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One cultural value that I inherited from my family is my faith.  It is my faith that sustains me.  It is a driving force in my life, and it gives me a sense of the plan and purpose for which I was born into this world.  My complete identity is shaped by my faith, and it is a daily source of motivation and hope for me.  To represent this hope, this faith, this joy, and this truth, I took a picture of a magazine cover that I keep on a table in my living room. There is a cross on the cover, and its significance is central to the Christian faith.  The cross was an instrument of torture and shame, but we glory in it because we believe that the most selfless act ever performed by men or angels took place upon it.  As a result of this belief, I maintain radiant hope and a heart full of love that I strive to reflect in my kindness towards others.

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I am Stacey.

I am confident and hopeful.

I wonder about the day of the Lord’s return.

I hear the trumpet sound.

I see the parting of the clouds.

I want to be ready.

I am confident and hopeful.

I pretend nothing.

I feel everything.

I touch the heart of God.

I worry not.

I cry because I am overwhelmed by His love.

I am confident and hopeful.

I understand that I am limited in my understanding.

I say that it is okay.

I dream of life everlasting.

I try to stay ready.

I hope in the Lord.

I am His child.

I am Stacey.

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I took this picture on my last birthday.  I was so excited to be entering a new year and phase of life, and I am approaching the future with unrestrained joy, enthusiasm, and anticipation.

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Strengths with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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Strengths with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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I am not pursuing the teaching profession simply because it is something that I want to do.  Rather, I truly believe that I have been called to do this work, and I embrace it whole-heartedly because every part of me is drawn to the herculean task of enlightening the hearts and minds of children and equipping them with the tools they need to successfully navigate through life.  Therefore, I believe that my strength in teaching culturally diverse students is my compassion for children and my determination to see them succeed.  I believe that a compassionate classroom environment is one in which all students are understood to be complex people.  It is a place where they feel they belong as they rise to the challenge, with encouragement, to be the best version of themselves academically and personally.  Compassionate classrooms are places where students’ voices are heard and their needs and ideas are prioritized, and this is what all students need regardless of their cultural backgrounds.

I selected a picture of my nephew and I to reflect my idea of what it means to be compassionate.  He is the most recent addition to my family, and the love I have for him is unparalleled.  I don’t yet have any children of my own, but having him in my life has allowed me to witness firsthand the beauty of unrestrained consideration for others.  Because he is so young, he is yet untainted by external influences that poison his thoughts and judgment, and he sees everybody through innocent and beautiful eyes.  As we hit adulthood, we often become creatures of habit, comfortable in the familiarity of our surroundings.  We shy away from anything with an unfamiliar taste.  In doing so, we walk away from numerous opportunities and positive experiences.  It is my hope that the memories of this unfiltered understanding that I have for my nephew will be a reminder of the beauty and importance of unbridled compassion extended towards all those that I encounter.

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Struggles with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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Struggles with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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Sometimes I find myself thinking that surely I am a cultural diversity expert.  After all, I’m black and we know everything there is to know about being culturally aware.   Then I have to check myself and realize that this is a part of my own bias.  While it is true that blacks, particularly in America, have been culturally misunderstood and misdiagnosed, that does not negate the experiences of other cultural groups.  My concern is that the tug on my heart regarding the challenges faced by students of my own culture will always will be slightly stronger than any other pull – not in disrespect to any other group but simply because I personally understand their strivings.  Because I know this about myself, I purposely make attempts to stretch myself beyond this barrier by encouraging all of my students to express their own cultures and ideas, even if they are challenging to my own perspective.  I truly believe that many of the challenges that I and other teachers have in this regard are simply due to a failure to move beyond notions that are grounded in our own limited frame of reference.  But even though we may not be able to explicitly relate to the experiences of another group, compassion is the key. Compassion is marked by have a true consciousness of others, and in this case it’s all about choosing to rise up and make efforts to understand how students’ cultures affect their perceptions, self-esteem, values, classroom behavior, and learning.

I selected this picture that I took at an Atlanta Falcons football game to reflect this idea, because the Falcons’ slogan is “Rise Up,” and that is what I intend to do to push beyond my struggles, truly understand my students, and use that understanding to help them feel welcomed, affirmed, respected, and valued.

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The most important book that I own is my Bible, and beyond the spiritual significance that it holds for me as a person of faith, I also just enjoy reading the stories.  I received my first book of Bible stories when I was in first grade.  My mother bought it for me and would read me a story from it most nights before I went to bed.  Even then, I could vividly imagine the wall of Jericho falling down or Moses leading an entire nation of people across a sea whose waters had been suspended in mid-air.  It was so exciting to me, and the words always seemed to just jump off the page and come alive in my mind.  What’s interesting is that I don’t like rereading a book, no matter how interesting or enjoyable it is to read it the first time, but the Bible remains the only text that I can read over and over and never get bored or tired of its content.  Also, the older I get, the more interesting it becomes because there is so much more that I as a mature reader can consider about the content including historical references, poetic language, and literary significance.

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Right now, Saturday is the only day during my week that I am not obligated to do anything or go anywhere, so I intentionally carve out some time during that day to write in my journal.  Sometimes it’s just a sentence or two, and sometimes I’ll end up writing several pages.  Each time, however, I am able to see with greater clarity the big picture of my life as well as the smaller pieces of evidence that catalogue my successes, both great and small, along the way.  Sometimes in the busy-ness and challenges of life, it is hard to see the step-by-step progress that we’re making in our own lives.  Journal writing allows me to see how I’ve changed over time.  I get to see areas of strength, growth, and achievement as well as places where I took a misstep and fell. The great thing about journaling is that I can look back and see where the misstep was and make sure it doesn’t happen again—all because I made sure to log it, allowing myself to learn from my mistakes.  That’s why it’s one of my favorite things to do, and I included a picture of my personal journal to reflect this.

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To my displeasure, I spend way too much time in my car.  Traveling back and forth to school, work, volunteering, and handling routine errands each week means that I am on the road and in Atlanta traffic for an insane amount of time.  This means that on a daily basis, I get to see all the sights and sounds of the city which are rich with all kinds of literacy in varying forms.  In addition to actively having to pay attention to road signs and traffic signals, I also subconsciously interact with billboards, restaurant and business signs, license plate numbers, music blasting from other cars, pedestrians, advertisements on the side of city buses, and flat animals – just to name a few.  And I do all of this while listening to talk radio and informational podcasts, and humming along to the endless tunes that continuously play inside my head.  Therefore, this picture from the inside of my car as I wait for the light to change and continue on to the next stop of my journey best represents the literacy practice that I most often engage in throughout my day.

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My cultural discomfort is social media.  I despise it all:  Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, memes, emojis, excessive texting, etc., etc.  In short, I believe that the current overreliance on social media, specifically as it pertains to seeking attention in the form of followers, views, and likes is very concerning, because people disengage from human face-to-face interaction in favor of virtual interactions.  The scene of people staring at their smartphones at dinner instead of talking with other people at the table actually kind of saddens me a bit, because I feel that people miss out on important life moments in their quest to catch the next wave of short-lived crazes propagated by someone they don’t even know.  I realize that I am rarity these days, and this is why I selected the picture of a two-dollar bill as my visual representation.  Two-dollar bills remain in circulation to this day, but they are produced at a far lesser quantity than the one-dollar bill, making them difficult to find.  Similarly, I am sure there are others circulating through society who have trepidations about the seeming all-consuming presence of social media in people’s lives, but it is not the majority consensus; therefore, I often feel like the lone rebel in a room full of social mediaphiles.  Thankfully, I’m okay with being different.

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In my childhood home, my parents mandated that my siblings and I speak standard American English at all times.  My mother is a retired educator, and my father is a southern pastor who emphasized the importance of education and forbade us to speak slang and “street talk in our home.  This presented an interesting challenge, because our home, located next door to the church my father pastored, was directly in the middle of the “hood”.  My father’s desire to live in the community he served among the people that he felt needed him the most, meant that my siblings and I attended school with children from the surrounding neighborhoods who were not speaking the same English I was speaking at home.  In fact, my siblings and I were often teased for “talking white,” and in my childhood efforts to fit in, I adopted a lot of the local slang in order to ease some of the ridicule while at school.  However, I left every bit of that slang at school, because my parents reminded us often that we were to be the “standard setters” and absolutely could not bring that kind of talk into our home.  As a result, using standard English remains the most comfortable choice for me, and I often make assumptions about the educational backgrounds of those within my own race who choose less-formal English vernacular as their primary means of communication.  Throughout the years, I have become increasingly more aware of my bias in this regard, and I now make deliberate efforts to appreciate unique language patterns as an integral part of the beautifully woven and complex tapestry that positively identifies each individual from every other person on earth.

With this in mind, I chose this picture of a coin to represent my cultural bias.  As a young child, and even now sometimes, I code-switch depending on with whom I am speaking.  But whether I’m speaking standard English or a more relaxed version of the language, I am still very much me, and one side of this metaphorical coin is not better than the other – the value is the same.  Therefore, I am learning more and more every day to appreciate all aspects of language use and value people beyond their language differences.

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My understanding of privilege is that it is an exclusive benefit granted to persons who are members of a demographic that hold power in society.  On the surface, I have two things working against me in that regard:  I am black and female – arguably two of the most underprivileged groups throughout American history.  However, my advantages in this life extend far deeper than those external layers.  I am privileged to have good health – mentally, emotionally, and physically.  I am privileged to have the opportunity to return school and continue my education which will make me a more marketable member of society and boost my financial status.  I am privileged to live in a country in which I can practice the religion of my choice without fear of retribution.  I am privileged to earn an income that sustains a middle class life for my mother and I.  And most recently, I was privileged to purchase my first home and acquire my own little slice of the American dream.  It is for this reason that I included this picture of my backyard.  It is so beautiful and serene, and it is the place that I go when I just need a little quiet, peace, and retreat from the busy-ness of life.  I love to sit on the deck, bask in the sun, and drink in the fresh air as I quietly talk to my God and reflect on how truly privileged I am despite any surface indicators to the contrary.

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The object I selected is a portion of a hand-written note given to me by my mother.  For the last three years, I have had the privilege of having my mother live with me, and it has been one of the most unexpected joys of my life.  I have to admit that at first I was a bit concerned about this living arrangement, only because I’ve lived on my own since I was 18 years old, and I wasn’t sure how much of an adjustment it would be.  But as it turns out, I had no reason to worry.   In addition to frequent home-cooked meals, baked treats, and house plants that actually stay alive due to my mother’s savvy green thumb, I have been the recipient of my mother’s intense love in even greater measure.  One of the ways that she expresses that love is by leaving random notes around the house for me.  I returned home from work one day to find this particular note on my nightstand. These gentle reminders of my mother’s continual love and support have been such a source of strength for me as I work hard to achieve yet unaccomplished goals.  They also make me even more aware of the power of an encouraging word.  Sometimes those little notes are just the pick-me-up I need to face a difficult task that I’d much rather keep on the back burner indefinitely, and it is within this awareness that I will strive to be a constant source of encouragement for my own students.  If an encouraging word is what is needed to push them a little further, to get them to work a little harder, or to get them to value themselves a little bit more, then I am prepared to dole out an unlimited supply.

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The thing that I like most about myself is that 99.99999% of the time, I am in high spirits.  I so sincerely love life that it is easy for me to see the positive in every situation.  It’s interesting because at times I’ve been accused of putting up a façade under the premise that,“No one can be that positive all the time,” but my response to that is, “Maybe you can’t, but I can.”  This is not to say that I do not experience difficulties; however, I am never without hope that on the other side of every adversity is beauty to behold.

I am an avid reader of the Bible, and one of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 17:22 which reads, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine:  but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”  If this is true, and I believe it to be so, I am certain that one of the most valuable assets that I will take with me into the teaching profession is my merry heart.  So many students are faced with so much negativity in the world outside of the classroom, and it is my intention that my classroom will be a high-spirited haven of positivity.  Yes, there will be challenges to face, but we will face them with an air of optimism and assuredness that we can get over those hurdles and find some source of victory on the other side.

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I am my parents’ third born child.  Because my father selected my oldest sister’s name on his own, with no input from my mother, my mother exercised this same liberty when it came to naming their second child, who became the first Stacey in our family.  However, Stacey #1, as she is affectionately referred to by our family, passed away a few days after her birth.  My mother was still grieving this loss when she conceived me three months later, and up until the day I was born, she and my father had not come to a final decision on the name for their third born daughter.  Both my parents describe that seeing me for the first time was somewhat eerie because I looked exactly like Stacey #1, and it was in that moment that it was decided that I would be Stacey #2.

Regarding the name itself, there was no profound reason that my mother remembers for selecting the name Stacey.  She just recalls that from the first time she ever heard it, she thought it to be pleasant and always wanted a daughter named Stacey.  She never looked into the origin or meaning of the name until after I was born.  It was then that she learned that it is a Greek name that means resurrection, and resurrect means to bring back to life.  Now, I do not believe in reincarnation, but in hearing my mother tell of how profoundly Stacey #1’s death affected her as a young mother, I am convinced that God sent me to somehow help relieve the burden of my mom’s grief.  And she will tell you that of her six children, I have been the least burdensome and problematic, which my siblings find annoying (and I'm not sure how truthful that is anyway). But it is true that I have always taken on the role of peacemaker among my siblings due to my far more easygoing nature, and I find it funny that in a family full of extreme Type A personalities, I am the one who seems to have inherited the bulk of my mother’s laid back and relaxed personality.  It makes me wonder if Stacey #1 had a similar personality.  I’ll never know, but I am proud to carry her name.