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I believe that being a teacher-activist is standing up for your students, even when it might go against the beliefs and policies of the school system. As a teacher, you must make yourself aware of the issues that your students face and work to make sure they are working through them and being the most comfortable they can be in school while facing them. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a good teacher activist will search for resources for their students and find ways to help them through their struggles. This might also mean going to the school system and giving students some leniency when it comes to homework policies and attendance based on what they are going through at home. Being a teacher activist also means you make sure every student is being treated equitably in the classroom by everyone, including teachers, staff, and students. Finally, I believe that communicating with parents about what you are doing for their child in the classroom is an important role of being a teacher activist. According to the Rethinking Schools article "Activism is Good Teaching" by Crawford-Garrett et. al, "Amanda provided families with information about the amount of class time spent on testing, directed parents to links for opt-out forms and, like Michelle, encouraged them to make a decision based on the best interest of their child." This teacher did a great job communicating with parents, as well as making sure the child is getting the opportunity to succeed in the best way possible for them.

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I believe collaboration is a key component to learning. In schools, students must collaborate not only to share ideas, but also to develop social skills. School is one of the major areas where kids get the opportunity to develop social skills. According to the article "Testing in Dystopia" by Wayne Au, "in a 2003 nationwide survey, researchers found that 76 percent of the teachers in states with high-stakes testing and 63 percent of the teachers in their study from states with low-stakes testing reported that their state testing programs were increasing teacher-centered pedagogies, rote memorization of materials, and lecturing." This means that schools are steering away from collaboration and group work, and gravitating toward individualized work and teacher lectures. With this, students aren't learning to work with others. However, getting the chance to collaborate with each other in a group allows students to learn to work together and get along. Collaborating also allows students to learn to accept their peers thoughts and ideas. Working in a group, students must be able to hear out each other's ideas and not interrupt. They also must validate each other with their body language and verbal feedback. While collaborating, students also get the chance to work with others who might come from different backgrounds than them, which introduces more diversity in their life. Overall, collaboration really just helps students to work as a team and figure out how to work with people who they might not necessarily agree with. Especially when it is a huge project with an end goal where they are evaluated, students must learn to work productively together to reach their common goal and receive a good grade, instead of sitting at a desk and filling out a worksheet by themselves.

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I believe community/family is important to optimal learning. We know students come to school to learn. However, we tend to forget that they go home to their families at the end of the day and have to remember what they learned. Getting the family and community involved in a student's learning will help them bridge the gap between their home life and school life. This will help them retain information if they aren't just throwing what they learned out the window when they get on the bus to go home.  Community and family also play an important part inside the classroom as well. Incorporating parts of the students' communities and their family traditions and customs makes them feel more interested in what they are learning. This is when they are able to make the most connections. According to this week's reading, "Decolonizing the Classroom: Lessons in Multicultural Education," the author states, "when classes are not grounded in the lives of students, do not include the voices and knowledge of communities being studied, and are not based in dialogue, they create environments where not only are white students miseducated, but students of color feel as if their very identities are under attack." We must make sure our students are feeling heard and valued by caring enough to incorporate their personal lives into the classroom.

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I believe my students will learn best when I create a classroom environment conducive to equity and valuing all. I want my students to know that they are all valued, no matter what their race, background, or status is. I believe when my students feel valued and are treated with equity, their self efficacy will increase and they will believe in themselves and reach for the stars. In the article "A Pedagogy of Resistance" by Catherine Capellaro, the text mentions that we should give heroes to our students beyond just US presidents and military heroes. This is part of making the classroom equitable. We should make sure our students are all aware that they don't have to conform to what society considers "acceptable" or "normal". If students can set high goals and expectations for themselves, they will never settle for anything less than their own "best". This is how they will learn to their highest potential.

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I believe students learn best when they are able to make connections between the course content and their own lives. In one of my past psychology courses in my teacher ed program at IU Bloomington, I learned about schema. Students are constantly adding and connecting to existing schema and, at rare times, creating brand new schema to learn new things and add to their knowledge of mind. If students are not able to make connections to existing schema, or make incorrect connections to existing schema, they will not accurately be able to understand the material we, as teachers, are so desperately trying to teach them. I also believe students learn best when they are given equitable opportunity to learn. In the article "Toward a Conception of Culturally Responsive Classroom Management" by Weinstein et. al, "We need to ask whether diversity requires different approaches to  classroom management, to examine the kinds of cultural conflicts that are  likely to arise in ethnically diverse classrooms, and to consider the best ways to help preservice teachers become multiculturally  competent." I know this quote deals with classroom management, but I believe it could also be applied to teaching in the classroom. If you have diverse students in your classroom, you have to think "I know this approach is going to work for this student, but is this approach going to be the best for that student?" Differentiating content and practice when teaching is a key component of being an equitable teaching and helping your students learn in the best way possible for them.

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I believe my responsibilities as a teacher are to make sure each student feels safe and each student has an equitable opportunity to learn and work in the classroom. It is my responsibility to provide my students with the necessary tools for each of them to thrive academically at their own level. As a teacher, it is my responsibility to listen to my students, to be patient with my students, and to help my students grow. It is my responsibility as a teacher to pay attention to what each of my students need to achieve their highest potential and to equip them with the resources they require to reach that potential. I am also responsible for making sure my students are able to think for themselves and form their own stances and opinions, much like James Baldwin states in A Talk to Teachers on page 686. "I would teach him...that he has the right and the necessity to examine everything" (1963).

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I believe that learning can be done by anyone. Everyone has something to learn, whether they are 0, 20, 60, or 100 years old. The least intelligent people in the world have the ability to learn, and conversely, the smartest people in the world can learn too. Learning can also be done by those in different positions in class and culture. According to the article "Savage Unrealities" by Paul Gorski, students in poverty do not have equitable access to the education that some middle class students take for granted (2006/2007). As a teacher, I believe that learning is especially important to and for these students of poverty. These students may not have access to learning tools in their homes. As a future public school teacher, I want to give these students access to high-quality and equitable learning where they would otherwise not be able to have it.

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I believe the purpose of schooling is a broad question. There are many purposes of school. One purpose of schooling is to teach children to become adults that can function effectively on their own in their adult lives. We do this by teaching them the main subjects in school such as math, reading, social studies, etc. However, in my opinion, I believe that we should also be teaching them more hands-on things that they will encounter in life like doing taxes and budgeting for expenses. According to the article "Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline" by the editors of Rethinking Schools, "Children are being branded as criminals at ever-younger ages." I believe that one of the the purposes of schooling is to try to decrease this reality. Setting high expectations for your students and boosting their self-efficacy in school could help to change this narrative for these young students. I believe that another purpose of schooling is to give students an opportunity to develop essential skills in life like problem solving and social skills. By giving students an opportunity to interact with each other, they are developing social skills that they will continue to build upon and carry with them throughout their whole teen and adult lives. This will help them get jobs and make friends.

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I believe all my future students are entitled to a quality education. School is essential for children to gain the necessary skills to live a successful adult life (in most cases). Reading, writing, and math especially are important to build a high-quality life for yourself. However, science and social studies are also important subjects to dive into to become literate in the workings of the world. I believe my future students will need to develop connections to their lives in order to really understand what they are learning in school. According to the article "America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline," "all children need stimulation, protection, and sustained support to develop and
prepare for successful adulthood. Ideally, this happens in the family and community, with the schools providing further opportunities for growth." I believe that this is so true. All my future students may not have great home lives, and the school and me as the teacher need to take responsibility for providing a safe and high-quality education for all students. All students deserve this.

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I believe that teaching is more than just depositing information into the brains of students in a classroom. It is also making sure each child has everything they need to become a citizen of the world. Teaching is being aware of what each child in your classroom needs not just academically, but also physically, mentally, and emotionally. Also, teaching is ensuring equitability for every student no matter where they live, what they look like, or where they come from. It is checking your privilege and creating your self identity in order to avoid subscribing to the stereotypes that exist in today's society and education system. Teaching is also about learning to have conversations about race and diversity with your class, even when you might not feel completely comfortable. According to the article "Race: Some Teachable--and Uncomfortable--Moments" by Heidi Tolentino, "Anti-racist teaching requires a willingness to go where students' responses take us." If you are a teacher that promotes discussion in your classroom, you must be willing to discuss these topics while, at the same time, creating a safe and non-judgemental space to do so because children will be having these conversations with or without the safe context of a classroom. Teaching is making sure students have the opportunity to discuss in a safe space.