All posts by Nicholas J

About Nicholas J

2017 candidate in the Dual MA in teaching Spanish as a foreign language and TESOL program.

22 Partners in the Class

Creating Classroom Community

“Thinking this way about classroom disruptions can involve a shift in a teacher’s whole approach towards students — away from thinking of them as problems to be controlled, and toward thinking of them as partners in achieving some common goals.” (Cushman, pg. 44)

Student teaching this semester has been heavy on classroom management and this article by Cushman really hit home. Each day my classroom is evidence that there is a power struggle going on between students and teachers. Students are insecure and irked because they feel that teachers are in control of power and that teachers are not to be trusted. More often than not students sabotage their own learning as well as that of the rest of the class by engaging in some kind of behavior that “restores” their power. Prior to this semester, I was rather unaware that this struggle was as real as it is at my school. Continue reading 22 Partners in the Class →

But surely my brain won’t become desensitized

Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond

“Meanwhile, pathways associated with other interesting stimuli are left idle and lose strength. The pre frontal cortex, the pat of the brain associated with judgment and inhibitory control, also stops functioning normally.” (Phillip, pg. 165)

Life is a perpetual series of experiences, feelings, smells, sights and sounds that produces the widest range of emotions. There are highs and lows, up and downs. Some weeks I’m on top of the world and sometimes, well, I’m not on top of the world. All of the feelings that we experience are what makes us human. Continue reading But surely my brain won’t become desensitized →

People look at me like, “Ugh”

Friendship, Love, & Sexuality

“Excuse me, don’t look at my kids like that. You don’t know my kids. Respect me. You don’t know me.” (Proweller, pg. 105)

As the semester has progressed for me, I really think that the level of empathy I have for urban students has increased tremendously. You could say that before this year, I was not very attuned with school culture in large cities (it’s been a few moons since I was in middle school or high school). My increased empathy is directly tied to seeing day in and day out many of the struggles that students in urban areas experience in school. There are some days when I am in awe that students can and do achieve academically. Continue reading People look at me like, “Ugh” →

They are ready and able to talk about it

Gender Socialization & Identities

“Appealing to the difference in a non-tokenizing manner in a middle school classroom requires digging deep into the issues of gender, race and class, and pushing students beyond easy notions of black and white or rich and poor and into a realm of ever shifting intersections of identity” (Krywanczyk, pg. 3)

Two thoughts filled my head while reading this personal essay about transexuality and middle school students: I wish the young adults in my classes exhibited the same maturity in discussing trans issues as they did with their studies in Spanish and we need more stories like Krywanczyk’s to strengthen the fabric of our schools. My seventh graders are perhaps my most immature class when it comes to learning Spanish, but they have consistently demonstrated an understanding and compassion towards one of their transsexual classmates that makes me proud. Continue reading They are ready and able to talk about it →

Learn the system to play the sytem

Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners

“Facing such charged attitudes that assault and undermine their sense of self, minority children may come to experience the institutions of the dominant society – as alien terrain producing an order of inequality.” (Doucet & Orozco, pg. 169)

The education system in the United States is a study in contradictions. For some students it represents a ticket to a better life while for others it can be little more than the figurative nails in their own coffins. In other words system that in theory should be the great equalizer has become a instrument to further divide us. After years and years of skin color politics that degrade and diminish people of color, students enter our schools and have but a snowball’s chance in hell of wading past the sea of people fighting against them to find someone to teach them how the system works so that in return they can play the system and win. Continue reading Learn the system to play the sytem →