This chapter touched on many subjects that I personally felt were both poignant and important. I want to try and touch on each of these, but that would become redundant and boring, so I will touch on where I made the most connections and where I feel it is important for me to focus professionally.
First of all I would like to point out the obvious; I am a white middle-class woman that looks like the majority of our classroom's population of teachers. My experiences in life I can assure you are anything but "middle-class" normative experiences. I have lived in each socioeconomic class and not just lived but immersed, from my affluent upbringing to several years of homelessness, to living now in what I will call "mainstream" America (middle-class). Why do I bring this up? Well, for me growing up in the world of the affluent there was little patience for anything less than their "standard," a goal that I would never reach no matter how hard I tried. I can only imagine the difficulty in finding my place if I too did not speak the language. Finally, there is this expectation (social norm if you will) that seems to follow me (because of my color), that I come from (for the most part) a "good" upbringing or that I fall somewhere on the spectrum of protected and spoiled. For some of my counterparts this was true, but like any other family afflicted by pain and chaos, my affluent family was riddled with drug addiction and violence. I make this point because cultural diversity exists between all peoples (white-white, white-Hispanic, Hispanic-black, African-Russian, Ukraine-white, etc.) and I feel we need to be truly sensitive to this.
The virtual school bag is a wonderful concept. In my adult lingo, we call this "baggage" each of us has it (the good, the bad, and the ugly). It is made up of our journey, our life's experiences. Some of us have small totes and some of us carry huge trunks, regardless we are all still very human and deserve to be treated as such.
Several things I know I will use in my own classroom (1) interactive journals. I think these are not only great ideas, but safe places for students to write and reflect in their own styles. (2) the student interviews to find out my student's interests. I really enjoyed the kidwatching part of our readings, and the teachers response to her findings regarding a particular student in her classroom. With her keen eye, observation, and interview (with full class participation) she was able to find out this student's interests and set him on his path to reading for enjoyment.
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I loved what you had to say, Wendy! It is just so important to recognize that each of us is different, no matter the color, the socio-economic status, etc...we're all unique individuals even amongst our family! It bothered me to read that oftentimes the Spanish-speakers are grouped together as one because they are Spanish-speakers, but that might honestly be the only thing they have in common because there are stark differences between many of the Latin American countries. I think that with this knowledge and awareness it helps to show us that there is diversity everywhere and we should respect and embrace that in the classroom. We shouldn't make assumptions and we should make a genuine attempt to know the students, which is where the interest surveys are important. I'm excited to see what my student has to say on Wednesday!
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