My Portfolio Review

            This semester I have learned a great deal about how to teach for social justice. I didn’t think I was biased or racist but after doing class activities or portfolio assignments I found that I am actually passively racist because I am not stand against these social injustices. Through reviewing my previous portfolio, I found that I learned a lot about myself this semester and about how to create a safe and uplifting classroom. I will go through each assignment and talk about what I learned and how it applies to my future classroom before summarizing my learning from the class material in general.

Imagined Classroom

            This assignment was especially interesting because when I first wrote it before going through any of the class material I thought I had done a great job! But as we went through the class and talked about different social justice issues I started to find problems with my imagined classroom like what was I making available to students and how was I involving them in the learning process. It was interesting to find that I was even subtly using the deficit model to make excuses for some of the students who would come through my classroom. So the biggest thing I learned about this assignment was how I really did have biases and I needed to learn about these issues so I could keep them out of my classroom. Through the other assignments in this portfolio and the class I learned how I could make my classroom better for disadvantaged children and make sure it wasn’t oppressing any one group! I know that I will need to keep working on fighting these social justice issues in my classroom but I am off to a good start!

Cultural Artifacts

            This assignment was interesting to learn what culture really meant to me. It was hard to define my culture into a few simple objects, but as I tried I did learn more about myself and it was interesting to think about what other people would use to represent their culture. As a teacher I will have to learn how to celebrate cultures other than mine in respectful ways. This activity also helped me to better understand how I could help my students acquire cultural capital, which can be very important for immigrants or other students who struggle to fit in.

Being the Other

            This was probably the most beneficial exercise of the semester because I have been very privileged in my life. I have had a lot of opportunities but I have never really been the other. So when I had to go to the yoga class all by myself I was really self-conscious and embarrassed when I couldn’t participate in the class well. I had to take a lot of breaks and the instructor often corrected my yoga positions. I also felt like I especially stood out because there were two other students in the class who were obviously experienced in yoga. This experience has helped me understand exactly how some of my students will feel when they enter my classroom. For many of them it will be their first experience with biology, and sometimes it will be their first science class in high school. They will likely feel like I did in the yoga class – like I didn’t know what I was doing and like there was no way I could be good at yoga. Having had this experience myself I will better be able to recognize the students who are struggling with otherness and I will be able to reach out to them and help them feel welcome in my classroom. I especially learned from my yoga class that calling these students out in the middle of class will likely make them feel even more alienated so I should be careful how I approach students who are experiencing this and help them in the most beneficial way.

Mexican American Oppression

            This was an important assignment for me because it made me leave my comfort zone and actually learn about a specific group who are discriminated against in America.  I had heard many things but to actually read about the terrible things that are done to Mexican Americans was eye opening. It was also good for me to read about how these Mexican American students under preform in schools often because we (teachers and the school system) put limitations on them. They are also often poor and usually working to help support their families so that school is hard for them BUT that does not mean they don’t want to be there learning. These children might be the brightest in our class, but we have to give them a chance to shine! This assignment also showed me ways I personally discriminate against Mexicans, specifically immigrants but they are human beings who have rights and need to be treated equally.

My Community Experience: Center for Change

            This assignment was a little harder for me – probably because I don’t like to think about things like eating disorders and depression because I find it really sad. I have never had those experiences or at least to the extreme of trying to hurt myself so I didn’t understand and I was scared to understand them because if I see that as a normal occurrence then I will have to realize that my students and family members who I love are vulnerable to that. So it was good to learn about this to help open my eyes and see exactly what I could do to help students with these problems, which helps me along to accepting other sad realities that I will face as a teacher. Another important thing I learned from this experience is how I need to make sure I am never actively putting a student down because I won’t always know what is going on in their life and it could have a huge impact on our relationship and the students ability to preform well in my class.

Book Club: New Kids

            This assignment completely changed my view of immigration. I will be honest at first I wasn’t sure that I agreed that undocumented immigrants should get a free education in our country. I didn’t think that was fair to the students who were citizens but this book completely changed my whole view. Before reading this book, I would have called them illegal but it really changed my whole view, because I recognize they are people who just want to have the opportunity to have a better life in America. It was also interesting to me how all of the kids who came to America wanted to learn so badly, but sometimes teachers don’t accommodate them or even try to help them so that they can learn in our school system. This book also showed how much of an impact teachers can have on their students. The teachers at the international school were able to act as social capital to help these students get cool opportunities like internships and jobs but also they were able to help these immigrants gain cultural capital so that they could learn to function in our society. It inspired me and made me truly want to be like them – helping these students to fit into our society while also respecting their own cultures too!

Reimagined Classroom

            This last assignment was a little difficult for me because it was hard to picture the students I would have and the cultures they would come from but I was able to tweak my original imagined classroom to change how I was putting some students at a disadvantage and help enable students to be responsible for their own learning. I know actually putting this in a real classroom will be a lot harder than simply writing about it but I recognize now that these are all things I can do and it will make a huge difference for the students in my classroom. I can create a safe place for my students to be themselves and fearlessly participate in biology in just changing some of my attitudes and by how I act! And it will definitely take time to write up lesson plans with activities that teach students instead of just lecturing but I know if I put in the effect I will be able to help a few more students live up to their potentials!

            Overall I feel like I learned a lot in this class. I learned about how little things like deficit thinking can be really damaging forms of discriminations against my students, but if I choose instead to help them overcome the disadvantages in front of them they will be able to become the best students they can be. I learned that I may not understand how it feels to be depressed or homosexual or disabled but that doesn’t mean I can’t help these students feel comfortable in my classroom by not being judgmental. Even if I don’t agree with my students lifestyles does not mean I can’t help them to break down the barriers around them as an advocate on their behalf! If I show my students how much I love and care about them then I will be able to help them achieved their own personal academic goals and expectations I set for them. No student is incapable, as long as I make sure not to put him or her at a disadvantage! This puts a lot of responsibility on me and it is a little scary but I know I can be a force for good in these students’ lives and I can help to stop the social injustices that push them down!

My Re-imagined Classroom

(Changes to Imagined Classroom piece have been iltalicized)

When you walk into my future classroom it will be covered in cool posters of DNA codon charts, rare bacteria, labeled animal cells, the scientific method, student projects on prominent scientist of different races and ethnicities and a giant periodic table. There are white boards covering the front wall and part of the sidewall nearest the door, with class assignments and the class schedule written on it. The room is full of two person blacktopped lab tables arranged in rows facing the front white board. There is a desk in the back corner with a computer and a nameplate reading Mrs. Brady. The back wall is covered in windows and large shelving units full of microscopes, textbooks and models  available to the students during exploratory labs or class when appropriate. There is also a locked cabinet of chemicals to which only I hold the key, for the safety of the students. There are beakers and goggles hanging above a big sink used for in-class experiments.  Above the front white board is a projector screen that pulls down and a digital clock hangs on the wall.

One of the posters on the wall has class rules determined by the students and me that include: be on time, no cell phone use, respect your classmates and teachers, no cussing (to create a comfortable environment for everyone), no eating during labs, be careful with chemicals and lab equipment. Respect was defined by the students in a series of be kind, be quiet and be considerate statements. All of the students’ names are signed in different colors at the bottom showing they agree to the rules. If they don’t follow these rules they have agreed on receiving a warning and discussion of the problem the first time; the second time would be detention with me which could mean cleaning the class, doing homework or other chores I determine; the third offense will merit calling the parents and the fourth will be a meeting with the principal. But the students are willing to agree to these rules because of my mastery homework policy. This policy says that as long as the students turn in their homework in on time they can redo the assignment for a higher score. This will encourage them to try even if they are wrong the first time. I will also encourage them to do their best and help them if they need so they can reach the high expectations that have been set for them. If they do turn in the homework in late, however, they will lose 10% of the grade for every day it is late. I will also allow students to make up test questions that they miss for a quarter of the original points with the focus of helping the students master the subjects of biology.

The students sitting at the desks around the room come from many backgrounds and experiences despite being about the same age. Some come from very fortunate homes and others come from homes with only one parent or neither parents living with them but I work to show them that those things don’t matter in the classroom. With hard work anyone, and I mean anyone, is capable of anything. I teach that through student presentations about prominent scientist from around the world who made a difference and by bringing in actual examples from the community of people who work in the field of biology to act as examples for my students. They will be a mixture of ethnicities and cultures too but these will not determine their success and I will not use them as a label for my students. Instead of letting negative labels of these different ethnicities and cultures, I will work to establish a structural ideology where I help students break down the barriers they find in their pursuit of educational goals instead of creating the barriers. I will be their advocate on the staff to help the school and district accommodate these students better. Where they are in their adolescent development will also be different, affecting their critical thinking skills and level of responsibility but my classroom expectations will encourage them to develop in these areas and always push them to be better. These students will also have different interests – some will be athletes, artists, actors or maybe scientists. Most will not be interested in biology and it will be my job to engage them in class discussions and spark their love of science. My main way of sparking their love of biology will be training them to think critically about the world around them and then allowing them to design their own experiments and learn through exploration.

The lesson today for my standard biology class will start with an exploratory activity. I will explain general lab safety rules again before passing out three different mystery chemicals to my students for them to determine the chemicals’ properties. I will have them work in groups, or at least discuss their findings with their groups as they work. I will give them wax paper and toothpicks to use. I will then walk around the room giving student more toothpicks, water or wax paper; then ask the students questions to further encourage their exploration. After 10 minutes of exploration I will ask the students to list the properties of the chemicals on the board, not guessing the chemical, before I reveal that the chemicals were all water. The students will clean up the activity materials while I pull the projector screen down then we will take notes on a short lecture about the properties of water and their importance to biology. While the students take notes and I lecture, I will walk around the classroom to help keep all the students on task and encourage discussion from the students. I recognize that taking notes in this way is not the most exciting learning style but just a few notes will be necessary, after which the lesson will be mostly discussion based. Specifically at the end of the lecture, I will ask students to think about why this is important for biology and let them discuss their findings in groups before sharing their ideas with the class. Any remaining time, I will then give them the last 5-10 minutes of class for the students to complete homework assignments or read their textbooks and I will be available to assist any students who need extra help.

Lastly, I will assess the students’ learning first during class discussions but after class I will further assess the students through homework assignments that they have the option to redo for full credit till they master the material when turned in on time. I will also provide short weekly quizzes over the material we cover each week, allowing a few of the lowest scores to be dropped, and we will have tests after few chapters. These tests will be the best indication of how much the students have learned but I will also allow them to redo questions for a quarter of the points to make sure they truly master the subjects. I will also do a semester project, either a research type paper or creative group project depending on what would work best for my students to assess their learning and improvement of critical thinking skills.

Reflection:

            It was an interesting experience to go back through my imagined classroom and see so many of the ways it was oppressing certain groups or allowing stereotypes to prevail. I know it’s probably still not perfect because some things will change when I actually have a class full of students but I did make a few important changes starting with thinking about how we would establish classroom rules. I would like to have my students work together to establish the rules and define what respect means. I believe this will help the students feel comfortable in my classroom and feel like they are part of the governing process in the classroom. So every year the rules will look a little different but the main concepts will be the same. I did keep a few of the original rules like not cussing because I believe that is part of the process for making a safe and comfortable environment in the classroom.

            Another thing I focused on when I re-imagined my classroom was how would I make resources available to the students. Some of this will obviously depend on the amounts of funding I have or can obtain through writing grants but if possible I would love to have iPads because I think there are many useful programs we could use and the kids could use Internet searches as part of their exploratory experience. However, as a biology teacher in almost every school district I will have a classroom set of textbooks, microscopes and hopefully models that can be used to demonstrate many different things. I would make these readily available to the students during the learning process and the microscopes especially when doing exploratory labs. I think it is important to provide these materials when the students may not have these kinds of resources at home.

            Something else I thought a lot about as I re-worked my classroom was how I was going to encourage my students to work hard and keep high expectations for all the students. I think allowing exploration in the classroom will be very helpful in allowing the students opportunities to take responsibility for their own learning but how do I show my high expectations for the students? Probably through personal conversations with the students throughout the year and how I treat the students. Some of these expectations will also come through how I teach and test the students. The biggest obstacle I will probably have to overcome is not treating students as deficits, because some of those stereotypes have been reinforced in my own educational experiences but I do realize that anyone can do something if they put their mind to it! So I will have to work on my own attitude and treating my students in a way so they know I believe they can learn biology! Overtime and through experience I know I will get better at treating all the students equal in their ability to do well in my class, but right now I am just working on having that attitude now about everyone I meet even when they aren’t my students.

            Some other things I don’t have answers for yet are what will I do about students who speak other languages. I do not speak any other languages myself but when I get a real teaching job and settle down, I plan to learn more about the area where I am living and the immigrant populations so that I can begin learning other languages to help close that communication gap between me and my students. I will also have to work on my courage so that I can become a fearless advocate for these future students of mine who will be disadvantaged by the system. I need to help reform the processes and attitudes used by my own school and the school district that may not be providing resources or opportunities to my students. I know this will be hard but I know when I get to know my students and grow in love for them, then it will be easier.

            Lastly, I did a bit of research on how to teach for social justice as a biology teacher and how I could implement it into my own curriculum. The biggest thing the teachers who were writing on this subject said was I needed to teach my students how to think critically. I may not be able to directly incorporate topics regarding social justice but I can teach my students to question their own world and what they are told. I can also give them opportunities to learn through exploration such as the science experiment I used in this lesson to teach the students about the properties of water so that the students could be in more control of their own learning. I also want to give the students an opportunity to choose what they learn and develop their own voice through some project of the students choosing. I also think it is very important to incorporate research projects on important people in science who come from around the world – I think it would be best to have the students do the research and present their findings because it will help them find a personal role model for their own scientific goals. It will also be my responsibility to bring in science professionals either into the classroom or into a science club to help kids find examples in their own communities and maybe even find opportunities for jobs for students.

New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens

            My book was about the International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, New York. It is a school specifically designed to teach English to immigrants. The book tells the stories of multiple students in the school, how they got there and where they are going, along with stories about how the school worked to help these students reach their goals. It follows them through one school year with flashbacks to how their came to America and other important times that have lead up to their being students at International High School.  

Disruptions

            Reading this book was an eye opening experience to put it simply. I spent a few weeks reading it and often when I wasn’t reading the book I was thinking about the high school students it tells about and how I as a teacher will soon encounter students like them! It was a sad book though because it wasn’t all happy stories and I think that was the most troubling part for me. One of the most disturbing stories for me was about a student, Jessica Tan, who immigrated from China to come live in New York with her father. Her father, however, had married a Chinese American citizen to get his own citizenship and had two sons with his new wife so when Jessica arrived in America her step mother refused to let Jessica live with them. She was turned out of her father’s home at age 17. She eventually moved in with her step aunt and uncle but had no guardian living with her as she attended high school, trying still to fulfill her dream of going to college. It was so sad to read about this smart, hardworking girl who was left behind by her father essentially because he finally had boys with Jessica’s step mom. The cultural pressure that boys were better than girls was being enforced in her own life. It made me angry to hear of a father doing that to his only daughter, and even though the book mentions her father trying to make things better – he never invites Jessica to live in their home. Eventually, Jessica had her happy ending when she went to college at a university in Philadelphia, but this was not the case for most students.

            Another female student from Burma, Chit Su was introduced as a new student at the beginning of the book. She also was 17 years old but her schooling had been disrupted when she spent a few years in a refugee camp in Thailand so she was enrolled in the ninth grade. It took her a long time to learn enough English to adequately communicate with her teachers but by the end of that year she was wanting very badly to stay at International High School, but her mother who lived in Texas while working told her she needed to come to Texas to work. The teachers begged her mother to let her stay till the end of the school year, but when the school year ended Chit Su and her family all relocated to Chicago. There she was forced to work and go to a school where they placed her in twelfth grade, but she quickly fell behind socially and academically and eventually she dropped out.

            It was really hard to read some of these stories and realize that despite what we may do for these students as their teacher, there will be times were it won’t be enough or where there was nothing we could have done. Another example of this is when a student Genesis Pozo from Ecuador gets pregnant with twins in the middle of the school year. Not long after she made this announcement her grades started slipping and her school attendance went down near the end of her senior year. She was unable to graduate with her class, but when the book ended she was studying to take her Regent exams to graduate.

            I also found it extremely disturbing to realize my own white privilege as I read this book. I had easy access to public education and I didn’t have to worry about being deported. This book even talked about some of the schools in New York at the time not having an ESL program, they weren’t even trying to accommodate these students who had traveled so far and been through so much just to get an education. There are so many things I receive simply because I am a part of the dominant culture! And what makes this realization worse is that I know there were times I wasn’t grateful for those opportunities I had or times when I thought that my life was hard – that it was unfair. After reading this book I see that this is obviously not true about my own education and now I am more excited to help make education more accessible for these students.

Application of Concepts

            This book showed a lot of real life applications of many terms and concepts we covered in class. Obviously, it was an immigrant school focused on teaching students English but there are a lot of other topics the book covered that are examples for different terms from class. The biggest example in the book is the idea of cultural capital and social capital. Cultural capital is defined as knowledge of a certain culture’s values, language, and appropriate actions. Social capital is defined as relationships within a culture, a sort of status according to who you know. This book was a great example of immigrant children not having cultural capital when first coming into this country. Their cloths were not in style, some because they couldn’t afford it but some honestly didn’t know. Without a basic understanding of the language it is hard for these students to function well. One example is a Chinese student who didn’t know where the cafeteria was so he didn’t eat for the first month of his freshman year because he couldn’t communicate efficiently. But this is a fairly common occurrence at International, with kids struggling to even introduce themselves in their earliest days at high school. The faculty even had to teach their students about prom through a play preformed by the drama club in preparation for the American tradition’s introduction at the high school.

            We also see examples of social capital in the way these students are introduced into the American culture through their teachers. International High School assigns students to an advisory professor who not only helps them with school but also with assimilating into the American culture. Another staff member is Dariana Castro, the special programs coordinator, who helps seniors find internships in their fields of interest as a networking specialist. She is actually from the Dominican Republic and understands the kids and their current experiences on a very personal level, so she became the role model and confidant for a few of the students in the school.

            Another concept from class was the working class – the class of people who usually work industrial or laborious jobs and often live in poverty. Dariana explained “It’s easy for our kids to get jobs – sometimes it’s easier for them than it is for the kids of privilege but our students’ exposure to work is often to jobs where they are exploited (Hauser, p. 165).” Often due to their undocumented status, these high schools students worked at fast food places or salons in poor conditions, with one boy named Mohammad Bah being forced to burn and sell illegal DVDs to pay his roommates back for rent and food. Mohammad talked about spending all night burning DVDs for no pay before he enrolled at International.

            Another major concept we covered in this class that was perfectly illustrated in this book was the push and pull factors that bring immigrants to America. Mohammad, the student mentioned earlier, was 14 years old when he first came to America first as a visitor to a church in Connecticut and later an illegal immigrant when he ran away from the church members. He wanted so badly to stay in America so he could go to college, become a doctor and go back to his home country of Sierra Leone to help people there. His want for a better education in America is considered a pull factor that caused him to immigrate to America. There were many other students who came to America with the same goal including Jessica Tan and Yasmeen Salahi. Some students, however, like Ngawang Thokmey from Tibet were trying to escape dangerous political situations in their home country to come to America. Ngawang rode in a suitcase in the back of a car for over 13 hours to escape out of China in the first part of his journey to America. Political unrest in China and other countries like Burma and Sierra Leone pushed students from their countries to come to America for a better life.

Impact on Me

            Reading this book was definitely an enlightening experience for me. Before this book, I definitely was a little unsure about how fair it was for undocumented immigrants to be allowed into our education system, taking time and resources from actual citizens. But to read about actual students who just wanted so bad to go to school and have some of the opportunities that American children have really had a profound impact on me. Who am I to decide who deserves what? I think every child deserves love and help from me. As a future teacher, I may be the only connection they have into American society as social capital and the resources I can provide for them will be priceless!

            I want to be like the teachers in the book who are so invested in their students that they give the school a second-home feel, especially for those students who are separated from their parents like Jessica Tan and Mohammad Bah. I also learned from this book that while students may have similarities in their appearance and their teenage tendencies, each one is different and has individual needs. Some students may need a nudge in the right direction while some students academically excel but they may just need someone who is willing to be their advocate. I loved reading about Dariana working with the young Muslim girl named Yasmeen as she prepared first to become the legal guardian of her younger siblings after both her parents died and second when she needed help negotiating the agreement for her arranged marriage to her cousin. Without Dariana, Yasmeen would likely not have gone to college or even stayed in America after the death of her parents.

            I have also learned from this book that I need to be prepared to do some research so that I can close the gap that may exist between my culture and my students’ cultures. Some of the teachers at International knew their students, their cultures and their religious beliefs so they could protect the kids from ridicule in the classroom and so they could appropriately interact with them. The teachers at International were also prepared to help their students learn the cultural capital they needed to live and function in American society, and this is a new goal of mine. Teachers can have such a great effect on their students’ lives and I am not sure that I truly understood that before reading this book. Yes, I knew that I would hopefully help them come to love biology, but I shouldn’t limit myself to just encouraging the love of science. I can be a positive role model and ambassador to American society for my future students.