“The stereotypical images we hold of certain groups are powerful in influencing what people see and expect of students. Unless educators consciously try to undermine and work against these kinds of stereotypes, they often act on them unconsciously. Our assumptions related to race are so deeply entrenched that it is virtually impossible for us not to hold them unless we take conscious and deliberate action.”

I find this passage extremely important because virtually everyone is guilty of stereotyping, consciously or unconsciously. This passage raises awareness to this fact and calls on us as future teachers to recognize what stereotypes we might possess and take deliberate action to combat them because, among other things, of the detrimental effects they have on students and society as a whole.  While the passage focuses race, there are many stereotypes that we need to be vigilant of.  As the passage suggests, these stereotypes are deeply ingrained in our society and have had devastating effects on minority students and their communities.

As future teachers we are in a unique position to dispel these stereotypes. To begin with we need to be vigilant that we are not stereotyping students. To do that, we must first acknowledge that stereotypes are so deeply-rooted in society that it is impossible for us not to stereotype to some degree. By being vigilant of this we can prevent ourselves from engaging in this while dealing with students. We need to treat students as unique individuals while respecting their culture and discover who they are through meaningful interaction rather than judging them based on preconceived generalized notions that tend to falsely categorize them and hold them back from reaching their potential.

It is also of the utmost importance, as is elsewhere noted in the reading, that teachers take action to invalidate what stereotypes students may have or may be forming. The article gives some excellent suggestions, such as incorporating information related to their culture into the curriculum and by encouraging students to participate in school activities that are not traditionally associated with their racial groups, which help to challenging racial norms and promote interracial relationship building and cooperation. I really like that this article included applicable solutions to the stated problems and hope to put them to practice in the future.

MVP # 2 pawan

“Gaining understanding……………………………….. academic and social success” page 154

There is no doubt that the social and cultural forces impact on their behaviors, attitude and in learning environment. We need to understand especially those students having different cultural backgrounds with different social identities. Basically, when we as a teacher dealing with adolescents, it is not easy to predict their behavior and attitude because it influences even by a small incident of their day to day life and that will reflect in their classroom activities. Learning is collective effort of students and teacher together in the classroom. The most important responsibility of teacher is how he/she socialized students among their peers. Creating positive teaching environment is one of the major responsibilities of the teacher, so student feels comfortable to build up their understanding on their positive comments, feelings and thoughts. As Dewey said, “learning is active. It involves organic assimilation starting from within. It is he and not the subject matter which determines both quality and quantity of learning.” Page 150.

1. 32, Joaquin’s dilemma

Third, teachers can find ways to incorporate information related to the history and culture of students into the curriculum. This is important in helping students understand what it means to be who they are, an essential aspect of the identity formation process for adolescents.

It was hard for me to choose just one mvp in the section “What can educators do?” in the chapter entitled Joaquin’s dilemma. “Understanding and debunking racial stereotypes, breaking down racial separations, and challenging the hidden curriculum” as Nogeura says, are overwhelming tasks as an educator, yet, his suggestions on how to promote positive racial identity development seemed implementable. Specifically, I saw Nogeura’s third point as being especially applicable to the foreign language classroom. The student body I’m currently student teaching at is, like the rest of New York, incredibly diverse. While it may be challenging to incorporate every students’ culture and history into the curriculum as the text suggests, in a foreign language classroom, there is room for cross cultural reflections. I’m currently teaching French for high schoolers, and I’ve noticed how my cooperating teacher makes an effort to get to know each of her 170 students’ background and culture from the firs day of school. In two weeks of school, she has already fostered an environment of cross-cultural communication by asking students about their own backgrounds via written and oral surveys. She frequently refers to her Hispanophone students when introducing a new vocabulary word, and she told me she made an effort to include Haiti in the curriculum this year, as several of our students’ families have Haitian ancestors.

“Learning to Describe, Describing to Understand”

Matthew Knoester’s paper on “Learning to Describe, Describing to Understand” points out a very important issue that we as overly busy humans often tend to overlook and that is to take a step back to observe, to “describe” before rushing to judgement and adding our immediate input. Patricia Carini, the developer of the descriptive review, stated:

“Describing I pause, and pausing, attend. Describing requires that I stand back and consider. Describing requires that I not rush to judgment or conclude before I have looked. Describing makes room for something to be fully present…. To describe teaches me that the subject of my attention always exceeds what I see…”

I think this is a very powerful statement. As Knoester had said in the beginning, there are countless ways – be it informal or formal – for us to assess our students. However, each child is different and thus, some assessments, with their limitations, cannot fully paint a complete picture of the child for us and tell us what we as educators need to change or improve on. In using the descriptive review process that Knoester advocates for, we are given a chance to really look at a student and at the same time reflect on our teachings. We are given a “safe space” to receive and give criticism without harming feelings. We are given a platform to simultaneously offer suggestions of improvement and to receive suggestions to improve ourselves and to discuss as a team so we all learn and grow together. While, like Knowster had pointed out, this process does have its limitations – time and effort, – the good, I think, outweigh its limitations. Even studying just one student, whom we might never teach or meet, can help us with improving our teaching in the classroom.