All posts by Natalie C Herrera

Slay or be slayed.

Creating Classroom Community

You go home exhausted, wondering why you ever chose teaching as a career. The next day you’re back in the classroom and your soaring. You feel you could teach forever (Brown & Knowles, 2007, p. 2).

As much as I would want to pick a quote that summarizes and puts the message of this article into action ‑ a great article that can be used to help teachers who work with teenagers create classroom environments that are safe, structured, and demonstrate respect between the teachers and the students and in between the students, I had to stick with this one. Throughout the course, we have discussed who our students are, how they might behave, how they might like to behave, strategies to engage them, etc. I think this is a good time, now that we are closing off the semester, to reflect on ourselves, the educators. It’s the perfect “treat yoself” with a reflection moment to rethink, reevaluate, and remember why we choose this career. Continue reading Slay or be slayed. →

Highlighting the Good, not the bad and the ugly

Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond, Urban Adolescents

When adolescents sense that their mentors hold them in positive regard, they may internalize their positive appraisal, perhaps contributing to their own feelings of self-worth (Rhodes, Davis, Prescott, & Spencer, 2007, p. 145).

Throughout my graduate career at NYU, similar statements have been written and decorated on my notebooks, highlighted on textbooks and articles, and immortalized in essay compositions on instructional theory and methodology. It would be insensible and doltish, therefore, to ignore the importance positive reinforcement and “regard” can have on my students. If studies have shown that continuous downgrading remarks can have negative comments on a person’s well-being and self-esteem, then why aren’t educators focusing on doing the opposite to increase student’s well-being and self-worth? Continue reading Highlighting the Good, not the bad and the ugly →

The new chapter on Systemic Racism

Friendship, Love, & Sexuality

If you wanted to reduce crime…if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every Black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down. This would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do…but crime would go down (CNN, 2005, as cited in Fine & McClelland, 2006, p. 304).

It’s hard to look past the first sentence to analyze former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett’s words without wanting to yell back at the quote, as if it could hear me. This article, although a couple of years old, is relevant to what has transpired during and since the recent 2016 elections. As some of my students put it, it is ridiculous to think that minorities are evil, criminals, illegal, and in some ways even immoral. Continue reading The new chapter on Systemic Racism →

The clear box imposed by the administrative mime

Urban Adolescents

I received admonishment and complaints from administrators and some colleagues who claimed that I should “be careful, this is awfully mature for sixth graders!” But we can’t truly address bullying without closely examining the language that fuels it (Krywanczyk, 2009, p. 3-4).

This is one of the biggest problems in our education system. The lack of support from the school administration, other colleagues, and even the questioning confidence in ourselves. Taboo topics keep teachers in a clear box drawn out by the administrative mime. One can can see the questions and issues students have and deal with, but psychological restrictions impede us from doing anything about it. When educators, like Mr. Krywanczyk, take the first step towards creating an open space that welcomes challenging and oh-my-goodness taboo topics that students already know and experience, they are met with resistance from other educators who are too afraid or too indifferent to start these conversations. This is not to say that there should be some restrictions in the manner that some topics are presented, especially when the students are at younger age. However, like Mr. Krywanczyk says, schools need to serve the students’ needs. This includes preparing students to combat and prevent abuse from others, from themselves, and towards others.  

Furthermore, covering topics that deal with bullying is a serious matter. For this reason, surface prevention, meaning telling our students to stop bullying is wrong without in-depth discussion of the why/how people get bullied, is negligence. Just like instruction, students need scaffolded lessons on identifying bullying, reporting it, and, hopefully, preventing it. To really attack the issue of bullying educators and administrators (including parents) need to stop walking on eggshells. Bullies and other sources of violence, racism, sexism, and abuse do not. So why should we if we are to fight them?