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crucial to student success. Community/school collaboration sets students up for the real world and creates meaningful connections that can have a long-lasting impact on students. In the article titled Trayvon Martin and My Students, it speaks of the necessity of engaging in dialogue that promotes unity between groups. Finding adequate community partners play an "important and active role in the education of students." This is because students are getting real-world experience through collaboration with their peers.

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intrinsic to a successful classroom environment. Students spend around 40 hours a week at school and the rest of the time is with their family or in their community. In For White Folks, it chronicles Christopher's experience in school when he jumped under the desk after hearing a loud bang in the hallway. Instead of the teacher recognizing that there was valid fear there, she banished him to the principals office. It's moments like these when we totally forget that our students have stories, have pain, and have experiences outside of class. Being involved in my students' community provides them with an additional support. Knowing they can be understood inside the classroom is vital.

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I believe my students learn best when I...

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I believe my students learn best when I...

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remember that my students' future is worth more than I'll ever be paid every other week. There are so many disparites in the educational system, and I believe that my students will learn best when I remember to leave them outside of the classroom. I believe my students also learn best when I celebrate their culture and home-life through the curriculum in my classroom. As an addition to that, when they see their work on the walls, they will be more invested in the process. I also believe that my students learn best when I remove myself as the sole dominant force of education in the classroom. By taking myself out of the center, it allows students to take ownership and be more proud of what they are doing.

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they feel safe and supported. I plan to employ the 5 tenants of culturally relevant classroom management. I am not the center of my world and I want my students to feel like they have agency in my classroom because they do. I have as much to learn from them as they do from me. Beyond that, I think students learn best when their physical needs are met. I cannot teach a child to read if they can't hear me over the grumbling in their stomach. I had the same teacher for 4th and 5th grades. She had this drawer that was filled with snacks and you could go up and get something when you needed it. No questions asked, no shame. I didn't realize it then, but she was teaching humanity. I also believe that students learn best when they're encouraged. I want to be my students biggest hype-man. When they leave my room, I want them to feel like they matter because they do.

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conditioned to believe that they are destined for prison, but in my classroom I’m changing the narrative. In “Arresting Development, it states that “54 percent of students in the state were suspended or expelled at least once between 7th and 12th grades. Just 3 of all disciplinary actions were for conduct… 97 percent were at the discretion of school administrators…” I’ve experienced the way that teachers have treated students at this school—students who may next year be sitting in the room as I do my student teaching. I’ve listened as teachers have threatened to call 9-1-1 as a scare tactic. I want to counter this with incorporating some of Linea King’s classroom management strategies. She learned through failure. She saw her missed opportunities and refused to stay stagnant. I want to have the kind of classroom where we support each other before fights break out, as a proactive measure not a reactive measure. I believe that all my future students will have dignity and be shown grace to the best of my ability. My students will not be threatened with prison or being thrown out of the room to make my job “convenient.” Teaching is my dream, my students are my dream. I believe my future students deserve to feel like someone’s dream come true.

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I believe that the purpose of schooling...

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I believe that the purpose of schooling...

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is so muddled. It should be to set students up for success-- be it in furthering their education or in pursuing a career. Instead, students-- most specifically black students are funneled into this hell-spiral where their "offenses" are punished unequivocally with their white peers. Students are being punished for asking questions and forced into this submission of be quiet, don't make a scene, stay calm, don't have an opinion. It's destroying lives.

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happens when you open yourself up as a learner. Teaching is so multi-faceted that the moment you decide that only the teacher teaches and the student learns, you're doing a disservice to everyone. Culture is something that I want to be implemented in my classroom. I want my students-- especially my bicultural students to feel like who they are and where they come from has value inside and outside of the classroom. In the reading, it talked about people who have great education and great jobs in their home countries, and they go to the United States only to be stripped of their titles and forced into entry level jobs. I want to teach in a way that students realize they have as much to learn from the janitor of a company as they do from the CEO, because there is so much that goes into a person that is beyond what you can see.

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shouldn't be limited by the financial holdings of a child or their family. It's important to me to create a classroom where my students and their parents feel safe and welcome to come as they are. I realize that some days my students may come to class hungry or without a necessary supply-- and that doesn't mean they're a bad student or that their parents are bad parents. In the article by Paul Gorski, he details the flaws in Ruby Paynes framework. One of which is blaming parents employment status for their poverty. Gorski states that this isn't the cause of poverty, but the impact. Years of a socioeconomic divide will have longstanding effects that extend so far beneath the surface that the cause is no longer readily apparent. Learning is dependent on ignoring deficit theory. Blaming the oppressed for causing the oppression is asinine. Learning can occur when we "consider how we've been conditioned to comply... with injustices." I believe that learning happens when we stop teaching to the test. In Teaching in Dystopia by Wayne Au, he talks about the way that bad pedagogy is destroying the subjects being taught. For what it's worth, I don't yet understand the frustration of being put in a scenario where your forced to teach to a test or lose your job. But, if it comes down to that-- is that even really teaching? I think learning occurs when you are able to take a deep breath and teach relevant material to your students for the sake of learning, rather than just for a certain grade on a standardized test.

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I believe my responsibilities as a teacher are...

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I believe my responsibilities as a teacher are...

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to ensure the well being of my students as a whole. I want to create a safe place for my students. Not just safe physically, but emotionally too. I want to push my students to be the best version of themselves. Because of this, I believe that it is my responsibility to not require students to fit into a box of what the "ideal student" should. In recent news, refusing to stand for the flag or national anthem has caused uproar around the country. It's my responsibility to support them as they form their belief system and opinions and learn to stand strong behind them.