Life is full of mysteries and switch-ups, kids need to learn how to not back down to adversity or cultural differences if that. They need to believe in what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how come they are here. This is called human transformation or in the author's words evolving. I want the future generations to evolve into leaders, fighters, winners so they can make the world a better place for them, their families, and the rest of their human counterparts. Do you believe in evolution or do you believe in creation? Reality or Religion? I want my peers to think carefully when they answer this question. I am questioning you because I want you to think about who you will be for the children. A healer? a leader? Or just another teacher on the market? Know where you stand... 

As I was reading, I also began to reflect on my personal experiences both as a student and as an educator. When I look back on my favorite teachers, I realize that even though they had very different personalities and teaching styles, these star teachers had several characteristics in common: a palpable passion for their content area, timely and detailed feedback, and high expectations. Pinto states that “caring is central to cultural responsiveness” (p. 53) and that it is “critical that teachers demonstrate that caring in ways that their students can understand.” So, I wonder, how did I know that my teachers had high expectations of me? And, how can I convey my high expectations to my students in ways that they can understand? One of the ways in which my teachers made their expectations visible to me was through their feedback. Instead of saying “well done,” they would suggest topics for further exploration or pose questions that would make me think more deeply and critically about the issue at hand. Another way in which they expressed these high expectations at the group or class level was through a rigorous and well-developed curriculum. 

Turning back now to teacher expectations with regards to behavior, I recall my short stint as a substitute a couple of years ago. When I was in school, students would constantly challenge and disrespect substitutes. So, when I stepped into that role, I would enter the classroom already on the defensive, trying to pick out the troublemakers from the get-go. I can specifically recall three exhausting days at a preschool. Within 10 seconds of entering the room, I knew exactly which student was going to make the next few days miserable. I immediately began using a more serious tone with that student, was more impatient with him than with other students, and did not trust him to do any activity on his own. I had definitely bought into the philosophy of “give ‘em an inch and they’ll take a mile” (Kohn, p. 9). I tried both reward and punishment in an attempt to achieve even temporary compliance, but in the hours and days that followed, his behavior only got worse. After completing this reading, I now understand that I was partially responsible for this child’s increasingly bad behavior. I was clearly not prepared to work with small children and did not take into account their developing capacity of impulse control. I assumed he was making fully informed choices about becoming the classroom menace. Additionally, I found out on my third, and last, day at the preschool, that this child was in foster care and had already been in several different placements. His instability at home was certainly a contributing factor to his acting out in class. Even though I was only with this group of students for a short amount of time, I am sorry to have missed the opportunity to work with this child and to find more productive ways of engaging with him.

I am new to this field of cultural responsiveness since I have not had any experience working with diverse students from different social, ethnic, racial, cultural backgrounds. Surprisingly, I realize how common teacher educators misunderstand their students’ behaviors due to the distinct differences among cultures. Especially when I read the quotation above, I was in shock. That is my habit of showing verbal reactions frequently while talking with people. It is viewed as a polite way to interact with others in my culture. All of a sudden, I figured out why people frown at me and seem like feeling stuck or annoyed by something when we were in a conversation. The thing in the heart of this situation is my constantly verbal reactions. Such things can happen between daily communication. Thus, there is no wonder that teachers misunderstand it. And it also brings up a requirement for teachers to get to know the possible cultural differences hidden in students’ behaviors. (As mentioned in the book that “Teachers become researchers and learners whose main job is to understand their students rather than authorities on predetermined knowledge.”)

It also reminds me of my learning experiences in elementary school and the pressure to conform to a different set of rules, expectations, and routines. Over time, my family noticed that I was leaning towards “American” values that it was conflicting with my Mexican culture. I did lose a bit of my Spanish as a result of catching up on English, and I feared that I would lose a part of my family and our background while reaching for academic success. To this day, it shocks me that my teachers’ preferred to put the dominant culture and language over me and many students of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in the name of classroom management and performance.

The excerpt and my experiences also connect to Kohn (2006) and the three universal human needs (p. 9). It is important for teachers to understand how to include students without having to adjust or shift the students’ social and personal identities, and I believe that the first step is to cultivate a classroom environment in which they feel that they belong in the class. Having the belief that students need help to adjust in class for the sole purpose of perpetuating a dominant culture only sets the class up for disconnection and dissatisfaction with themselves, the teacher, and the classroom.

This example of cultural blindness made me think of the last week survey. I disagree with this statement because this way of thinking ignores completely student’s cultures. No one is treated equal when culture is being negotiated.

“Identifying your membership in cultural groups or with various social positions and the advantages and disadvantages you have experienced as a result” Pg. 23 I chose this quote because I think developing cultural proficiency is a “must do” for educators however I disagree to a certain degree with the author when she states that when people are confronted with having to unpack their own culture, think about things that have taken for granted as truths, privileges they received without noticing them, and change aspects of their classroom work, they experience discomfort. I think it depends from your own experience and from what culture group you come from. As a Latino immigrant woman, reflecting on my advantages and disadvantages doesn’t make me uncomfortable. On the contrary, it makes me more empathetic with a certain cultural group. When it comes to social-economic class, I agree. From a personal experience and as the example cited in pg. 25, this year I also had the opportunity to participate in home visits to students and that experience opened up my eyes of the needs that students within my own culture might have at home. 

Another quote that I found interesting was“Control can subvert learning-too much emphasis on control is a leash that restricts curiosity, creativity, and active learning through experimentation.” (Boostrom, 1991). I have to admit that I used to think that control was the most traditional sense that teachers need to have in order to prevent a disruptive behavior in class when in reality distributing control is not a synonym of losing your ability for discipline them.