Sara712's blog

In my meeting with Alice yesterday, I brought up my hope to have a clearer understanding of how to incorporate critical literacy into the curriculum, especially when there are significant structural limitations. I also wonder how one approaches this realm with differing types of students (socioeconomically, racially, gender). In recalling Marsha Pincus’s presentation, I wonder about how she described her experience with a student telling her that her material was “white man’s bullshit.” If I were the teacher in that circumstance I would be extremely intimidated and probably paralyzed (at least temporarily). It seems like a huge challenge to consider each diverse attribute in the classroom without spending too much time on the material or overemphasizing differences; because as teachers we hope to build a united classroom community, I think that stressing our differences too much can create unwanted divisions. However I still do believe that students’ and teachers’ dissimilarities should be acknowledged and celebrated. 

I had my first field placement on Friday, and it went extremely well! I got to speak with the teacher for twenty minutes before the students came back from Spanish, and I was immediately able to tell how much she loves to teach and how much she adores this school. She has a great deal of experience, and she was very eager to have me help out in the classroom (she is co-teaching with a teacher who I have not met yet). The children (first and second grade) came back and, after introducing me to the students and having the students introduce themselves to me, the teacher gave them a spelling test. This gave me the opportunity to see what level the children are at in their spelling, and to learn a new way to set up a spelling test: the teacher glued illustrations of Native Americans on the top of the page to remind the students about what they are studying (each year they alternate between studying Native Americans and People of the World).

One thing that I did notice was, when the teacher read a story, there was a part that read, “You fight like women! Can’t you fight like a man?” I was a bit concerned that the teacher did not have a metaconversation with the students about gender stereotyping, as that simple sentence can have a serious impact on the way students think about their own strength in relation to their gender.

                When we were discussing “threshold concepts” in class on Tuesday, February 5th, I thought about my experience in Introduction to Education at Connecticut College and shared a bit of the story. However, the extent to which this course impacted my way of thinking goes beyond a simple reference in class. Not only did we learn about one another’s feelings on the issue of race sensitivities and injustice, but we also watched several films that illuminated the thoughts of people beyond our classroom. One film, The Color of Fear, shows a dialogue about race and racism in America between eight North American men of different races (two White men, two Black men, two Asian men, and two Latino men). The conversation gets very heated and exposes many underlying and overt feelings associated with racism in their lives. Another film illustrated the differences between an extremely under-funded and low-income public school with a high-income public school. It was clear how much the disparity affected the children, and how inequitable it was.

                Viewing these films and discussing these issues in education class finally uncovered just how much they affect schooling and literacy in this country. I became aware of the inherent bias of textbooks and standardized testing, and was able to identify ways in which students’ learning was influenced as a result.