Schooling for Social Justice

 In the video by Woke Kindergarten, we are read a story about teaching students the differences between and ways to use different pronouns to respect their gender-creative peers. The story being read goes over pronouns like she, he, and they, and introduces ze, and tree, which can be used as pronouns as well. I have personally heard of ze/zir pronouns, which are gender neutral pronouns. "Tree" is used as a pronoun for one of the characters in the story, which I have never heard of someone using before. I know that people have been identifying as many different things and people in recent decades, which is okay. I just believe that young students do not need to be exposed to such broader spectrums of identity as tree.  These ideas should be introduced to students in middle school, which could be correct since these times are due for students to begin self-identity exploration and lead on to high school, where students are even more inclined to express themselves freely. Studen...

 Today, we watched a TED Talk by a transgender woman and a mother of a gay son who spoke about their experiences dealing with gender creativity through the perspective of a mother and the perspective of the person. Reed, the trans woman, spoke about attending Camp I Am and how it was a sanctuary for trans youth and gender-creative children to express themselves freely after feeling as though they are the only person who thinks and feels the same way as themselves. Hearing this TED Talk makes me excited for the future of our gender creative students, because it isn't their fault if they are born in the wrong body. All we can do as supporters is, support them, and help them achieve their goals just like any student.

 Thomas Hehir's article,  Eliminating Ableism in Education , challenges the ways schools often try to "fix" students with disabilities instead of valuing their different learning needs. Ableism is the subtle yet harmful idea that it's always better to be non-disabled. This way of thinking affects deaf students, blind or visually impaired students, and those with learning disabilities like dyslexia. Forcing students to meet "normal" expectations, like reading print instead of braille or lip-reading instead of signing, hurts their education and stops students from being able to thrive in their own way.  This article consists of many examples where students were denied the support they needed only because the system could not see beyond its ableist standards. Hehir states that deaf children were denied interpreters and early exposure to sign language. Blind students were denied the chance to learn braille and instead had to read large print text and dyslexic ch...

 In this reading, we invision the early childhood life of bilingual man, Richard, or Ricardo, Rodriguez. He grew up only speaking spanish in his house with his mother father and siblings, and learning english in school. He began as being shy to speak when called upon, eventually causing some nuns from his school to visit his home and formally ask his parents to have Richard and his siblings speak more spanish at home for practice in school. Richard saw speaking spanish as a private language since he only ever heard it in his home, while learning english and speaking it was a public language. He felt increasingly angry that his family was losing that sense of togetherness when they spoke spanish since they began to speak in mostly english at home.  I feel like this is a common truth amongst spanish speaking students in America because in some states like ours, Rhode Island, these students are often outnumbered in schools compared to their english speaking peers. This outnumberm...

"Today, we understand that many social setups are possible. Roles and rules can be transformed so that there is greater justice and equity."  Education has been a tool that shapes social structures and determines who holds power and who remains in unsubstantial roles. Patrick J. Finn, in Literacy with an Attitude , highlights the divide between empowering education, which fosters critical thinking and leadership, and there is domesticating education, which prepares students for compliance and low-wage labor later on in life. The quote above challenges the assumption that current educational systems are neutral, instead emphasizing that education can either reinforce inequality or be used as a force for social justice.  The argument that Finn introduces is relevant in discussions about equity in schools. Literacy amongst marginalized groups was feared in the past because it was believed that it would lead to resistance and change. Today, the concern is not literacy but who has...

 Using the chart provided by Kohn on this website is helpful and will continue to be helpful when I visit classrooms for observation. The chart contains two columns of criteria called "Good Signs" and "Possible Reasons to Worry" and rows of descriptions of what to look for to categorize them, like "Around the School," "Students' Faces," and "Furniture." When I first saw this chart, it made me realize how the classrooms I have visited vary greatly in how they are set up, how the teachers treat the students, and so on... Children deserve to have classrooms that meet the full criteria from the Good Signs section of the chart because if, for example, students are not engaged in a classroom that represents art and work they have created, they will not have a memorable and enjoyable time during their educational career.  The classroom that I work with students in, as I mentioned in my previous blog, met a lot of the criteria from the Poss...