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My name, Ashley refers to the Ash Tree. I am named after an Ashley and a Lauren from soap operas. Both of my parents collaborated to give me my name. I am the only Ashley in the family, but it is a very popular 90's girl/boy name. My troubles come with the stereotypes of my name. Ashley is known as a blonde white girl's name. It is also stereotyped on the show, Recess as being the popular group, which I never was. I also had the name Ashley Trashley from my sisters. They always thought it was funny. I also was given the names, Ash and Ashes. I never liked Ashes....or Ash Ketchum from Pokemon. Lastly, I don't have an alternative name.....Ashley will do.

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My Favorite Space in Our Home (Explanation)

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My Favorite Space in Our Home (Explanation)

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Here is my favorite place in my home. It is a stationary chair that sits firmly in our living room. This chair is home to tv-watching, homework-doing, computer-surfing, Netflix-streaming, dog-sitting, book-reading people. This chair is a place holder for many things I do in life. It was the best clearance (new) purchases I’ve ever made from the furniture store, The Dump. This chair has a way of providing when it is needed most. My only request to make it exceed my expectations is if it had the capabilities to recline and rock, but it will do for now.

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Since the day I was born, my eyes have been the center of attention. My mom has told me stories of how she and everyone else would talk about my “big green/blue eyes.” I have always admired my eyes and other peoples’ eyes. Each are so unique like the fingerprints of each person. They are the mirrors of the soul. This is a way that I can look and admire the experiences of my students. None are alike. My husband often tells me how much his wishes to have blue/green eyes instead of his boring brown eyes, like he likes to call his, but little does he know, his are also unique. Brown eyes don’t all look the same. Some have slices of dark brown and some even have speckles. So, my eyes are my favorite body part. They are big, bright, and they set me apart from everybody else. They make me, me.

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My favorite characteristic is my sense of adventure. Everyday life comes with obstacles and sometimes can become mundane, but with a sense of adventure, it is easier to keep life alive and fresh. As an adventurer, I am able to learn new things, explore, and get creative. One of the funniest moments I remember was during our engagement photo shoot. I remember having to stop by this little pond to catch some tadpoles and the other stages of the frogs. In our engagement photos, there are some of me holding a frog. So, adventure is out there, you just have to seek it!

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Wow, where do I even start with this one? My inspiration comes from my husband, Bill. He inspires me to laugh more, smile more, and love more. Since being with him, I have become the best version of myself. He has helped me to come out of my shell and be myself around people. In high school, only my best friend really knew me. I had a way of putting a façade up around my acquaintances and people I was around every day. My husband called me a wallflower once and it all made sense. I was the person who felt like I had to be strong and help everybody else first before helping myself. I was the person everyone would come to for advice or to just tell someone their secrets, knowing I wouldn’t dare tell anyone. That worked for a while, but in college it really bothered me. Bill showed me what it is like to care for myself, so that I can care and fill up others second. This allows me to apply this behavior in all aspects. I am better able to help people, but first I will help myself. When I teach, I will have at least 23 students to care for. If I am not okay with myself, then I won't be able to fill my students with inspiration. In order to do so, I refuse to be a wallflower. I will forever be a vine that grows and connects to all.

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This object is a huge chunk of amethyst. Amethyst is my birthstone for my February Birthday. This chuck of gorgous rock has been in my posession since I was a little kid. I recieved it as a gift from my grandparents. The story they told me is that my grandfather found it while on a canoeing trip. I'm not very sure how accurate that is since I was so little, but it is what I remember. To this day, I have kept this beautiful rock in a special place. Right now, it sits on a display shelf in my apartment where I can admire what it means and where it came from.

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My privilege comes from my gender. I am a female, which means that I am viewed by society in a certain way. Back in the day, women, both black and white, were not afforded the same freedoms as men. Even to this day there are discrepancies between salaries and the treatment of women, but I believe it has gotten better since the beginning of time. Women experience the perks of chivalry and special privileges just for being women. It is something nice that I believe all women should admire. I am not one to call people out, but I believe feminism is a way for women to show fear. It is a way for them to hid and think, " Oh, I am a women, so I should just cry." This attitude will help me teach my students that we are just more than women, and we need both women and men to work together. Feminism allows an extreme, which is what we lived with before, but with men as superior.Why be against chivalry, when it hasn't always been around? Don't you want to be treated kindly and like you are a real person? With that, I believe that my gender is just one privilege that allows me to survive in a world that is never stagnant, but is ever-changing.

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We are all human and as humans we have biases that are learned by our environment and media. My picture represents many biases that I have heard. I would say that my biggest bias is when someone is driving slow on the road, I assume it is an Asian women driving. Most of the time I am right, but it still bothers me that I have this bias about people. As I am writing this, I haven't learned. My husband just told me to look at a car that is riding his ass. I said hmm... He told me that is was a younger Asian girl driving and I replied, "That's surprising!" It will take more practice than I thought.

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Again, we are all humans and humans have natural instincts. I read somewhere that biases and fears are caused by instincts. I don't know how true that is, but there has to be some truth in it. Last year, I lived in East Atlanta. It wasn't the most clean place to live. I had a fear of walking by myself outside because the culture of the city is for random people to talk or yell at you. I encountered many people who would share their lawnmowers and many people who would walk with dark hoodies at night. This is where my cultural discomfort stemmed. It made me feel uncomfortable to walk around an area where people looked mysterious. I understand now that this is the city. Yes, you need to watch yourself, but not everyone is creepy and not everyone is bad.

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My Cultural Values and Beliefs (Explanation)

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My Cultural Values and Beliefs (Explanation)

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My culture and values include a lot of traditions and beliefs about what type of person to be. I believe in being a hard working person. We are not entitled to anything, but rather we should live within our means. Some of our family traditions include ice cream for dinner days, eating dinner as a family, Sunday breakfast made by my dad, Father's day camping with the kids, and holiday family dinners. Our cultural values and beliefs are highly centered around food and family. It's a way for us to gather and enjoy each other's company.

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Literacy Practices of My Everyday Life (Explanation)

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Literacy Practices of My Everyday Life (Explanation)

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This is my reading river. It shows how I partake in literacy practices. Literacy is everywhere. It is just represented in multiple forms. I personally like to journal. I have a journal and scrapbooks that have doodles and Journaling. I also like to use Facebook, Twitter, instagram, and Padlet. Literacy practices also occur with uber, waze, lyft, and many transportation apps. My other practices involve emailing professors, writing papers, and writing lessons. Whether it be on the computer or by hand, it all involves my literacy practices.

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My Favorite Literacy Experience (Explanation)

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My Favorite Literacy Experience (Explanation)

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Recently, my favorite Literacy experience is this Padlet. I used it once for a lesson observation last semester. I taught a lesson on the branches of government. I didn't really know how to use it, so I just applied the basics. For Dr. T's class, I decided to explore Padlet for our new literacy projects. I like that Padlet leads us to endless possibilities. It is up to us as the creators to make it what we want. It does involve us understanding new literacies in terms of symbols to mean different actions. Once you learn them and the layout of Padlet, you can experience the same literacy experience I have.

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Sometimes I will sit in my favorite place to read, but that usually involves reading school books. If I am reading for pleasure, then I love to read in my bed. This usually takes place before I go to bed. Reading helps me wind down for the day and get ready for bed. I usually find myself falling asleep when I read at night, which is why my bed is my favorite place to read.

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The most important book in my life is my Bible. It is what helps guide me. I believe it to be the Word. The Bible is my life manual and without it, I would be pretty lost. In my Bible, you will find a lot of notes, highlighting, underlining, and dates. I do this in order to refer back to important verses or ideas. It helps me remember when I was reading and what was going on in my life while I was reading. Often times a little visual in my important book provides me with fuel to get through each day.

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After taking this class my thoughts on literacy has changed. Before, I thought of literacy as language arts, but really it is considered reading and writing. I learned that good literacy is one that encompasses all types of learners and is sensitive to all cultural backgrounds. It is also important in good literacy to explain all aspects, meaning concepts of print. For example, this Padlet has pictures or symbols that mean so much more than just the actual visual or picture. Often, they don't have words until we scroll over the image. Students or literacy learners need to be aware of the different concepts of print within different literacy practices. We as readers have to learn this kind of literacy through symbols rather than words. Good literacy is also one that continues to challenge us. Without a challenge, what is the point?

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My Struggles with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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My Struggles with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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My Struggles with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students  (Explanation) 

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My Struggles with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students  (Explanation) 

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My biggest struggle with teaching culturally diverse students is making sure I don't do something or say something to offend or make my students feel uncomfortable. That is the last thing I would want to do. It is important that my classroom has a community feel and a positive environment where all students can flourish. I also want them to feel like I can relate to them and they can relate to me. It will be my goal to establish this from the beginning . I also struggle with correcting how people talk. After reading the article in class about code switching, it made me realize how much language is influenced by culture.

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My Strength on Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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My Strength on Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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My Strength on Teaching Culturally Diverse Students (Explanation)

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My Strength on Teaching Culturally Diverse Students (Explanation)

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Although it is my fear that I will not connect, I think one of my strengths is that I can connect and I openly seek to find connections. I have a way of making my students aware that I care about them as people and about what they know. I often give them examples of my struggles and how I learned from them. These kinds of stories help my students understand how we relate. As I continue to grow in my teacher hat, I hope I continue to grow in this area of strength without my fears holding me back.

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My Professional Future as an Educator (Explanation)

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My Professional Future as an Educator (Explanation)

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My professional future as an educator can be summed up as flexible and culturally responsive. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy is a topic we have discussed in a plethora of our classes. This includes teaching to all learners, including topics or approaches you know your students engage in or admire, keeping a community where students feel safe to share their differences, and allowing time for students to share. I hope to take everything we've learned in our classes and apply it. I don't want these two aspects to be strong my first year and then drop off in five years. I think it is important to continue to grow. It is important to me to be flexible. The day I'm not, teaching won't be for me. The day we are all culturally the same, there is no point in being culturally responsive, but while it is diverse that is my goal.

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Here is a picture of myself. This is the day of my wedding. This picture captures the happiest day of my life. In five years, I will post a new self portrait and you will see that as I progress through life, I continue to grow. I will continue to smile each and every day in order to spread happiness to my students. I hope the same in true in my education career. As I grow as a flexible, positive, and culturally responsive teacher, I hope I can say the same about myself in my other hats. Only time will tell...

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Above is my i am poem. This is the poem we made last semester in our class. This poem represents a lot about me. It explains the various names I am given whether it be right or wrong. It also explains where my identity comes from and why all of the I's are lower case. I hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I had writing it down.

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My analysis portion takes place under each of the photos.

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What are your thoughts on literacy as you are doing this project?

My thoughts on literacy has changed during this project. In the beginning it was limited to thinking of literacy as only reading and writing, but now it is way more than just that. It is about reading and writing in multi-modal systems. For example, social media has many forms of reading the text. Some of it is in written word form, but reading also requires one to understand how to read symbols and how to apply those systems. I really like the way literacy is applied to this project. It is a fun way to incorporate your personal experiences or identity and use literacy skills to deliver it.

What are the implications of the knowledge you gained about yourself for your future teaching career?

This project helped me apply what I’ve learned in all of my classes and reflect on how I will use it in the future. During this project, I had to think of where I want to be in five years. I talked about how I want to be known as flexible and culturally responsive. These are key ideas mentioned in each and every class we’ve had. If I am flexible, the little obstacles throughout the day will not bother me and allow me to go through my day.

How does the awareness of who you are culturally impact your teaching?

If I am aware of who I am culturally it allows me to understand that my students are going to be just as diverse as I am. This shows me how unique each and every student is and how I should view them or allow them to flourish. I want to go through teaching as open to culture and as sensitive to culture as possible. Doing this project allows me to self-reflect and find ways further relate to my future students.

How important is it to consider the identity of the teacher and her/his cultural background as part of the teaching process?

It is very imperative to consider the identity of the teacher and his/her cultural background as part of the teaching process. It is important to know yourself, so you can confidently teach students from diverse backgrounds. Students are also going to want to relate to the teacher and so, it is important that they know a little about your identity. This helps the relation be reciprocal. This kind of relationship also displays and creates a classroom community that can flourish.

How important is teacher identity in recognizing that children are NOT illiterate and fail at school due to DEFICITS in their culture and in their cognition?

It is also very imperative that teachers recognize that children are not illiterate and fail at school due to deficits in the culture and their cognition. In many articles this semester, we talked about the deficits or changing views or reading and communicating at home. It was found that many working class families communicate in a way where students don’t have a choice. It is more of a command rather than a question. In higher socio economic status working homes, parents often communicate in a question format, giving children a say. This difference is also seen in what and how much time is spent reading books. Our identity is based on what we learned and we can’t judge others based on our identity. Just because a student gets the command communication rather than questioning or choice, does not mean the command student will fail. This idea is what we addressed throughout this course.

How important is the teacher’s understanding of funds of knowledge to promote a culturally responsive classroom?

Funds of Knowledge are the essential cultural practices and bodies of knowledge that are embedded in the daily practices and routines of families. This means that the teacher needs to talk to their students and get involved to learn each students’ funds of knowledge. It is very difficult to promote and have a culturally responsive classroom without knowing your students and their backgrounds. So, it is very important to understand your students and apply it to the classroom culture that is sensitive to all students. The funds of knowledge I have learned about includes, the backgrounds of my students and their family lives. Many of the students come from broken homes and don't have a lot of money, but the family that is in their lives are create a rich family life for their children.

What are the funds of knowledge that you bring to school with you as a teacher?

My funds of knowledge include, hardworking, traditions, respect, family time, and helpful hands. My life is centered on family gatherings and traditions. Some of my students will come from broken homes, so it is important to me to implement a family community in the classroom because that is something I can control. I can’t really control what happens at home, so I will do all I can at school. In addition, I hope to create traditions in our class by having publishing parties or parties centered on learning and positive behavior reinforcement. I will also create a community where hard work, respect and helpfulness is rewarded and encouraged.

Children’s cultural experiences and understanding of literacy and education are sometimes a MISMATCH to the school and teacher’s ways and beliefs.  Where are you as a teacher on that continuum?

The school I am in right now matches up well to where I have been in life. The school I am at is a Title One school. Most of the students are on free or reduced lunch. At some point, my family was on reduced lunch. It was when the economy hit us pretty bad. In addition, many of the students come from homes that are broken or dealing with divorce. Well, my parents are still together, but I am living with a father who is product of divorce and who has been living estranged from his mother for years. My family is very close and there are those kinds of families too where everyone is involved. The students also have a lot of after school activities, which I had when I was in school. I had to learn how to juggle my school work. So, as a teacher I can be aware of this and figure out a way to structure my class and the homework schedule.

How does what you learned in this class made you more critical of what people, books are saying and showing about “good literacy”?

In class, we read many articles where the research varied by topic and point of view. I learned that you can read all these articles without ever implementing a class filled with “good literacy.” It is important to take what the articles are saying and see how it can be applied to your class culture. One that had my attention was the article that addressed a student who talks in Standard American English, but wrote a paper in Ebonics. The teacher took it as the child’s normal writing, but the parents were offended that the teacher allowed it. So, it is important for the teacher to understand how to approach literacy from a multicultural perspective. Luckily, we had a plethora of articles that showed us different views on how to be culturally responsive.

What will you do differently in your own classroom to promote equity and better serve your students?

To better serve my students, I would like to include a cultural identity project in the beginning of the year. We used a small “All About Me” activity, but not every student was able to share information about themselves. I would like to have an activity or project at the beginning of the year where both the students and I can learn about the students. It could be something as simple as an identity box, the name poems, or even something as extensive as this Padlet project. Students love to use technology, but if I used technology, it would require time allowed in class to work on the project. Many of our students don’t have computers at home, so when planning activity, I have to keep that in mind in order to keep my pedagogy cultruarlly responsive.