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I loved all of these videos and podcast !
The spoken word with Jamila had me very engaged. Hw she spoke about speaking really made me reflect on how I speak, more importantly how I speak in different environments. I know that I am an articulate person regaurdless of how I may code switch. The ted talk made me think that no matter how someone speaks it doesn't mean they are not articulate.  I want students in my classroom to know that although you may not be able to speak english as well as society has set the standard it does not mean you are not articulate.
In Chimamanda Ted Talk she talked about a pretty popular topic in not just society at the moment but culturally responsive teaching as well. Students need to see themselves in books that they are reading in order to have a connection. Also, we need as a whole to have multiple exposes to diverse cultures so that we are not assuming that we do not stereotype a races by one representation.
Overall this videos make me think of my students and how they are each different and unique and nothing like society paints them to be.

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The sources viewed from Module 9 reflects on how the human brain is wired to understand familiar information based on background and environment. Race and Language was the theme because due to many losing their culture from slavery and lack of representation it demonstrates evidence of the need for a strategic teaching with diverse learners.
This issue is a challenge for me because i represent two demographics; race related and disability related. Both groups are often ignored and underrepresented. simplifying my work and diversifying it usually boils down to teaching with examples they face in school or when they play because many of my students are never outside to see their environment.

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My most favorite of the three sources was the Ted Talk, " One dangerous Story" by Chimamanda Adichie. There was so much in there that she spoke about that I resonated to. The story of her writing and illustrating what she had read as a child is the story of most  of us minorities. I wish my students could see themselves in the history textbooks being more than just slaves. I wish my students imagined doctors in white coats being people of their own race instead of picturing them as White men or women in a white coat.

From the Ted Talk by Jamila, she reassured my association of multilingual with intellect. The more languages we know, the more articulate we are. I want to tell "English" that our broken and stolen language also has grammatical rules that we abide by. I want my students to know that all their languages are welcome in our classroom. That it is only going to help them learn more efficiently and that it will add to our classrooms intellect as well.

This impacts the development of learning partnership with me in the sense that it simply makes me aware, allows me to bend my mind from the stereotypes that have been ingrained and now molded to reality.  It allows me to love my background and encourage my students to love theirs in a learning environment.

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I really, really enjoyed Chimamanda Adichie's TED Talk. The notion she presents which resonated with me the most is as follows: it’s not that stereotypes are not true, it’s that they’re incomplete. Moreover, it’s natural to hold beliefs of someone, or a group of people, but we must think critically and reflectively about our individual perspectives. Oftentimes these single-stories we carry with us transcend into intrinsic truths, which at their extreme can become dangerous to the world at large. Such connects to Hammond's text - we must be wary of the biases, stereotypes, and mindsets we hold, whether or not we are aware of them; if we are not, we risk shutting out the diverse stories of our student body.

After watching this talk, my belief that we all carry our own intrinsic biases, no matter how subtle or explicit, is confirmed. Chimamanda's vulnerability in sharing her own single-story experiences urged me to continue to reflect on my own biases, and to constructively think about deconstructing them. This is equally challenging for me - deconstructing our biases (or in Chimamanda's terms, our single-stories) is a lifelong endeavor; we must always analyze how our perspectives on the world and of individuals impacts our interpretation of them.

Moreover, in regards to teaching, I have become even more aware of identifying texts and experiences my students can relate to in their own learning. Doing so greatly promotes connection to class material, which they can further transcend into their own lives in the long-term. Our students should not be subjected to a single-story, whether in the humanities or STEM - such is a disservice to their learning. In contrast, educators should strive to have students constantly making connections to their own experiences in order to resonate with what they learn.

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What’s coming up for you as your listen/watch/read these different accounts? What threads do you see between them and Hammond’s work so far?
I am beginning to digest a lot of this through my own personal experience. These accounts all bring up memories and feelings that are relatable. In regards to Hammond, the podcast with Dingle and Yeh are most similar. I find the most similar as I interpret them all three as reactive, as opposed to producing work that begins with those typically disempowered starting off empowered.

What is something that you are sure about as you listened/read/watched?
That these experiences will never go away as long as as our status quo remains. In order to change, power must through systemic change, until then we can only relieve the symptoms of the systems that continue to do a disservice to those Not in power.

What’s something that you heard / read / watched that was challenging for you?
A lot of it was. I feel as though I am hypersensitive to racism/classism and the issues at hand were directly related to the conversations. There was not any time where I though they were overreaching on an issue, quite the opposite, I feel as though they can go further with pushing the envelope. It was also challenging listening to and reliving some of my own experiences.

How does this impact the development of learning partnerships for you?
With my students, I ty my best to not use my students past experience against them and give them the benefit of the doubt. Even when I have and when students still break my traits, I will still, in a limited way, continue to trust them. Student deserve trust and open mindedness towards them. I do not hold anything against them. Lastly, I especially never use their culture against them or to define them, because only evil  do so.

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I can't help but think about the fact that we need to unite our learning culture as a whole in this country. There is so much being said about the failures and short comings of our profession it feels hard to support it or even stay positive. It's annoying. I grow stronger from working with people like all of you who believed in that same message of hope and positivity to make an impact in young people's lives like I did. I'm super down to fix my ways and be the best version of me, but holy crap, we need a lot more than that to make a difference. Systems need to change and become automatic to stop students from spiraling into despair.

With all the readings I have been ingesting, along with the practice and self reflection coming from this job it honors me to look around a room of fellows, all with different stories, and I get excited to be on the cutting edge of this overhaul. Let's get this bread Cohort 31.

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What is something that you are sure about as you listened/read/watched?

How does this impact the development of learning partnerships for you?

One thing that I am sure of is that I do not want to “Fix” my students, IEP or not. Student need to be seen as not a single story by and a person. A person that has an ability that need to be enhanced and push to its highest. Within my classroom I take my time to look and see when the students are with IEP’s. One of the reasons I do this is because I do not want to prejudge my students but see them for who that are and the potential, they have within themselves.

This impact the development of learning partnerships between me and the student, by giving them more of a buy-in for their own success.

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The main issue for me that ran through all of the accounts was the importance of not making assumptions. That means not making assumptions about yourself, or about your students, or about what you teach. It’s easy to assume that you’re a thoughtful and caring teacher. I’m sure that most teachers are caring people, have curiosity about their students, and are knowledgeable about what they teach. However, that doesn’t mean that you're free from stereotyping, and that the content you teach does not promote inequality.

This is where I saw the connections between these accounts and the Hammond text. Both push you to examine your own biases, and encourage self-reflection to help eliminate them. We all fall into patterns, and if you’re not aware of them you can’t improve. In the same way, you need to show real interest in your students, and be curious about their backgrounds and their cultures. It can’t be just a surface interest, where you’re checking off a box. Instead, you need to learn about the whole person, and look beyond signifiers like poverty and always ‘make space for alternative explanations”

Some of these ideas I had been aware of before, such as finding relatable texts for students, and the need to avoid having one dominant narrative. It’s different seeing these issues described by people who are affected by it themselves, however

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Where i still feel challenged is how to respect student dialects, and their ways of speaking, while still teaching them to speak in a way that will help them navigate college and the work world. Though it is unfair, students will be judged by the way they speak. I want to be respectful, but I don’t want to cut off any opportunities for them.

In my own partnerships, I want to make sure students know that I’m curious about them, and that I’m not pigeonholing them based on just one or two facts. I also need to give them a fuller picture of myself, so they don’t stereotype me as well based on how I look or dress. These will both help me build stronger relationships with students. In addition, I also want to examine my subjects more critically, How is what I’m teaching leading to greater inequality, instead of less? I need to make sure that what I teach, and how I teach, is helping instead of making the problem worse.

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Trevon John
As I reflect after watching the video it reinforced the notion that you should not “judge a book by its cover”. Also the podcast called culture of mathematics explains the biases within the education  system. Furthermore as I reflect on the videos it’s evident that the education system still needs major reforms. It is important as educators to make sure we are not contributing to aspects of the education system that still needs reforms to ensure that all students feel included. It was challenging to watch the three ways to speak video because I could relate. My family is from the Caribbean and they speak differently from what is perceived as articulate. This video reminded me of the code switching that I had to do while moving through various spaces in the United States. I want to ensure that all my students from various backgrounds feel included.

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Trevon John
As I reflect after watching the video it reinforced the notion that you should not “judge a book by its cover”. Also the podcast called culture of mathematics explains the biases within the education  system. Furthermore as I reflect on the videos it’s evident that the education system still needs major reforms. It is important as educators to make sure we are not contributing to aspects of the education system that still needs reforms to ensure that all students feel included. It was challenging to watch the three ways to speak video because I could relate. My family is from the Caribbean and they speak differently from what is perceived as articulate. This video reminded me of the code switching that I had to do while moving through various spaces in the United States. I want to ensure that all my students from various backgrounds feel included.

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As I read each article I immediately thought of my kids and things that I would like to change in my classroom. Like how I present certain information, the way that speak, and actions I take. "3 languages" resonated the most with me because I feel like we all speak 3 different languages in our homes, school, and outside based on our level of comfortability. Listening to the ted talks and the podcast let me know that biases and alive and well in all of us and we must all reimagine, reframe and relearn in order to be the best humans we can be to other humans.

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·       What’s coming up for you as your listen/watch/read these different accounts? What threads do you see between them and Hammond’s work so far?

Listening to the podcast I felt as if both of Hammond and Dr. Cathery were disconnected and kind of lost what the real issue is. I feel like they both have done substantial research and have made strides in making people aware of their biases, but I feel that they have only scratched the surface.

·       What is something that you are sure about as you listened/read/watched?

What I can be sure of is that talking about these issues can make a ripple in the water, but we have a lot more work to do in order to make a wave. People will continue to make assumptions and treat people poorly because of those assumptions but it is up to us as educators to try to raise a new generation that are aware of these biases and check them at the door.

·       What’s something that you heard / read / watched that was challenging for you?

It was challenging to listen to the podcast as the speaker was completely disconnected. I realized that facts aren’t enough for me and that I would have felt better if she was more passionate about the cause and her research all together.

·       How does this impact the development of learning partnerships for you?

This makes me realize that we have a long way to go before things change. It also made me realize that as an educator I must do more in order to try to start seeing the change I want. Through this assignment I felt triggered and felt like I have continuously lived in the shadow of these biases my entire life and probably won’t be around to see them change.

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As I watched the videos and read the articles, I thought about my own students. As their teacher, it is my responsibility to ensure they get the resources they need in order to prevail as individuals. Also, accepting my students for who they are as individuals whether or not they meet the expectations I set for them. By doing so, this will allow room for students to be self motivated to meet the expectations that are set for them by myself and their own expectations they set. In the reading "Hammond" I notice students' culture were valued and the use of culturally responsive teaching will help students be more comfortable with the lessons or content being taught. Something challenging for me is the biases toward students and how can I moving forward, as an educator, be mindful of my own biases if any. This impacts me as an educator because of the students I serve with different backgrounds and different challenges. However, this will motivate me not only as an educator, but as an individual to better serve my students.

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What’s coming up for you as your listen/watch/read these different accounts? What threads do you see between them and Hammond’s work so far?

After watching and listen to the different tedtalks I was able to get a sense of who we are as educators. As an educator there are many different jobs within an educator. Listening to the tedtalks gave me a sense of continuing to connect with everyone that is surrounded by us. 'The danger of a single story' can go hand in hand with the way society continues to view the world. Despite her own story, we need to listen to one another and connect more with eachother to understand who we are and why we may be a certain way towards different events or people. There are many different ways we can connect and simply this can be just interacting with one another.
I am sure that us educators need to get together to come up with a solution to this crisis we are still facing today.

Listening to 'A single story' really opened my eyes because it is true we each have our own story but with having our own story comes with the different stories that surrounds us and makes us who we are.
The video and podcast will continue to impact the development of learning because I am a strong believer that one day everything is soon going to fall into the correct spaces but this can only happen if everyone speaks up for what they truly believe in.

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There are many different things that come up as I watch accounts like ‘The danger of a single story’ or ‘Culture of Mathematics’. I am encouraged to see that there is more awareness now towards biases, prejudices and injustice that has been taking place within the education system. The various perspectives on how culture has played a significant role in how individuals perceive the world. ‘The danger of a single story’ has made me sure that a story can be like double edged sword. It can put someone in a box and fail to acknowledge their true authenticity or it can empower and encourage people to share their story. One of the things that challenged me as I heard it was during the ‘Culture of Mathematics Podcast’, Marian and Cathery discuss the impact of social spaces and how they automatically disable someone based on discrimination. Marian said ‘I think I’ve been very complicit myself in thinking of my kids that come to me and already have IEPs as being kids in need of something from me. They need something extra. They need something different.’ The reason this challenged me is because of my implicit bias and how I realized the wrongfulness in trying to fix someone based on their disability. Trying to fix a person will always leave the person behind. This impacts the development of learning partnerships for me in that I want to help be the change by educating others on the mentality of fixing others and change the way I educate as well.

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Module 9                     Nadine Solomon-L

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Module 9                     Nadine Solomon-L

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As I  as your listen/watch/read these different accounts I realized teachers mus gain a better cultural frame for understanding that there are segments of our population that have experienced things they haven’t had to experienc. Also children expulsion can cause them to fall behind in their educational and social development. We need to provide the right kind of supports in the program to the teacher, in many cases so we can actually be able to handle and manage the behaviors of some of our students. I truly believe Low-income students face the significant educational setbacks and need more assistance than students from higher income homes. Many times these students from low-income households miss educational opportunities that are vital to break the cycle of generational poverty.

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While watching, listening and reading the assignment so many things popped in and out of my head.  The faces of students in my classroom and the tools needed to help them on the path to success.  However, as an educator myself what are some of things I can do to help my students on a day to day bases, moving past the bias and seeing them for who they are smart students with high hopes and expectations, all that's lacking are the tools needed to point them in the right direction.  The similarities  I found between the text "Hammond" is the significance of embracing the diverse cultures within our students, and using culturally responsive teaching to them express themselves and learn the content.  What was challenging for me was how can I push my students to overcome the disparities/label placed by those imposing their own biases on students.  While watching the video, she spoke about a poor servant in her home that nothing else was known about him other than he was poor.  But interacting with his family she discovered he was so much more, his family was smart, as well as creative.  This impacts me in my everyday life working with diverse students.  In essence it's empowers me to do better be better and provide my students with the best  I can offer in the classroom.

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One of the things that came up for me as I watched and engaged with this material was Edward Said's theory of contrapunalism or the counterpoint.
Edward Said is the author of Orientalism and other books concerning the ways that cultures are represented by others.
Said was a musician and his theory of cultural counterpoint relies on the idea of a Fugue. In a fugue, there are three aspects of music that interrelate, and at each point in the fugue one of the tunes is highlighted and represented foremost.
Said compares this to a quilt. Imagine a quilt that has different patches of all different sizes and colors but all of them are represented on the quilt. For Said, this should be the way we represent cultures. This is anathema to "one single story". It's about building an epistemology that does not minimize or reduce cultures to stereotypes or archetypes. It's about leaving space on the quilt for a culture to represent itself.

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A common thread between all of these videos and podcasts was, for me,  something that lay in the background of my thinking. I kept being reminded of the notion of implicit bias and how that implicit bias can play itself into how we instruct our students. That without knowing we may label and categories our students based on their performance and inadvertantly promote the inequity that exists for students of color. I think it's important to be aware of our biases and instead focus on the strength based approach to learning. To embrace and leverage the cultural diversity of our students and respond to them in the best way possible. One of the biggest challenges of course is to get to know the students themselves. I hope to get to know my students as much as possible throughout this year and coming years. I want to gain their trust and create a safe and open environment where they can feel free to express themselves in meaningful and personal ways.

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I was annoyed during the podcast because I felt like the speaker genuinely cared about teaching, but hadn't done enough personal research into the lives of people who were culturally and systematically oppressed. She spoke as if she had no real personal connection to it. It was just another scientific form of research to her. Both Hammond and Dr. Cathery Yeh have researched the issue extensively. Both are attempting to make a change in order to make people more aware of their bias and the discrimination that is taking place.

I am sure that people will continue to make assumptions about people, simply based on their appearance and ethnicity. I am certain that this work to overcome these issues in education will take a lot of time and effort. However, I can say that through difficult conversations and genuine efforts to overcome these issues, it is possible to overcome some of these issues, at least on a micro level.

It was challenging to listen through the podcast as she repeatedly spoke as if these issues were so scientific. In a way, I perceived her tone as dehumanizing. Although her words were accurate. She seemed too disconnected from the humanity of her work with people.

This impacts the development of learning partnerships by making me feel that despite efforts to educate people about such sensitive issues, some people will never get it. While I understand that not everyone will be open to growth, even in 2019, it is still upsetting. I wish I had a more optimistic perspective.

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The main theme that I noticed after listening to the three separate accounts was the inequity that exists for students of color and language learners.  When I heard the spoken word from Jamila Lyiscott, it instantly made me think of my own experience growing up.  I remembered certain teachers who were hard to have informal conversations with because they would criticize the cultural ways we used the English language.  I also remember the teachers who were much more embracing and more concerned with the content of our speech rather than the structure of our sentences.  This minor difference in these teachers made a major difference in how comfortable I felt in the classroom and how safe I felt to make mistakes and learn.  The main similarity between these accounts and the Hammond text is the importance of embracing the cultures of our students, and using those cultures to help them express themselves and learn.  Teachers need to create culturally safe environments for students to learn.  Something I heard that challenged my thinking was during the discussion between Marian Dingle and Dr. Cathery Yeh.  Dr. Cathery said that disability was a social construct.  I never thought about it like that but it does rather make sense. As a society, we decide what is considered socially appropriate or inappropriate.  We often view disability through a deficit lens as oppose to looking at it through the lens of a cultural identity.  This will help me better help my students.  Instead of paying attention to what my students cannot do or have a deficit in relation to their peers, I need to look at the abilities of my students and how to build off their existing knowledge and skills.

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Response to Module 9 questions(Rita Reinoso)

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Response to Module 9 questions(Rita Reinoso)

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Many thoughts were going through my mind as I was reading, listening and watching the videos provided. Some of these thoughts were how can I improve the system and help my students overcome the obstacles and challenges that arise from factors that they don't have any control over. I had never thought that subjects of learning could be bias However, finding different solutions, is more important than dwelling on the way things are. Finding strategies and helping my students overcome the bias that exist, is my #1 goal. The one thing that I was sure of as I read, watched and listened to the articles, podcasts and videos provided,  was that I wanted to make things better for my students. Seeing the disparity that is present, made me want to focus on ways that I can help my students overcome, things that were implemented even before they were born.  It was challenging for me to read how education(math) can be used to segregate students in schools. As well as maintain certain races from rising. I had never the connection of  math with politics before but I can understand the connection now. Another factor that was challenging was the video “The Danger of a Single Story,” by Chimamanda Adichie. This was an eye opener and taught me to question things that I read and heard about because at times they are not accurate or only provide partial truth. This will impact the development of my learning partnerships because I will include some of the approaches that were mentioned in the text Mathematics for Whom: Reframing and Humanizing Mathematics as well as what I learned from the videos and podcasts that were provided.

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Formulate a response using the prompts below and respond to at least two of your colleagues.

What’s coming up for you as your listen/watch/read these different accounts? What threads do you see between them and Hammond’s work so far?

What is something that you are sure about as you listened/read/watched?

What’s something that you heard / read / watched that was challenging for you?

How does this impact the development of learning partnerships for you?