Our last meeting together provided a sense of closure for me with this program. We presented Why We Teach. What an appropriate book for the final class. What I thought so interesting about the book was that each teacher was unique. Each teacher came to teaching in a different way and each teacher defined their success differently. For some, teaching was new experience and a way to save children that need them. For others it was a way to bring justice into the world in their own little way. We have been redefining ourselves throughout this program as well. I think that through all of our readings, we have been able to build a repetoire of knowledge. We have built up the team. Now we are able to look toward change. Teachers are so powerful. I think that is the most important thing that I have learned in this program. What are we going to do with the power that we have? Will we be teaching to change the world? I feel the need to go back to the beginning.

I’ve been trying to think of metaphors to describe what has been going on with me lately in terms of education. I’ve been thinking membranes and Superheroes.

The purpose of this reflection is to convey my personal experience a member of group of classroom teachers that are working together, pursuing their Specialist in Early Childhood Education at Georgia State University, furthering their professional development.

It’s the second week of school and I am here at Maria’s house on a Wednesday afternoon.  I’m missing my faculty meeting. I’m facilitating our first Critical Friends Protocol during our book talk and I am wondering if I understood the steps and will be able to pull it off.  Maria is vacuuming the carpet and setting out the refreshment. I’m here in her white chair trying to write a book response, but all I keep thinking about what happened earlier today in the classroom. Did the children understand the format of the friendly letter today? How are the ways we are sharing with each other during these first weeks of school that help us to make friends? Whose turn is it to sit by the teacher during lunch tomorrow? What stories will they tell?  When will I have the opportunity to speak with Kevin’s mom?

I transport from one identity to another during this time. Tonight, after our meeting, late into the night, I will arrive home sleepy, kiss my husband goodnight, maybe watch a little of the Olympics and then, in the morning, back through the door of the classroom, eagerly welcoming new friends with a smile, knowing they are equally excited for new learning experience to share together, after a first cup of coffee… of course. Whoa. I’m pretty tired already.

What’s my plan of action? Who am I becoming? What is actually happening? Maybe there is a science to this. Some way to explain what is going on. Membranes and their permeability- I am transported out of my identity as a third grade teacher each day into a nightly degree seeking college student- later the faithful confidant. Instead of a reflection, this might better be depicted as a Marvel cartoon- the character-able to adapt, yet maintaining a strong inner core. In the end, I will prevail. I may not pull the book talk off perfectly, but form of, shape of, I’ll be the best teacher/learner/professional self I can be.

Note to self: Both cells with membranes and Superheroes choose to work in teams.

I felt so scattered at this point in the learning process, but I knew it had something to do with working as team. We have grown as a team during this year. I hope that we are able to remain in connect and remember that there is strength in numbers. We are working for children, afterall.

I thought our last class was a little difficult. I had computer problems and didn’t quite understand the process. That happens sometimes. I will however, try to comment on politics and education. Our group talked about School Choice. I understand that students should have equal opportunity to a quality education and I guess that school choice is one way to empwer students and parents with options. I wonder though if all the charter schools, special program schools are not simply competing with one another in a capitalistic way to get children to go to their school. I wonder about international schooling and if school choice is an option. I suspect that there are both public and private schools and they serve as tool to segregrate society.

“Above all, it is what you feel for your parents. Respect is equality of beliefs and races and color and cultures. More than anything, respect is something that you have for yourself and it makes you better everyday. If you have respect for yourself, you will be able to respect others. ”

I asked my husband, a Mexican, what was Respeto for him and that was how he answered.

As he spoke, a bit relunctantly, knowing that I was taking notes, I was listening and thinking about how we are so very different, each and every one of us, and we all define and qualify and quanitify differently. I have thought much about stereotypes and have vacillated between thinking that stereotypes “exist for a reason” (at least a little) and that we should negate stereotypes and look at people individually

But what is research, the research that we have read and the research that we do? We make generalizations. We classify, catagorize and quantify information. We have read about stereotypes and have read vignettes that tell stories with like themes of certain ethnics groups.

Humberto, in the beginning, speaks of respeto from his background, from what we have learned about Latino families.  Then he redefines his interpretation a bit and includes what he has learned living here (and listening to me…talk about…so much wanting to understand and be a part). I expect that his interpretation of respeto-respect will continue to shift and change (as will mine I hope). Is it important for him to recognize the shifts or simply to exist in them? What would a researcher do with this information?

What does respeto have to do with ebonics and appreciating the language that African American students speak informally around school? Everything. We as teachers are listeners, ethnographers, learners and ultimately supporters.

My friend and I went to live in Mexico for two years.   We used to talk a lot about school, our students, issues before and then in Mexico.  She is a diligent, dedicated writer and would reflect often on her experiences in Mexico. She became engaged, went back home to start her PhD.  Time passed. We stopped our frequent conversations and lost touch of how we were situated in our learning. So when I asked her about her studying and if she was connecting her Mexico experience to her PhD, she told me that the only she really learned during that entire year in Mexico was that she knew nothing. NOTHING. SHE KNEW NOTHING? Somehow that didn’t seem right. We had learned so much together right? Dialoguing, practicing a new language, questioning our assumptions about culture and understanding more about the children we taught back in the United States. It bothered me that she thought she had learned nothing. Was it all for naught? Did she think our project was meaningless?

I realize now, after thinking about intelligence and how it is culturally situated, that I had misinterpreted Sarah, I think. I’ll have to ask her more about it, but I think she was trying to say that when you go to a new place you have to suspend your beliefs and admit that you know nothing. Knowledge is based on where you are and intelligence is how well you can adapt in a given environment.  When I see that intelligence is mutable, I am intimidated by the unknown, but also intrigued. 

I saw her speaking at the NCTM conference last year. I remember listening to her talk about wealth and I specifically remember a comment that she made about synthetic clothing. The richer that you are, the more natural fibers you wear. Hmmm. I started to notice people’s clothing more.

I didn’t know or look into Ruby Payne anymore after that day until our readings last week. I didn’t know that she had her very own publishing company and that all of her information came secondhand from her husband’s experiences. It seems to me as if Ruby Payne has a pretty good business going on. The NCTM pays her as a keynote speaker. That’s not so bad. Cobb County mandates that all take her training course. She is the epitome of capitalist society. And not only that, but she is using the situations of those who benefit least from the capitalist system as her platform. Ouch!

So we talk about teachers not knowing the students that they teach. Here Ms. Payne comes along to give us the cliff notes and voila we are now equipped to teach the poor. I don’t quite buy it. But it looks as if a number do. I think that the Gorski article should be placed in every teacher’s box…to offer an alternative point of view.

 I am late in posting this. I apologize. I thought about it over the weekend….what it is that I disturbed about…and have read the posts this evening and so here goes. I’m a pretty disturbed person.

This has been an incredibly tumultuous year. It has been a year of changes. Some of these changes are still ongoing….I keep thinking—I just need a little more time to think about what’s going on. To reflect- One main goal that I wanted from this program was to begin to look at my work as an educator critically again. To question. I was in an educational rut. I was following a program and acquiesing. I mentioned it in my interview.  I missed thinking about thinking about education and the effects some educational thinking has on student learning. I missed collegial dialogue, listening to different opinions and questioning my assumptions. I missed being amongst a group of professional learners thinking about education. It is so easy for things to become routine. 

I am so thankful for the opportunity to be able to be disturbed. Being disturbed means that I have the opportunity to actively think about the politics involved in education, to question paradigms in society that uphold and reproduce oppression, to revisit my personal beliefs regarding teaching and learning, to continue to be a learner.  I take disturbedness and reflect and bring it to my classroom and try to make the classroom a more just and equitable place. I’m proud of the growth that has come from my being disturbed this year. I feel more directed in my mission in the classroom and how classroom work can be transferred to greater society.

I printed this page off immediately and handed it over to our school librarian. I don’t know anything about the titles or the authors, but I’m planning to investigate. btw….went to a party on Friday and met a family consisting of a man, two moms (a couple) and their 3 children. Validating the importance of finding literature, sharing stories which represent different definitions of family. Neat.

As do most hot topics in education right? It’s time for a comeback and teacher’s are responsible for advocating the necessity of including anti-racist curriculum in the classroom. I’ve been looking at my teaching lately and have been spending far more time discussing race and culture with students. I check to make sure the social studies standards……..standards testing movement…..are covered in order to cover myself, but work hard try and understand more about students and their lives and then beyond that-connect their lives and my life to history. We talk about power in a way that I’ve need done in the classroom before and I like it. It gives us a larger purpose in the classroom. The students have improved in other areas academically, particularly in reader as well. I think they are motivated. I think that they are linking education as purposeful in their lives and see how it will effect their futures. This white enthusiasm for multi cultural education…anti-racist education is really quite exciting.

 I thought that this was an interesting article becauses it reminds us to be critical readers. We teach and what we teach is important. Stories talk about lives and stories about lives teach us how to live in the world, show us examples. Whether it be through illustrations, character development or the exclusion of certain characters, as teachers we need to aware of what the book entails.  As the text states, it is important for teacher’s to know about authors and evaluate the author’s purpose. Bias exists and bias can effect how we read and interpret a text.

Friere talks about the dynamics that engages us between what we inherit and what we acquire. He helps us to understand that we are always becoming and changing, interacting, making meaning, in groups as well as individually. He helps us, as teachers, to understand, that we have a special place in this incessant interaction. We are part of an institution that names and places people, children. We are a part of school. Teachers have power, not the most power and it is important to see how other approach power onto and around teachers, but teachers do have a tremendous amount of power influencing students. Teachers have the opportunity to use that power how they wish, however, Friere would like us to realize that being aware of power structures within schools and among the greater society lends us responsibiity to act. With reflection comes action. School is social. What as teachers are we doing to recreate or to change society? Is it a burden, to know? I think that at times, it is easier to think that we are simply a loving caregiver, a parent…which chapter was that in Friere? But he urges us to seek out that agent of change within us. What can one person do? What happens when one person does nothing? It’s worth looking into….