What are you willing to do to educate all children?

“To agree to learn from a stranger who does not respect your integrity causes a major loss of self. The only alternative is to not-learn and reject their world” (Kohl, 1992).

 

From the numerous pieces of information, I have read to answer the compelling question above as best I can, I decided to first integrate the following quote from the article called, “I Won’t Learn from you!” by Herbert Kohl. You may be asking or maybe you're not and you're thinking about what you're having for your next meal, I’m here with y'all but why did I pick this specific quote? Well, let me tell you when I was reading this article I was enjoying the story of Wilfredo and was intrigued by the reason why he did not want to learn English. Totally understandable! So I continued reading and I suddenly stopped because of how accurate the quote is.

 Let’s say it is the first day of school and you walk to your designated classroom as a student, how do you feel walking into a classroom filled with other students and a teacher you may or may not know? Some of you perhaps felt excited, alright, or nervous, but for sure a bubble has formed in the classroom with different kinds of emotions coming from different backgrounds. At the end of the day we do not know each other completely, so why do we expect our students to learn from a complete stranger right from the start? I think that it is extremely important to get to know our students first and progress at a deeper level, but of course, my limit is always keeping it educational and professional. “I am the teacher or mentor that will guide you to be successful in life, and you are the student that is in the classroom to learn and communicate your ideas.” 

Now that we got the quote out of the way I will like to further explain what I am willing to do to educate all children, and I hope you guys enjoy what I got to say speaking upon this topic. The number one thing that I am willing to do is learn and be open to other cultures besides my own. I grew up with both my parents who were raised in Queretaro, Mexico which is located around the north-central area of South America. Within my family, the Mexican traditions were the most prominent and that is what I grew up seeing all the time, besides there being a mix of American traditions that later emerged within time. I truly love my culture, don't get me wrong but I want to challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone because I am aware that there is more than just my own sweet bread. All of this explains a lot on why I decided to go for a certificate in ESL along with my major instead of sticking with a bilingual generalist certificate, like Christopher Emdin says in the Ted talk “Reality Pedagogy,” we are carrying this bolder of guilt up a mountain, we get there with the group of students all tired and we let that boulder of guilt fall because we do not have the guts talk about their experiences (Emdin, 2012). With this in mind, I am willing to incorporate the order of the 5 C’s that Emdin mentions in the video. I am also willing to help them find their true identity, incorporate parents in the school community, and search for tips from the students themselves and other experts on how I can improve the classroom environment. 

This leads me to my next segment of this topic which is a short story about my high school Spanish teacher and how she made the classroom environment feel like home. I would like to add that this short story was inspired by the article called, “3 Tips To Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive'' by Zaretta Hammond. In this article, she mentions that adding “Storify it” in a lesson plan is a great way for students to understand concepts because it connects well with many oral traditions (Hammond, 2013). When I was in my Senior year of high school I took Spanish V as one of my open electives, and I already knew the Spanish teacher who led that course since my freshman year, so I was fully aware of her expectations in the classroom beforehand. Besides already knowing how her classroom works, for me taking Spanish V was a completely different feeling in comparison to taking Spanish I, II, and IV with her as my instructor because of how open it was to talk about controversial topics as a group. So every morning we will sit at our assigned seats and she will give us a story or a poem that we will then read as a whole group in a circle. Afterward, we will then write in our journal our perspective of the reading and then discuss what we think. Of course, as an introvert, I was never actually involved in the speaking portion, but listening to others speak on the topic based on their experiences was amazing. It allowed me to get to know my teacher and other students at a deeper level just by reading a story. Well, that is all for today...see y'all in my next blog post. 

Reference List:

I Won’t Learn From You! - Rethinking Schools

(7) Reality Pedagogy: Christopher Emdin at TEDxTeachersCollege - YouTube

3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive | Cult of Pedagogy