All posts by Crystal Johnson

Reflecting On Why We Are Here…

Creating Classroom Community

“Why do you or did you want to become a middle school teacher?
What characteristics do you think a middle school teacher needs to have?

Understanding one’s content is one criterion for successful teaching — but only one. Effective educators at all grade levels possess something more significant than content knowledge: a deeper understanding of their students.”
(You Want To Be A What?, Chapter 1, Brown & Knowles)

This was my favorite text from all the texts we’ve been given the entire semester. I currently work with middle school students and am at a point where things have become very stressful and time consuming. To name a few things that have been keeping me busy; I am completing finals for my 5 graduate classes, inputting grades for parent teacher conferences, lesson planning for both jobs, and attempting to not pass out every chance that I get. It is so easy to forget why I am doing all of these things. Continue reading Reflecting On Why We Are Here… →

The Lesser of Two Evils!

Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond

“Consumers will have to consider what level of discomfort or risk they’re willing to accept in exchange for sharper recall or enhanced powers of concentration (Healy, 2004).”

My sister was addicted to cocaine when I was younger, and because of this I grew up believing that the only drugs we should be afraid of were the illegal drugs that you couldn’t get from a doctor or a pharmacy. When I got to college I became aware of an entire world of drugs that can be prescribed to people and then distributed for all types of reasons. The people that were using these drugs didn’t look like “drug users” that I had seen on television, they were just college students that wanted to take the edge off or needed to focus on a test. Continue reading The Lesser of Two Evils! →

A Breath of Fresh Air….

Gender Socialization & Identities

Many participants said that for as long as they could remember, their parents did not allow them to spend recreational time outdoors. For some, their only time outside was the weekday commutes to and from school – anything more was deemed far too dangerous.
(Succeeding in the city: A Report by the New York City Black and Latino Male High School Achievement Study)

When I was around the ages of 10 and 11 I remember wondering why it always felt like the boys in my class had so much more freedom. They were allowed to walk home by themselves, stop for food on their way home, and go to the store by themselves, but my mother would never let me do any of those things. At around the ages of 14 and 15, I began to realize that the same boys that had the freedom to go to the store were now calling their parents for, what seemed like, everything. They would have to call their parents when we got to the train, when we arrived at school, when we were leaving school, and when they got off the train. Continue reading A Breath of Fresh Air…. →

Second Class Citizens

Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners

As others who come from poor and working-class backgrounds or people of color have done I too could have bought into the deficit perspective that I am better than my own,but the practices of mainstream schooling, curriculum, and patriarchy I continue to experience serve as a constant reminder that I am perceived as belonging to a community of second-class citizens at best. Even after poor and working-class,women, and/or people of color enter the academy as faculty members, we continue to struggle within a system that is not setup for our success. Therefore, I continue to learn about and extend the limits and possibilities within which I might envision the future of my communities—communities of women, working class, Latina/o,and/or immigrant students.
(The Stings of Social Hierarchies: From the Central San Joaquin Valley Vineyards to the Ivy Walls by Linda Prieto)

I find it to be devastating that even when women, immigrants, or minorities make it out of their lower class situations they continue to be viewed as second class citizens. I have realized that although I am a successful, by the standards of society, multicultural woman that I am still struggling with maintaining and accepting that success. Continue reading Second Class Citizens →

Breaking It Down!

Blurring the In-School Ouf-of-School Line

“1. What do urban youth, in the context of a ninth-grade conceptual physics course, articulate
as their goals regarding participation in physics, participation in relationships,
and personal and community transformation?
2. In what ways are these goals “critical,” in that they challenge negative perceptions
of low-income, minority youth or reflect students’ desires to tackle power structures
in classrooms, schools, and the world?”
-Powerful Learners and Critical Agents: The Goals of Five Urban Caribbean Youth in a Conceptual Physics Classroom by Sreyashi Jhumki Basu

Students are constantly questioning why they must learn the information that teachers provide for them. They want to understand why it is necessary to know this information and how this information will benefit them in life. I do not believe that these answers should be given to them, but I do believe that we should ask our students to think critically as to how this information can become essential for them outside of the classroom. Continue reading Breaking It Down! →