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John's day, Dr. Jamila Lyiscott, and Dr. Bettina Love

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John's day, Dr. Jamila Lyiscott, and Dr. Bettina Love

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First, the inquiry based approach used in John's day language activity was an example of culturally responsive teaching because it centered us as students in the process of learning what language register is. This activity showed me how language and our communication with people is influenced by many factors including culture, relationship between people, the purpose of the interaction, the situation, power, and people's identities. For example, the interaction between John and his principal at school, in the context of the reading, showed how race and power influence language and how people can communicate with each other. These factors and how they influence language are important to remember as I start to work with students, their families, and other teachers so I can challenge any assumptions I may have about someone's education level, economic status, etc with the language they are using. Dr. Jamila Lyiscott's Ted Talk also highlighted the idea that what is articulate is dependent on the culture and her example was 'how are you?" and "what's good?". These ideas of language register, variation, and repertoire show me that students will be coming in to the classroom with differences across these realms of language and part of my job is to validate this part of their identity, develop their self worth and expand their linguistic repertoire rather than suppress whatever home language they are bringing to school. This raises an idea we discussed in a Socratic Seminar about the potential to create a learning environment where students feel comfortable, included and empowered to share parts of their languages that could establish norms and ways of knowing that might exist outside the 'standard language'. One example I can think of is using sign language, like the "I agree" gesture, to build a student's confidence in themselves when sharing an idea without being interrupted.

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Dr. Von Esch mentioned during our discussion of dialects and language register that the 'standard' language in the United States is based on the dialect of English spoken by middle class Americans in Ohio. When she said this I laughed because I then imagined the standard language to be a midwestern accent rather than a nonaccented dialect of English. I was raised to unconsciously accept the standard language and the connotations it carried to education level, economic status, ethnic and racial identities, and more as a norm. However, since beginning my social justice journey what I can now name as respectability politics is being challenged. Dr. Jamila Lyiscott's Ted Talk and John's day language activity are two ways my respectability politics are being challenged and ideas of language are changing.

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Numbered Heads Together and 9th grade Math Class

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Numbered Heads Together and 9th grade Math Class

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Reflecting on my experience in Costa Rica and a couple of activities we did in class helped me understand how to better serve emergent bilinguals or multilinguals in my future classroom. For example, the numbered heads together activity is a great activity for language learners to practice the negotiation of meaning in a smaller group where their affective filter might be lower so they can receive input and produce output. Furthermore, through the numbered heads together activity I learned the importance of creating a classroom environment where students' affective filters are low. This is important for all students to be able to learn and engage, but especially for language learners who will make more mistakes as they continue to learn the language and content. Also, from the video we watched of the 9th grade math class of all Spanish speaking students and the subsequent worksheet I learned ways in which to facilitate both a student's learning of the material and the language. One example included allowing the students to communicate with each other in their native language in small groups while providing content and material in the language they are learning to negotiate the meaning together. Another example was using hand and visual cues and drawings to help students understand the material and language. As a future teacher this provided me with insight on how to best serve emergent bilinguals.

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Tamarindo Beach Costa Rica, Guanacaste Province, Tamarindo, Costa Rica

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In the fall of 2017, I had the opportunity and privilege to live and travel in Costa Rica for five weeks. It was the first time I traveled internationally by myself and was an amazing experience because I met incredible people, saw beautiful places, but mostly because I developed my Spanish speaking skills better than ever before. Throughout my schooling, I had studied about four years of Spanish and considered myself okay, at best, so when I traveled to Costa Rica I was surprised to find my Spanish comprehension and speaking improve drastically in the five weeks I was there than in the four years I had studied it. After reading Peregoy and Boyle's summation of language acquisition theories, I now understand that my Spanish language skills improved because I was acquiring the language through an interactionist perspective rather than through behaviorist or input perspectives. "Interactionists view the communicative give and take of natural conversations between native and non native speakers as the crucial element of the language acquisition process." (Peregoy and Boyle, p. 66).

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Seattle University, 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA

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The "Nice White Parents" discussion on our first day of class helped me further understand the role culture and language plays in learning and schools and how our frames of reference impact how we see the world. For example, many people in the class, myself included, disagreed with Bobby's idea that it was a net positive for the school in the podcast because it brought in more diversity. It became apparent that we all had different definitions for what 'diversity' and a 'net positive' meant based on our experiences, cultures and values. In a similar vein, the white parents of SIS valued the French language over other languages because in their eyes knowing the French language had more cultural capital. In our class and this podcast our frames of reference and culture impacted our language and what we deemed valuable. Nieto said, "Cultural capital is evident through such intangibles as values, tastes, and behaviors and through cultural identities such as language, dialect and ethnicity. Some manifestations of cultural capital have more social worth than others, although not necessarily more intrinsic worth, than others." (Nieto, "Learning, Social Context, and Multicultural Education, p. 38). If we, as educators, assume this to be true then we will see students who come from different cultures through a deficit based lens and this, then, places these students at a disadvantage. For example, middle class students, generally, arrive at elementary school with some literacy skills while other students may not and rather than viewing this as something they do not have, as educators, we need to find what they do have. It is interesting to think what could have been if the "Nice White Parents" looked to see what strengths the school had before they decided the need for, what they deemed, a valuable French program. As I move towards working with schools this is an important lesson for me to continue to challenge my assumptions as I get to know my students and what strengths they have.

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During the Socratic Seminar I co-facilitated with Ethan, I struggled not being an active participant. The main reason was because while my classmates discussed the idea of getting to know your students through affirming them, validating them, building on prior knowledge and conversations, etc there was little, if any, acknowledgment of the difficulty of building relationships given the number of students, especially some of us as high school teachers will have, and its, potentially, emotional and mental toll. Furthermore, I challenged the idea that all students will respond the same to inquiry based relationship building based on my experiences with some students who struggled opening up. I believe building relationships and rapport with students and families is the groundwork, that varies from student to student and teacher to teacher, to being a warm demander as a way to further demonstrate caring for as culturally responsive. Geneva Gay said, "Caring is grounded in attitudes but must exemplify actions" (p. 65). Dr. Love similarly said in her presentation, "The work is the action." Warm demanding is that action by setting high expectations for all students regardless of their identities and cultures and providing support and differentiated ways for students to reach those expectations. In effect, this can show students that their teacher believes in their potential to succeed, sees them as capable to succeed and wants them to succeed. "When teachers fail to demand accountability for high level performance from ethnically diverse students..." because they do not believe they are capable of completing the task "... they are abdicating their pedagogical responsibilities. This is not real caring." (Gay p 65).

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The jigsaw activities facilitated my growth from a culturally relevant pedagogy to a culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies. The pin in Texas which has a GIF of the solar system is one way in which I am now viewing another part of my role in the classroom. The classroom learning environment is the sun at the center and I and my students and their families and communities are all working or revolving together towards learning or moving through spacetime. During the jigsaw activities we watched videos of teachers working together to learn new ideas with the students positioned and treated as the experts and knowers of knowledge while the teacher facilitated and pulled from the students' experiences and ideas. For example, in the video of the elementary classroom the teacher asked the students to define what they thought revolution and reform meant rather than telling them what those terms meant. The jigsaw activity itself is one way to center the students as the experts and knowers. Also, in the high school video we watched the students engaged in structured debate to further develop their argumentative and listening skills because it provided opportunities, in small groups, for all students to share their opinions and values while being heard and feeling like their values and opinions matter. The co construction of norms and values within the classroom will be the groundwork to centering students and their cultures, values and experiences.

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This course reinforced the importance of building relationships with students and their families. As an outdoor educator at an Outward Bound school in Minnesota, I learned the relationship between building rapport with students, especially the most difficult ones, and making them feel cared for with setting and holding them accountable to high expectations. When these students felt a strong connection with me, as an instructor and a human, and more importantly with their peers they were more likely to meet our and the group's expectations, norms and community agreements. I was excited when reading Geneva Gay's chapter, "The Power of Culturally Responsive Caring", to see similar ideas worked within a classroom setting. However, my Outward Bound groups consisted of seven to ten students which made getting to know them comparatively easy to getting to know over 100 students as a high school teacher.  Through one of our Socratic Seminar's I came to a better understanding on how to achieve this. I am using the image of a "Care Bear" wearing a leather jacket to represent this balance between extending care for students and warm demanding high expectations.

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The role of culture, language, and social context in learning

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The role of culture, language, and social context in learning

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Throughout this course my ideas of culture and language and their relationships with each other, to social contexts and to learning were all challenged. I feel somewhat ashamed to say that it had not occurred to me the effect culture has on learning because I was raised within the dominant culture and socialized to accept it as the norm. I was immersed in the "context of culture" defined by Gibbons to be when "speakers within a culture share particular assumptions and expectations so that they are able to take for granted the ways in which things are done." (Gibbons, "Scaffolding Language and Learning, p4-5). Also, the notion I had that because I am white meant I am cultureless held true for me until Geneva Gay said, "what is commonly thought of as cultureless US schooling is, in reality, Eurocentric culturally responsive teaching." (Gay p. 45). I can now see this affects how I determine what is valuable and the larger implications this has as I start working with students.

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Though one of my roles as an educator is to be a transformational agent for change, another learning I had is the difference and importance between culturally and linguistically relevance, responsiveness and sustaining. When I started the SU MIT program I  understood, as a future social studies teacher, the need to incorporate lessons and stories from marginialized communities that were left out of my and many other people's history classes throughout public education. I recognized this as a duty so my students would understand, more accurately, our history in the United States. For example, incorporating Revolution in Our Time by Kekla Magoon that tells the history of the Black Panthers, not as is commonly remembered and taught as a militant group promoting anti-white and black power sentiments, but as an intersectional grassroots community network serving their communities, through free breakfast programs, educational classes, and more. However, I now see that my approach here is steeped in being culturally relevant and there is more to be done if I want to be a culturally and linguistically responsive teacher.

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My first learning relates to my role as a transformational agent for justice aiming to change the status quo. The agents in the Men in Black facilitated peaceful relationships with alien races while also remaining unseen from the public. A teacher is like the agents in Men in Black because they are fighting systems of oppression and a status quo strong like the countless aliens in the infinite universe. Like the agents in the Men in Black, teachers also work without much, if any, recognition from the public and in today's climate are even chastised in the public eye. Teaching has the power to transform students' lives in good ways and bad ways. I am learning and reaching towards the good ways. I am reaching towards abolitionist teaching. As Dr. Bettina Love said, "Some teachers will create a homeplace for their students while teaching them with the highest expectations; some will protest in the streets; some will fight standardized testing; some will restore justice in their classrooms; some will create justice-centered curriculums and teaching...There is no one way to be an abolitionist teacher." ( Love p89).

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Men In Black - From "Men In Black" Soundtrack

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Men In Black - From "Men In Black" Soundtrack

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During our first Socratic Seminar, Maddie questioned whether we, as educators, need to teach some of the skills deemed necessary and valuable within the dominant culture because in not doing so it could, potentially, be disadvantageous to the students. However, from our discussion and chapter 3 "Culture and Learning" by Nieto  we learned how students who identify with cultures outside of the dominant culture do not thrive and learn when their cultures are not represented. As educators, then how dowe affirm and value the cultures of all our students while setting them up with the skills for success within the dominant culture. Maddie took it a step to alleviate this tension when she expressed that a teacher could explicitly explain why the skills valued in the dominant culture are being taught  as a way to navigate this dilemma. My most powerful learning, though, came when Dr. Von Esch explained that our role can be to provide space and language for students to understand, validate and affirm their experiences, cultures, and the injustices that exist within their lives while also helping them build the tools to feel empowered to challenge the dominant culture and other injustices. This built on a seed planted when I read, Multiplication is for White People by Lisa Delpit, in which she explained that empowering students to be critical thinkers can help them fight systems of oppression.