Being a teacher isn’t an easy job, that many think it is. There are bais’ when students enter the classroom as well as when teacher enter the classroom, based upon what they are learning at home. My teacher Mrs. C, is the kindergarten teacher, you cannot see her slighting any children due to ethnicity or economic status. If I was not told what kind of school I was going to be entering I would have probably been taken back, in the thought that “oh these kids don’t want to learn anything.” However, that is not the case in anyway the three kids that I take in my kindergarten class as well as the three in my first grade class Mrs. M’s class are extremely eager to learn. The school I volunteer at is 85 % African American with 15 % being white or Japanese and Asian. When I walked in the first couple of times, I was racially stereotyping the children, but after my first time working with them I was thrilled to see how well they picked up information, such as the CVC words we were going over, as well as reading short stories that were provided.
Some of the challenges faced by teachers are incorporating all different diversities into the classroom, so everyone feels welcomed and valued. I do not consider myself a prejudiced person, but I do sometimes have a weakness for falling for stereotypes. Having this experience I believe has made me a stronger person to deal with all the possibilities that could come up in any situation.
The article, "Our House is on Fire" by Allan Johnson, discusses the idea of privilege. Johnson says in his article that “when white school children, for example, are assumed to be competent until they show otherwise, while student of color are assumed to be incompetent until they prove themselves, then having the benefit of the doubt becomes a form of privilege.” Half the time when we are slighting people of color we don’t mean it, it is just in the culture or our background. A lot of it just has to do with how unaware we are of others and different lifestyles and cultures. Johnson defines privilege as a social advantage that is both unearned and comes to people simply because they happen to belong to a particular social category. “Race is not the same as ethnicity, which is a matter of culture that anyone can learn; the concept of race is uniquely about the body. When a group is raced and any group can be raced it is assigned characteristics such as the degree of intelligence, creativity, goodness, honestly, trustworthiness, and courage.” I do believe that there will be stereotypes and misconceptions for a long time to come, but being a strong teacher, in the sense that we all will not fall victim to having students proving themselves worthy of an education based on ethnicity. We need to see the student as a whole and give them our best effort to see them excel in a positive learning environment.
Some of the challenges faced by teachers are incorporating all different diversities into the classroom, so everyone feels welcomed and valued. I do not consider myself a prejudiced person, but I do sometimes have a weakness for falling for stereotypes. Having this experience I believe has made me a stronger person to deal with all the possibilities that could come up in any situation.
The article, "Our House is on Fire" by Allan Johnson, discusses the idea of privilege. Johnson says in his article that “when white school children, for example, are assumed to be competent until they show otherwise, while student of color are assumed to be incompetent until they prove themselves, then having the benefit of the doubt becomes a form of privilege.” Half the time when we are slighting people of color we don’t mean it, it is just in the culture or our background. A lot of it just has to do with how unaware we are of others and different lifestyles and cultures. Johnson defines privilege as a social advantage that is both unearned and comes to people simply because they happen to belong to a particular social category. “Race is not the same as ethnicity, which is a matter of culture that anyone can learn; the concept of race is uniquely about the body. When a group is raced and any group can be raced it is assigned characteristics such as the degree of intelligence, creativity, goodness, honestly, trustworthiness, and courage.” I do believe that there will be stereotypes and misconceptions for a long time to come, but being a strong teacher, in the sense that we all will not fall victim to having students proving themselves worthy of an education based on ethnicity. We need to see the student as a whole and give them our best effort to see them excel in a positive learning environment.
The teachers and students you work with in your classrooms sound really eager to want to come to school each day. It seems like the school you work at is trying really hard to go against the stereotype that is put against them on a day to day basis. And it's working. Your analysis to Johnson is really good and I like the quotes you put in, they really go along with what you were saying. I agree that a positive learning environment and a strong teacher can help to break those misconceptions of schools such as the ones we are tutoring in. This also goes along with what we learned in class all system, about what kind of teacher we want to be. We can't let difference get in the way of us teaching our students as a whole.
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I think that it's awesome some of your students are eager to learn and teachers are eager to teach. That is what kind of classroom I hope to have...full of eager students! I agree with Sam on this, how your school is making the effort to work against bias's. It takes a strong person to take on a classroom full of students who don't want to learn....for instance the kindergarten class.
ReplyDeleteWe all need to work on becoming great teachers and a way to do that is being open and ready for anything the class or school throws at us. What kind of teacher do you want to be will never leave my mind.
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