Excerpts:

From a very young age, “stories” was a big part of my life. I refer to “stories” as a singular noun because it refers to a specific time of day and a specific act that occurred at that time. Every night before going to bed, I would read with my parents. I can't remember the exact order of what happened when, but there were times when my parents would read picture books aloud to me, and there were times when they would read novels aloud to me, and there were times when I would read picture books aloud to them. And then gradually I moved away from this and began to read novels on my own. My mom especially was very conscientious about finding “quality” literature for us to read. I received Newbery and Caldecott award-winning books for birthdays and Christmas. My picture book phase thus consisted not only of “high quality” content but also beautiful illustrations...

Reflective Writing in Response Groups #1

Critical Issues in Education

Table of Contents

1. Learning in the Island
2. The Great Escape: Immigrating to the United States
3. The Trouble with the Accent
4. Girls Inc.
5. Propellers: The Role of Mentors
6. Posse
7. Bryn Mawr

II. The Great Escape: Immigrating to the United States

I I like to write my posts in a cute little teal journal, accurately labled "thoughts." I wondered what the destiny of this book would be and I'm happy it's this. My entry started with three stick figure photos; the first was me being talked at by a teacher. The second was me talking to an adult and the third was me talking with a peer. The story then described an interaction I had with an older person in youth group. He asked me why I talked like a white person. At the time, that really bothered me, because it made me feel uncool and out of place. So then I would try to use more slang, but it didn't really help my "cool" cause becuase I sounded very off. This led me to think about the different languages I have to negotiate on any given day when I was little. With my mother I would have to speak Spanish, but my Spanish was never really eloquent, and then with friends I would have to use slang becuase my academic English freaked them out, and then with teachers I would have to use academic English. With language, I never really felt proficient with any of the three, but I'm starting to accept that all three of these are very much a part of the person I am today.  

I have decided to try writing my journal entries by hand, for now, because I like the idea of including some illustrations to supplement my text.  Below is a picture of my first entry.  I find it interesting to use an online blog format to present what is a very simplistic page in person, and I think the intersections of these mediums will be generative.  

A quote from the journal:

"Will you play with me?  No, I'm reading.  Why are you reading?  Shh, one more chapter.  Okay...has it been a chapter?  Shh, you should get your books.  No, I cant.  Did you try?  Yes, I tried.  Try again.  Now."

This quote is a scene as I remember it playing out in my childhood with my older sister.  She insisted that I could learn to read on my own--and that she would only want to associate with me if I did.  She thought that I was much too old at 4 to rely on others for reading stories or street signs or labels in the grocery store.  As it turned out, I really did only need the final push.  I sat for at least an hour with my Bob Books, which only presented limited letters at a time, learning to read.  I could read the first set of books by the time my sister thought to ask me how I had fared.

The reflections on pedagogy of both Dewey and Freire, read in tandem, show some interesting parallels, but also show some surprising differences in terms of conversations surrounding class, race, entitlement, and power. While both Dewey's "Pedagogic Creed" as well as Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed mention that education accounts for the individual as well as the "collective" (for example, Dewey: psychological and sociological aspects of ed), Dewey does not seem to account for the inherent entitlement to power and agency of mainstream (American?) students. While I think Dewey and Freire's pedagogies run parallel in many ways, Freire takes ideas of Dewey--the importance of self awareness; education as an engagement with the world around us; the importance of action/experience--and runs further with them to address what Dewey only hints at when he writes at the end, that the teacher "is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life" (12). Freire helps us learn how to teach from within a problematic societal structure, which Dewey doesn't do as explicitly. 

As I read your thoughtful writings about your goals and backgrounds, I thought of this recent article a friend shared with me: http://mathyawp.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-lesson-of-grace-in-teaching.html. It's about breaking with the tyranny of perfectionism!

Chapter 1 – The Big Move

Chapter 2 – Teacher Bound Upward Bound

Chapter 3 – You won’t make it to Harvard

Chapter 4 – Let’s take Harvard and Yale off Your List (They might be too far of a reach)

Chapter 5 – Education not Deportation/ Save Our Schools

Chapter 6 – Posse

Chapter 7 – So This is What Being the “Minority” in College Feels Like

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4 – Let’s take Harvard and Columbia off Your List (They might be too far of a reach)