that she did not need her kids to be taught how to be black, she needed her kids to be taught how to survive a white mans world. Collier on the other hand states that "the classroom becomes the ideal setting to affirm the importance of home dialect and its appropriate use within the community in which it is spoken while at the same time students are taught the standard variety." This relates directly to the end of the Delpit reading where she discusses the classroom teacher that taught their students to appreciate both their native language and formal English. Although Delpit mainly discussed issues of race in education, similar views can be seen such as the previous two examples in both articles.

    My next point is that while both articles show different perspectives on this topic, I think they are both looking out for the best interest of the students. Rodriguez, from the point of view of a bilingual learner, felt that it was in his best interest to be pushed to primarily use English; even though admitedely he lost some of his private individuality. Collier on the other hand seems to value and want to protect the private individuality and claims that teaching both actually helps English language learners in the long run. I would like to point out that by following Rodriguez's perspective we are forcing assimilation into society and stressing how important it is but it is also trying to ensure that the child is successful in a world where you are seen as inferior if you do not speak English. By following Collier's ideology we are pushing to make a change against the norm of English being the superior language by instead educating students on the importance of multiple languages. As a music teacher, it is hard for me to form an opinion on which is the right choice or if one is more effective than the other. The amount of language I teach to students is limited since music draws from many languages and in some way is a language of its own. I will say that to me, Collier's argument feels like the right thing, but as a teacher I think I would want so badly for my students to succeed in the public world that I may attempt to drive English instruction as much as possible. I would also like to relate this to my experiences with my students. I have a fourth grade boy who spoke Arabic when he moved to the US last year during third grade. His classroom teacher sat him next to the chattiest English speaker and gave him lots of English instruction and this year his English is amazing and his confidence has grown so much in school and with his peers. On the other hand, there is a group of five Spanish speaking fifth grade girls who have been in the US for a range of 2-4 years. None of them can speak, read or write in English because there is one girl in their friend group who is bilingual and translates the questions and readings for them. So they answer any questions in Spanish whether it be verbal or written. Now they are clearly intelligent because they understand what they are learning but now they are going into middle school with no English knowledge and eventually they will fall behind even if it takes when they have to apply for college or a job. This limits the opportunities they have in this country. Since the teacher has allowed this and not pushed enough for them to learn English, I fear for their future. My main point is, there has to be a middle ground for students to be pushed to learn English and see the importance of it while still appreciating their own home language.

    Finally, I would like to make the point that I believe the biggest barrier in educating language to English language learners is the stigma that is associated with non-English speakers. If the stigma were significantly reduced or abolished I think our students would be much more successful. I am basing this on the combination of the articles where Rodriguez states he lost a sense of personal individuality by gaining his English proficiency and Collier who stresses the importance of learning both languages. This relates to how many other countries successfully educate bilingual students so by the time they graduate they are proficient in their native language and English. This is executed in other countries much better than it is in America and I believe the reason for this is the lack of stigma against their native language. Even though other countries may be making the choice to do so because they recognize that English is becoming a dominant language and it is much easier to be successful knowing English, they also don't diminish the worth of their native language and I think we need to adopt this point of view. Especially since in my eyes, knowing two languages is much more impressive than knowing one so why wouldn't you want to teach students two if possible? If you have the time, I recommend reading this article that discusses bilingual education in Europe.

Unmasking Patriarchy

    The authors of "Unmasking Patriarchy: Analyzing texts to identify oppression with high school students", Fayette Colon and Frankee Grove, argue that educating students on the cycle of gender oppression is the key to unmasking the patriarchy.

    "As (a teacher) often told students, to dismantle oppressive systems we need to name the oppression." This quote directly relates to Johnson's stance from a previous article that was read for class. The reason why I bring up this quote is because I agree completely and I think that by educating students on oppression in all forms we are taking an important first step. However, I cannot express enough how frustrating it is as a woman to repeatedly take classes about being an educator and to learn about fighting racism over and over again and to be given so many resources and perspectives on how to start making changes but not once have I been given an article about gender oppression. Now this is not to diminish the severity of racism in our country by any means because it is an extremely pressing matter that we should work on fighting every day. However, as a woman it is disappointing that the extent of any discussions I have had on sexism has had to do with the pay difference and gender stereotypes but not once have we gone in depth about how to work towards fighting it. I would actually argue that gender oppression is much more internalized within our society than any type of oppression because it standard across all cultures and countries. There was a point that was made (possibly in an article that was read for this class) that said black africans will never experience the same racism as black African Americans but I can pretty much guarantee that they will experience similar sexism and gender oppression. Even in my precollege education women's history month is not taken nearly as seriously as black history month. In black history month you are seen as racist if you do not incorporate black history into your lessons no matter what class you are in but during women's history month it is seen as a time to "celebrate women" rather than a time to educate on the oppression that we face. I bring all of this up to say that although we need to name it, naming it is not enough. 

    "When other girls call her a 'ho,' that is internalized oppression...The girls have been oppressed and then they internalized that and projected it onto other women." This quote immediately made me think of the Four I's video from the beginning of the semester. I think this is an important quote to bring up because I think that gender stereotypes and impression are much more internalized than any other type of oppression which is some ways could make it stronger since it's more hidden it's harder to identify and fight. Women have grown to hate other women and men will judge everything a woman does. We don't talk enough about the fact that when a woman is seen as too intelligent she is a show off, if she chooses to be a stay at home mom she's not doing enough, if a woman shows too much skin she's a slut but if she doesn't show enough she's a prude. Gender stereotypes also exist and effect men but women simply cannot win because both genders are attacking women and I may even go as far to say that women attack women more. If you have the time and have yet to see it, I highly suggest watching this monologue from the Barbie Movie. Even I have strong internalized oppression and if I were educated more on the oppression cycle I think I would have been more prepared to stand up for myself in the real world and to try to fight that oppression. But as a result of this lack of education when a professor decided to cross a line with me and multiple other women in a class two years ago I questioned what people would say about me. Was I asking for him to put his hands on my waist because I was wearing leggings and a crop top? Was it too tempting for him? If I was uncomfortable why didn't I just tell him? Did he really cross a line if it wasn't below my waist or on my chest? I almost did not stand up for myself because I knew people would ask these questions and I would be lying if I said I did not question the same things even though myself and other women documented for over twenty years had been made uncomfortable by this man but no one felt that they could do anything about it.

       Finally, the article brings up the discussion of Latino machismo, which is the Latin cultural belief that males should be the dominant gender. This made me think about how I have a large percentage of students who are Latino and this may be something that is believed in their household. I also have many Muslim and Islamic students who believe that women are the inferior gender (which one student has said to my face). I would like to pose a question for anyone to answer if you have any advice on how to address this in education. It feels like a tough subject area since it is a cultural belief. I do not want to tell a student that their culture is sexist and wrong but I also want to create a healthy classroom environment when gender equality is required. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.