All posts by Marla

Reprogramming “I hate you” = “I love you”

Creating Classroom Community

“The bottom line is when students test us, they want us to pass the test. They are on our side rooting for us to come through with safety and structure. When students act out, they are really saying, ‘We don’t have the impulse control that you have. We are acting out so that you will provide us with safety and structure—be soft yet firm—so that we can learn the behavior we need to learn to be happy and successful… Please be compassionate allowing us our wants as you honor our needs.” (Smith & Lambert, 17)

In the Smith & Lambert article “Assuming the Best,” the authors give practical tips on how to hold students in the best possible regard and interpret the “noise” of the stories they tell as simple requests for love. It is so easy to misinterpret charged remarks as a lack of respect, but this is only true when we, the educators, cannot hold onto our own respect for ourselves. We have to be so firm in our fullness and love for ourselves that we cannot be seduced by any angry or unkind words from students. Continue reading Reprogramming “I hate you” = “I love you” →

Mentors, Witches, and Intuition

Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond

“A trusting relationship with a mentor can thus provide a framework in which girls acquire and refine new thinking skills. To the extent that interactions with a mentor occur within this zone [Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development] of challenging, but attainable pursuits, the mental capacities of girls may increase and improve.” (Rhodes, Davis, Prescott, Spencer, 145-146)

In the article entitled, “Caring Connection: Mentoring Relationships in the Lives of Urban Girls,” it is clear that mentoring can be a tremendously important factor in the improvement of the lives of young girls. That said, the article did underscore the many issues that mentoring cannot directly address and the complexities innately related to measuring the progress of a population like this one. Continue reading Mentors, Witches, and Intuition →

F r e e S p a c e, a welcome paradox

Friendship, Love, & Sexuality

“No space is entirely ‘free’ and no space is entirely ‘safe,’ but by forging a space in which they could make their own rules, the club members managed to come closer to Evans and Boyte’s notion of free space.” (Barry, 98)

In the chapter he wrote entitled, “Sheltered ‘Children’: The Self-Creation of a Safe Space by Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Students,” Barry asserts “Gay youth need places to gather with others like themselves, places that they form and they control, places in which they can, for a moment, rest, be gay and young without having to worry about heterosexism and ageism.” (85) Although he eventually concludes that no place is 100% safe or free, he brings up delicate situations that this youth demographic go through every day. Continue reading F r e e S p a c e, a welcome paradox →

When students have outgrown gender

Gender Socialization & Identities

“Maher and Ward note, ‘Beginning with puberty, girls ‘fall silent’ as they try to meet the contradictory expectations of pleasing others, accommodating male standards for female attractiveness and docility, and yet succeeding academically.’” (Galley, 91)

Although the most valuable passage I chose has to do with girls and the struggles they face with competing social and societal pressures, I was just as struck by the passage about what boys are up against in Galley’s article “Who am I as a learner? Would Girls and Boys Tend to Answer Differently? Continue reading When students have outgrown gender →

Occult acculturation

Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners

“The relatively high speed of the child’s absorption into the new culture can thus create opportunities but also predicaments and tensions.” (Suárez-Orozco, Baolian Qin, Fruja Amthor, 54)

In the chapter on Adolescents from Immigrant Families: Relationships and Adaptation in School, the authors highlighted the surprising result that second- and third-generation immigrants were even less integrated and motivated than those first-generation immigrants. In what they call the “immigrant optimism” factor, the more recent immigrants tend to find more incentive to succeed. Continue reading Occult acculturation →