Haley's Blog

“Aria,” “Teaching Multilingual Children,” and "New Rules Hurt Bilingual Students"  First, I read the article about the new rules in Rhode Island that would cut the time that ELL students get to spend in classes with ELL teachers. Instead of requiring 3 periods per day with an ELL teacher, the students would only be required to have 1 period per day, and that is just for beginner ELLs. This proposal would not guarantee that any intermediate or advanced ELLs get any instructional time with an ELL certified teacher. The proposal stipulates that the teachers who have ELL classes need to only confer outside of class with an ELL certified teacher and that that teacher doesn’t even have to meet the students. This is just ridiculous. It was apparently voted on January 30th. I looked up what happened, I guess it passed because now the department of education is being sued . The next article I read was titled, "Aria" by Richard Rodriguez. I probably should have read th...

Summary of “Privilege, Power, and Difference” by Johnson This author, Johnson, argues that even though discrimination against people according to their gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and social class is entrenched in our society, we can work together to fix the problems but we first need to “use the words” such as privilege, racism, sexism, etc. and the privileged groups need to “make the problem of privilege their problem and do something about it”. Johnson’s work is very accessible, because he discusses the concepts of racism, sexism, ablism, etc. in a way that shows them as systemic issues rather then suggesting every individual is rasist, sexist, or ablist. Instead of putting all of the burden of causing these problems on readers in the privileged groups, he acknowleges that there are systems in place (laws, social norms, the status quo, etc.) that perpetuate these ‘-isms’ and lead to discrimination in our society. One of Johnson’s main points is that racism is not ...

Going to School This documentary was reporting about children with special needs in the LA county school district who were being integrating into the general education classroom. The documentary showed three success cases where students were actually placed into general education classrooms and working with their peers. However, this would have never been the case until someone sued the district for not providing services for students in special education. A lot of the parents wanted their children to be in gen ed classrooms in their own school districts and not bussed to a “special” school because that is where all of the other kids went. It is not fair to bus a student out of the district because it is very difficult for them to have a normal social life and the gen ed classrooms are more rigorous which pushes the students with special needs in a good way. A lot of the work was done by one mom, who set up an office that parents could use as a resource. The office explained to the ...

I know I am going to get a bad grade on this project proposal, but I am just having a really tough time coming up with something and deciding on something. Option 1: Topic: Empowering literacy Two articles to summarize: Delpit and Finn Project: I was thinking maybe something to do with empowering literacy. I really want to incorporate environmental justice into my curriculum next year. I could make a few lesson plans or activities and decide how I can bring this topic up in class, and how I can explain the reason why we are doing this type of learning in class, and why it may seem different than their other classes. Option 2: Topic: White privilege Two articles to summarize: Johnson and TAL podcast Project: I was thinking I can interview my sister. She is in high school right now and I don't actually know how much she knows about white privilege and if she has done any identity work in school. My dad is also pretty conservative (she lives with my dad, I grew up with my m...

Safe Spaces and GLSEN Vaccaro, August, and Kennedy argue that in order for teachers to create classrooms that are safe for LGBT youth, they must publicly commit to creating classroom climates of inclusivity and respect with the cooperation of all students. In order for a teacher to create an inclusive and safe classroom, they need to ensure their curriculum includes the perspectives, experiences, and history of LGBT people, and they must ensure that the communication inside their classroom walls validates the LGBT experience. Talking points: 1. “Without the deliberate creation of an inclusive atmosphere, however, what happens inside the classroom walls reproduces the prejudices that exist outside these walls: straightness and gender conformity are assumed; LGBT identity is deviant.” This is more of the same sentiment that we have gotten from other readings: following the status quo is only teaching kids that prejudice against minority groups is okay so we can’t just follow the ...

Students “Warrior Up” for Climate Justice By Bill Bigelow (Picture from  Big Education Ape, a blog that is written by Mike Simpson who is also a teacher passionate about social issues in education. ) Students “Warrior Up” for Climate Justice  was published in the Fall 2018 issue of Rethinking Schools. Bigelow, writer for the column of “Earth, Justice, and our Classrooms” focuses this edition’s column on a school in Oregon called Madison High School. Madison has a class, called “Citizen Chemistry for All,” in which over 300 students at Madison High School in Oregon are enrolled. The essential question the students need to answer by the end of this class is, “Why are human changes to the Earth’s carbon cycles at the heart of climate destabilization?” This is a really unique approach to studying climate change, and chemistry and Madison’s teachers explain they want to “support students in building a bridge between the personal and the planetary.” At the end of the year...