Celia Suraski FNED 346 Spring 2019 blog

One day when I was at Pleasant View Elementary School, I was talking to my classroom teacher and she told me that the day before that a girl from the classroom nextdoor called another student the r-word. This truly shocked me. Where does a five year old child learn that word? Why did she think that it was okay to use that word? The r-word was first used as a way to describe developmentally delayed people. It is an outdated and cruel term that is used to call someone stupid or slow. Even though this five year old most likely did not know the true meaning and was not meaning to be so hurtful, she was very rude. There is a campaign to end the r-word and it has people pledge to not say the hurtful r-word. The campaign to end the r-word states, “Why Pledge? The R-word is the word 'retard(ed)'. Why does it hurt? The R-word hurts because it is exclusive. It's offensive. It's derogatory. Our campaign asks people to pledge to stop saying the R-word as a starting point towar...

Last year, I spent two hours everyday in a first grade classroom at Nayatt Elementary School in Barrington, RI. That experience was very different from being at Pleasant View Elementary School this past semester. Nayatt had everything a school needs. It had an amazing playground, materials galore, amazing teachers, and lots of support staff. They had a teacher for just social and emotional learning and I found that was super helpful with many of the students who had trouble expressing their emotions. The classroom I was in was probably 80% white and really did not have that much diversity. I truly loved being at Nayatt and thought that I would definitely want to teach in a suburban school district. Going to Pleasant View was very different. The classroom was so diverse and I loved that because I should not just be in a classroom full of students that look like me. At Pleasant View, there is no true playground. The children sometimes play outside on the concrete in front of the sch...

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YqDyLF8YLmQpRNgi9TNlC0fqEmN--ge3ub-VYkExKn4/edit#slide=id.p

What kind of teacher/youth worker do I want to be? Given everything you have experienced this semester, write a journal entry about yourself.  What can you take away from this experience to use in your own classroom or youth setting someday?  What kind of teacher/youth worker do you want to be? Be specific about how you will act on those ideals in your practice. After being in a kindergarten classroom this semester, I know I want to teach younger kids. I would love to teach first or second grade. There are so many things I have learned this semester that I want to use in my future career as an educator. When it comes to race and gender, I know not to encourage stereotypes. I know not to say “boys and girls” because there may be some students that do not feel like they fit into one specific category. I have learned that children can wear any color they want, play with any types of toys, and dress however they want. If I have a male student who wants to wear dresses, I...

*to type on this form, MAKE A COPY (under file) to save to your own google drive Alfie Kohn: What to Look For in a Classroom Good Signs Possible Reasons to Worry My SL Classroom Furniture Chairs around the tables to facilitate interaction Comfortable areas for learning, including multiple "activities centers" Open space for gathering Chairs all facing forward or (even worse) desks in rows Chairs around tables. Two different carpets for students to sit on. On the Walls Covered with students' projects Evidence of student collaboration Signs, exhibits, or lists obviously created by students rather than by the teacher Information about, and personal mementos of, the people who spend time together Nothing Commercial Posters Students' assignments displayed, but they are (a) suspiciously flawless, (b) only from "the best" students, or ( c) virtually all alike List of rules created by an adult and/or list of punitive consequences for be...

After your first day in your classroom, write a vivid description of your school and classroom. What is the neighborhood like?  What do you see when you walk in the school building? Describe the cultures, languages, and other sociocultural characteristics of the students in the classroom in which you are tutoring. How do you feel being here?  Is this environment like or unlike your own K-12 schooling experience? Pulling into the parking lot at Pleasant View Elementary School frightened me a little bit. I could see the school. It looked grey and dull. All the windows had metal bars on them and were all covered so no one could see in or out of the classrooms. Growing up, I had been to school in three different countries and been to twelve schools but the bars on the windows still scared me and made me think this school might not be safe. The neighborhood this school is in is not bad or unsafe, though. The school is just a couple minutes away from lots of houses that see...

I attended Laverne Cox’s talk at Rhode Island College. I learned so much about her life and what growing up is like for an African American, transgender person in the south. Laverne Cox felt like she was a mistake growing up. She was ashamed of who she was because it was not the norm, especially in a place like Mobile, Alabama. She was bullied for her gender expression and for being herself. Cox knew from the beginning that she was not like other kids. In third grade she was sent to a therapist because her teacher had told her mom something was wrong with her. The therapist asked if she knew the difference between boys and girls. Cox said, “There is no difference.” Because of hearing that, I learned that children do not grow up thinking about differences based on gender until society starts imposing them. Laverne Cox says we need safe spaces for today’s youth to express their gender identity. Young people today have more examples of gender expression in society but not enough. “C...

It is very important for every student to feel welcome in a classroom, no matter their ability. That does not always happen and it is very unfortunate. Christopher Kilewer wrote the book titled, “Schooling Children with Down Syndrome”. The chapter I read has a quote from a woman named Mia Peterson. Peterson has down syndrome but can do just as much as other people without down syndrome. “I started to notice that I didn't like the classes I was taking called special education! had to go through special ed. almost all my life. I wanted to take other classes that interested me. I had never felt so mad, I wanted to cry” (Peterson, 1994, p. 6). No student should ever be segregated from their peers solely based on a diagnosis. This can affect which college people go to, what jobs they get, and their entire future. Kilewer also mentions a woman named Judith Snow who is a self-advocate in the disability rights movement. She says, “How absurd to be judged by others at all, especially ...

My Pecha Kucha story is about a kindergartner at my school calling another student the r-word for no real reason, the student who said the word was just annoyed at the other student.  SCWAAMP discusses how certain identities are valued in our culture, being white and being straight are examples these identities. Even though being abled is not included in SCWAAMP, I believe that our society values abled people and the r-word is a derogatory term for a person with a disability, even if it is not used in that context. Johnson talks about how classrooms need examples of people talking about race, gender, class, and sexuality. I believe classrooms need more examples of children with disabilities so it becomes more normalized. Teachers also need to teach why some words are not okay to say about a person with disabilities and why some words, like the r-word, for example, are never okay to say no matter who the person is. Lisa Delpit discusses how “good intentions are not enough” a...

AUTHOR/ CONCEPT Overall claims and arguments Key words Connection to another author? Story from my SL project SCWAAMP Leslie Grinner argues that there are some categories/identities that are most valued (dominant) in our culture and they are privileged, or given more access and opportunity than other categories/identities that are not valued.  These Most Valued categories are invisible to us unless we “tap the glass” to notice they are there. What kinds of things are valued at your SL site? Any evidence of taps on the glass of dominant ideology? dominant ideology privilege tap the glass Johnson talks about same concepts, Delpit’s culture of power My story is about disability and that is an identity and I think being able to valued and taken for granted in our culture. Johnson Allan Johnson argues that it is important to talk explicitly about issues of privilege, power and difference so that we can work towards a more just and respectful world. ...