Category Archives: Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation

Let’s hear what our students have to say

Creating Classroom Community, Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation, Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners, Urban Adolescents

Angelito, a 7th grader who emigrated with his
family from Mexico to the U.S, shared his thoughts on how he was received when he
stated, “It is that here there is a lot of, how do I say it? Racism towards immigrants, the
thinking that we are like this, like delinquents.”

What truly resonated with me was the above statement made by one of the students who participated in the study, Angelito. It just goes to show that we can all benefit from a more “pro immigration” community, ie country. Unfortunately there are many stigmas that incoming immigrant students have to face first-hand that incorrectly marks them in society. Continue reading Let’s hear what our students have to say →

MVP #2: Listen to the Students, Not the World

Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation, Observing to Learn and Learning to Observe, Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond, Urban Adolescents

“Children and adults are never solitary individuals, immune to the social and cultural forces around them. Gaining understanding of the cultural norms and assumptions we bring as teachers, as well as those brought by each of the students in our classes, is an often difficult task but is essential to providing a learning space that is welcoming and caring and sets up all students for academic and social success.”(Knoester, 2008, p.154)

This statement really highlights the importance of being self-aware and reflective of the biases and assumptions we bring with us into the classroom. We have all been influenced throughout our lives by our experiences, the ways in which we grew up and were raised, the environments we lived in, our cultural backgrounds, the traditions we practiced, etc. Continue reading MVP #2: Listen to the Students, Not the World →

“Now,… imagine she’s white”

Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation

The title of this post, is the last sentence taken from a famous trial closing statement in the movie “A Time to Kill”(1996) directed by Joel Schumacher. The lawyer is defending Carl Lee Hailey, a Black man who avenges the brutal rape of her ten year old daughter, by shooting the men who committed the crime. The movie came back to me repeatedly during the reading “Beginning and ending with Black suffering” (Dumas, 2018), mainly because of this idea of going beyond empathy caused by the misfortunes of a community that, though it’s right here, is foreign to the observers. Continue reading “Now,… imagine she’s white” →

Do you take the short bus?

Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation, Urban Adolescents

MVP: ‘School spaces: privacy and postitionality’, pp. 107-109

            Being placed in special education has negative stereotypes from a student’s perspective. In this article, and from my personal experience, teachers do not help destigmatize these discriminating assumptions. Some assumptions include: the short bus supposedly being for special ed. kids and that they’re all slow. There is no way of knowing where these beliefs come from, we just know they exist and most of the time we look past it. Therefore, overtime a social status in schools is created and special education students feel segregated from the rest of the school due to their small classrooms and the assumptions. Also, feeling different from the others can cause students to find the need to protect their social status or hide the fact that they’re in special ed. As for me, I did both and it was a lot of hard work to defend my social status and keep my secret of being in special ed. at the age of 8. Going forward, and as a future educator, I can’t change stereotypes overnight but I can reach out to fellow educators to help educate all students that special education is a program to support students and should not be judged or viewed negatively. (Ferri & Connor, 2010)

Too Little or Too Much

Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation, Urban Adolescents

” If the Black body is not fully, or really, Human, then it can be subjected to pain beyond that which is regarded as humanly possible (Hartman, 1997).Further, the Black may be seen as requiring heightened and sustained levels of pain in order to learn, as might a dog or a beast of burden.”

What struck me the most about the video of “The Assault on Shakara at Spring Valley High”, beyond the sheer violence of how the police officer removed the girl from her seat, was the fact that there was an adult black man, tucked shirt and pants, calmly ambling around the center of the room – the teacher, presumably… Continue reading Too Little or Too Much →