We talked about our future classrooms and decorations. One of the easiest ways to promote collaboration is is setting up the desks in groups as opposed to rows, which can foster discussion without outright saying it. We also talked about how decorations have pedagogy and how they're so important! Simple things like posters, books, and classroom layout have a pretty significant impact on classroom culture, which we all agreed on. We're getting along very well, and I'm excited to see how this continues!

I've been wondering a lot about how our pedagogies will impact how we characterize each puppet. It's really easy to portray a "well-behaved" puppet with the stereotypes of American schooling, especially given that each of us grew up with those standards of learning. I haven't spent too much time around 1st graders (our age demographic) and I'm honestly not sure what they're like. I'm hoping to incorporate things that are popular now, and because I work at Easterly Parkway, I'm thinking of focusing on asking the first graders what they're into and observing how they communicate and play. From what I've seen so far, they're just so excited about everything. I'm hoping that our interest in teaching is exemplified by our script and our puppets' excitement to learn. When we discussed in class, we decided to focus less on the bullying or intentional exclusion of a character, and work on more of unintentional exclusion and unawareness because we all agreed that we don't think kids, especially first graders, are inherently mean or exclusionary.

We're only a few weeks into this (with the first two messed up by snow) but because of our agreement and discussion so far I have really high hopes for this group! I was skeptical because we were put together by the professor, but I truly do think we are going to be able to pull off a great puppet show. I really hope we keep it up as the semester gets tougher.

In our first class, we each made a trading card that described the struggles that we faced during our own early childhood education. It was really great to be able to reflect upon my own experiences, and also have the opportunity to hear the stories of my groupmates. I think that this activity will be very useful for our future puppet show planning. I honestly think we already have a great idea! We are thinking about doing our show about a visually impaired student and the struggles of fitting in. This idea was brought up by Cassidy and we all loved it. I think this is a great example of how we love hearing each other's ideas, and are willing to seriously consider them. I really look forward to having further discussions about our show and starting to really craft our script songs. We actually already have some ideas of what we could do for the songs in our show.

Also in today's class, we started sewing. I was really nervous because I had never sowed before. However, my group was so willing to help me and others, which was so comforting. They helped me learn how to knot the thread and reminded me how to do the stitch when I needed help. This gave me hope that we will be a very cohesive and helpful unit throughout the semester.

• a student having trouble with perfectionism on assignments or making mistakes

• a student having trouble making friends due to being shy

• a student struggling with a specific subject at school (math, reading, art, etc.)

• a student getting picked on for being a "teacher's pet".

In elementary school, I remember that I used to get really upset when points would get taken off assignments, especially when it was a silly mistake that I overlooked. Even though my parents did not stress over grades and emphasized that they just wanted me to try my best, I hated feeling like I had done something wrong in my work. Lots of my teachers tried to make me feel better about it, telling me it was only 1-2 points and that I didn't have to be upset! I think it would have been easier to have a classmate/peer to relate to me and that could be an idea for a skit. Another thing I struggled with at that age was being really shy/quiet, leading to difficulties making friends. I had friends from my neighborhood or the various sports teams I played on, but for some reason I could not translate that to a school setting. I struggled to be outgoing and open up to my classmates, which also affected my ability to work in groups on schoolwork. I ended up working individually a lot of the time, which I did not mind doing, but I still longed for the friendships that I saw around me. I ended up asking both my parents and one of my friends from my neighborhood for help. My parents reached out to my teacher for some additional tips specifically for the classroom and also gave me some of their own personal advice. It might be interesting to formulate a skit about a child having trouble making friends at school and approaching their teacher for help! It'll be interesting to collaborate with my group members and discuss ideas further to come up with a skit that encompasses a struggle we all shared!

This week, we created a general plan for our group about the different tasks we want to complete each week for the rest of the semester. Based on the projected due dates of the puppet, script, and video/presentation, I think we’re very prepared and should have no problem getting everything done. I am looking forward to constructing the puppets and creating the script for our video, as I think we have a really good idea for the show, and I think it’ll be successful in reaching our audience!

We also worked on our character sketch and description worksheet today, which was certainly a big step in our progress on the overall project. Our show is centered around Cassidy’s girlfriend’s experience with sight difficulties that couldn’t be corrected with glasses. Her classmates didn’t quite understand why her condition couldn’t be corrected with glasses, even though other people’s sight issues can.  Since our puppet show idea is based on her girlfriend’s real experience, we thought it might be a good idea to use our own names and backgrounds (as much as possible) for the puppets. We want the puppet show to be as personable as possible, so being able to tap into our personal emotions and thoughts from that age will be helpful. My puppet’s character sketch is shown above in the photo! We decided that our puppets will be in first grade, so they will be six or seven years old (depending on birthday). I was always on the younger side of my grade, so my puppet will be six years old. Like I mentioned above, we are using our own names and backgrounds for the puppets, so my puppet’s name is also Ella, with pronouns of she/her! For physical appearance, my puppet has the following characteristics:

-            Country of origin: U.S.

-            Race/ethnicity: This was not applicable to our puppets, as we are not using a topic surrounding that idea.

-            Eye color: Black – we are using googly eyes that Ava already has, so the eyes will be black.

-            My puppet will not have glasses/contacts, but some of the other puppets will!

-            Skin color: Green

-            Hair color: Brown

-            No distinguishing marks.

In addition, we decided to utilize our personal background and family characteristics, so my puppet’s relevant information is as follows:

-            Country of Origin: U.S.

-            Hometown: Cassidy’s girlfriend is from the suburbs of Philadelphia, so we decided that they would all be from that area, as well.

-            Social Class: Middle – I come from a middle-class family so it will be easy to take on that perspective for our show.

-            Family structure: My puppet will live with her mom, dad, and younger sister, just like I did as a kid!

-            Parent occupation(s): Nurse (mom) and Engineer (dad)

We wanted to be able to draw on our personal backgrounds and experiences throughout the project, so all of the family information is connected to our own backgrounds, with the exception of the hometown.

Finally, we are also connecting the puppet’s traits to our own traits at that age. My puppet will lean towards introversion, just as I did as a kid, with reserved and shy mannerisms. In addition, she will be kind, empathetic, and hardworking, enjoying things like school, sports, and spending time with family and friends. In terms of character flaws, my puppet will have trouble speaking up in class and/or in uncomfortable situations (i.e., a vulnerability of confrontation), just like I did as a young student. She is overall comfortable with herself and her abilities, but wishes she had more confidence in interacting with others. My puppet just wants everyone to get along and feel comfortable in the classroom, which will hopefully be reflected in the script and actions in the show!

Something else that I wanted to talk about in this Padlet post was our idea for our puppet show! Cassidy came up with the idea, from a real life experience, which is about a visually impaired student and all the struggles she may face. I think we have done a great job so far coming up with different ideas for our play and I am super excited about everything. Also in class today we began trying to sew, and I am not going to lie, I failed miserably. I have never sewn before so I was struggling a bunch so I am hoping that things get easier in the future. I plan on watching many sewing tutorials because I am definitely going to need the help! I couldn't even knot the thread when I was doing it and I spent the whole class just staring at the thread and my needle:( Overall, as much as I am excited about creating this puppet and performing this show, I am extremely nervous about sewing. I definitely need to get some help because I want my puppet to be perfect! I am so excited to see the outcome of our puppets at the end of the semester and I am excited to perform!

Overall, today in class was super fun. Creating our sketches was really fun and it made the puppets feel more real when we were giving them characteristics and identities. This just makes me even more excited for our final project because since we’ve already put in so much work, I know our show at the end is going to be great. I am definitely a little anxious about singing and acting in front of the class because I tend to have stage fright especially when it comes to singing but I think everything is going to work out how it's meant to and it will be awesome.

The script is not made yet, but we have a pretty good idea of the plot of our show. We are going to have one puppet with glasses (Mary Grace), one puppet that's legally blind (mine), and two puppets that are sighted. The conflict is going to arise from a lack of understanding from the puppets that aren't blind. For example, Mary Grace's might ask, "Why can't you just get glasses like me?" There will be some way where children are playing in a non-inclusive way, followed by my puppet being upset, and then a discussion on why we need to be inclusive and how to do so by modifying whatever game they were playing. Potentially, there could be a discussion about a cane and how/why it's being used, but that depends on if we're able to make an accurate one. My girlfriend (the blind inspiration) has eyes that point in two different directions which I would love to include, but I'm not sure how that will change or shape the discussion around blindness especially because young children love to point out differences. We want to make this non-malicious, because we all feel that children aren't inherently mean or intentional bullies. We also discussed potential movies or places to get songs like Victorious or Descendants.

Another big part of class discussion today was class practices like Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio Emilia. Although skewed (because two of the articles were purely about Reggio Emilia) we all agreed on the benefits of those practices. We talked about things like relationships with children and parents/families, the importance of child autonomy, and the need for teachers to take a step back in child learning. Ava made a really good point about the reevaluation of the adult roles in a classroom, and Mary Grace and Ella both added really informative multimedia components. One thing that the entire class talked a little about was the ability for the Reggio Emilia education practice to take place in the US because we are so individualized as a culture, and it might be hard to create such a close knit community between parents, children, and the teacher. However, I do think it's a wonderful idea to try, and in other classes we talked about doing things like home visits, surveys, and more to create a closer relationship between the entire family and the classroom. I think that knowing what the children are interested in is so important for learning, and that is one of Reggio Emilia's core beliefs.

As we get closer and closer to puppet construction, I'm more and more excited to see our show come to life. I think making the script will be one of my favorite parts of the class!

For the next class, I hope to get some work done on our script and songs for the puppet show. We have not been able to get any work done on the script so far, except for some surface level discussions of our general ideas. Unfortunately, the past two weeks have been tough for our group in terms of illness, so not everyone was present in class. This makes it difficult to work on the script together and we want to ensure that everyone has a voice in the preparation. All members of the group should have a chance to provide thoughts on the content of the script and the songs we include in the skit, especially because it is a sensitive topic that is personal to two of the group members! Hopefully, throughout the next few classes we can focus solely on the script and make sure it gets done before the deadline. I’m looking forward to working together to come up with that script and creating a fun show!

Creating our story and our script definitely required a lot of group work and collaboration. We started off by creating our synopsis and just thinking through the timeline and storyline that we wanted our puppet show to follow. After we did this, it was much easier for us to get into actually writing dialogue. It was hard at first to get into writing the script, because it was a new experiance for most members of the group. Ava did have some experiance from a class she took in highschool though which was nice. It took us awhile to nail down our setting and how we wanted the story to flow, just because none of us had ever written a puppet show before. Another one of our struggles was making sure the dialogue was realistic for first graders to be saying, and making sure it didn't sound like college students speaking instead.

Although we did have a few struggles at the beginning and throughout, once we got over the first hump the script really started to flow. The spoken dialogue was mainly written by the other members of my group because I was very focused on writing the songs. I of course chimed in to help with dialogue a bunch, but it was not my main focus today. We decided to rewrite songs from the Nickelodeon show Victorious. Once I knew what show we were taking the songs from I began the selection and rewriting process. I was able to select three different songs from the original show and rewrite them to fit the theme and storyline. I chose "Tell me that you love me" for the first song, and "Freak the freak out" for our second song. I have completely finished rewriting these songs and found the perfect parts of our scripts to implement them into. Then I chose "Make it shine" as our final song, and I am almost completely done rewriting this one. The process of selecting a nd rewriting songs was definitely a challenge, but it was something I did ultimately enjoy. I am overall very proud of my individual work and the work of the group this week! We are basically completely done with the script, I just have to finish up the last song!

We had finished most of our script the week prior, which was really nice! So this week we just took some time to reflect and go over it. We did this because we wanted to make sure it was perfect, especially because we need to read it in front of the class next week. I think it is looking really good, and I am just really grateful that our group works so well together!

The main thing our group focused on this week was finishing up our puppets. We were all a little bit behind on our puppets because we had been focused on our script the previous week. However, I was able to get a lot done. I stuffed and attached the arms first. I do think I may have attached the backward, but I believe it is all part of the charm. Then I glued the skull into the head. This was one of the hardest parts for me because I was really worried I was going to mess it up. I did have a few struggles because some of my stitches in the neck area started to loosen when I was putting the skull in. However, this issue is easily fixable so I was not too worried about that. Finally, I put the hair on my puppet. It went pretty well, I went with bright pink hair and I think it looks pretty cute! Her hair could definitely use a bit of a trim though.

Now I want to talk about how the puppet process went as a group. I am really lucky that my group is so willing to help each other. Whenever I have any questions Ava, Cassidy, and Ella are always willing to help, and of course, I always am willing to help them in return. We helped each other glue the skulls together and put them into the puppet. We were all pretty confused about this part, but it was nice that we were all in it together! I also got some help with wrapping the hair and applying it to the head which was really helpful! Overall we worked very well together this week, and have made a lot of great progress!

Another thing we had to do this week was read our scripts to the class. This was very nerve-wracking. I am not exactly sure why we were all so nervous because we had the script completely done. I think it is just stressful because you do not know how the rest of the class is going to react and you don't want to be judged. We decided to talk the songs instead of singing them, because for some singing feels much more scary and vulnerable. However, I think it went well and people generally enjoyed it.

This week we learned about how to properly puppeteer. We learned the importance of practicing with the puppet. The first step is to practice lip-syncing. He said that we should open the puppeteers mouth once per syllable, and emphasize certain words. I also learned that lipsyncing methods change based on the speed your puppet is talking. When a puppet is talking faster you probably will hit fewer syllables because otherwise it will look weird and overwhelming.

We also learned about eye focus. The guy in the video talks about keeping the head steady and the eyes focused on who they are talking to or to the audience. I also learned that I need to work on making my puppet look like it is actually on the ground and walking not floating. Something that I never thought about was opening the puppet's mouth as if they were breathing. I think this could make the puppet's behavior much more realistic, so I definitely want to try incorporating this with my puppet. I think I learned a decent amount from the video, but I feel like only time will tell. I am nervous for when we actually start rehearsing and filming but I have faith that it will all work out.

Next week, I will be focused on finishing my puppet by adding hair, bamboo sticks (for the arms), and putting clothes on it! Adding the hair and bamboo sticks should take a short amount of time, so I’m not too concerned about that. I will likely be using old baby doll or American Girl doll clothes for my puppet’s clothing, which I grab from my house! This week, I made sure to check that the stitches in my puppet are secure; after fixing a few minor issues and gaps in the stitching, that was finished. Overall, I think my puppet is turning out really well and I am impressed with what it looks like! I remember being very nervous when we first started, especially about sewing and putting the foam together, but it ended up going just fine! After I make these last-minute additions, I think it will look much better!

Finally, we read our script in front of the class today! It definitely was not as scary as we thought it would be and I think we did a good job. There were a few minor problems (blank spots in the script that we have to fill in) and some random trip-ups, but we certainly thought it went really well! We’ll make those small adjustments and resubmit it, but other than that, our script is finished. We’re going to discuss props and backgrounds in the next few weeks!

Our script took an entire class to create, but I’m really happy with it. We wanted each character to be authentic and react in ways a normal 1^st grader would to a disability they had never encountered. We all felt that a 1^st grader would not intentionally bully another (in most cases), but instead would approach the situation with confusion or misunderstanding. That’s why we set the situations up in a way where the puppets are all asking questions and the puppet (mine) with a disability is open to answering them to better her school experience. My favorite part of the script is when Mary Grace’s puppet asks why mine can’t just use glasses to fix her eyes. I think that targets a pretty common misconception that younger kids might have and gives a chance for my puppet to more fully explain what it means to be low-vision.  

The experience writing our platform papers forced me to think critically about where I stand with my pedagogy. I do like most of the approaches that we discuss in this class, but I didn’t realize before I started writing how passionate I am about anti-bias and anti-racist education. Throughout my college career, I think I’ve talked about AB/AR education in 15 different classes. But, this past semester is when I truly began to understand the implications of it or lack thereof in an early or elementary classroom. I found a lot of my beliefs and where they stem from through writing the platform paper, and I’m very interested to see how my thoughts change and develop as I write the second half of it.  

Our puppet construction is almost complete! Ava brought in American Girl Doll clothes for each of us, and Ava and Ella are adding hair today. Once I add my eyes, I think my puppet will feel put together. The last idea I have for my puppet is finding a stick (probably outside) to paint white and red to look like a cane for people with vision support needs. I’m excited about the prospect of making her represent accommodations that many other students have or may need. I’m definitely proud of how my sewing and crafting skills have developed through this process, and I can see this puppet being a mascot in my future classroom. I think our puppet show is going to be so cute! 

This week we discusses the importance of art media in ECE settings. I thought this was very relevant because of all the artistic things we are doing in this class. I love when classes let us practice what we are going to be encouraging our own students to be doing. This also happened in my CI295 class, which Ava also discussed in her reading response. We talked about loose parts, which we then brought to seminar and made something based on the materials. Hands-on is the best way to learn in my opinion and I love experiencing a potential teaching method to make sure I enjoy it before presenting it to students.  

For me personally, recording this puppet show was very out of my comfort zone. It was difficult to focus on lip-syncing the words, saying/singing the words, and making my puppet look alive and comfortable all at once. I work with puppeteers at Sesame Place, and I’ve always been in awe of their work, but this class put their talent into perspective. Not only is their skill apparent, but I have no idea how they hold their arms up that long! Because we filmed in segments, it's hard to imagine how the final product is going to look, but I’m so excited for it. It seemed that everyone in Krauss Studio was filming their puppet show, and it was nice to have that comradery and know that we may be embarrassed, but everyone else is too. WE shared tips like how to angle our camera and screen share on the TVs and got to listen to each other sing through the walls. It was truly a judgement-free zone which I’m very thankful for.

Through the process of making our puppets, I’ve been asking myself (while my friends and family asked me!) what the point of this class was. I know that we discussed briefly when reading Valente at the beginning of the semester, but I think I needed to experience for myself what he meant. There is no way we can expect our students to learn something new and put themselves fully in the learning process if we don’t do the same. I haven’t learned a completely new skill in such a long time, but in early and elementary education, basically everything is a completely new skill. Learning to take a step back and grant myself patience was very valuable during this class, and I think will be very valuable to my future students. And, feeling the pressure of participation and the social stresses of this type of learning really put me in the shoes of students that are asked to give so much in the classroom. I strongly believe that in order to expect participation, motivation, and enjoyment from our students, we need to model it from the very first day. This class helped foster my empathy for my students, and really motivated me to create safe, open-ended space for learning.

I’m super grateful for my groupmates through this process. They added to a lot of my ideas from the readings, helped gather supplies, and their creativity and ingenuity really made our puppet show shine. I think you can tell that we cared a lot about the representation that we chose to center our puppet show around. We have created a space full of respect and kindness, and it’s definitely the closest I’ve ever gotten to a group for a project. I think our puppet show will be amazing because we were all so enthusiastic about this process, even when things got tough. I knew I could always rely on them for help or encouragement, and I hope they felt the same.

Before we started filming, we had to go through some basic setup and nail down a few final details for our show. First, we had to find different backgrounds for the two “settings” of our puppet show, which was relatively quick and easy. We used cartoon backgrounds because Cassidy pointed out that these were puppets and it seemed to make more sense to use a cartoon scene. After picking out the backgrounds, we moved on to listening to the three songs we were using for the show. When we read the script for the class last week, we ended up not doing the songs, so we wanted to make sure we ran through them a few times before filming. It took us a few trials to actually get the rhythms, tunes, and our lyrics correct but after some practice, they sounded awesome! Next, we had to physically set up the room we had booked to make sure the background was visible, and our puppets fit well in the video frame. Interestingly enough, this was the most difficult part of the filming process, especially since we ended up with the smallest room with the smallest screen for the backgrounds! We ended up having to prop the phone up onto someone’s computer and holding our arms completely straight when working with the puppets.

Once we were finished preparing the room and camera, we rehearsed the script all the way through. After the first rehearsal, however, we figured out that it would be a lot easier to film the scenes separately and edit them together later! It gave us some more freedom and additional time to prepare for the various scenes, especially the songs. One of our songs jumped right into lyrics, which was really difficult when we tried to go straight from speaking to the song. Luckily, Ava mentioned that she took a few video production classes in high school and was happy to edit the videos together for the group, which was amazing! We ended up rehearsing the entire show one more time before starting to film. As I mentioned before, we filmed our scenes separately, which allowed the filming process to go much smoother. Throughout the entire process, we only had to retake two videos, due to some minor issues with music or something not looking right! After we finished filming, Ava was able to crop the videos and piece them together, and the final product looked great!

I think we worked really well together as a group this semester and our final video ended up being a great representation of our hard work! I was really nervous in the beginning of the semester when we discussed the puppet shows and what they would entail, but I’m really surprised at how much I actually enjoyed the project. Overall, I think it definitely helped me grow as a person, student, and future teacher and I would actually recommend the class to other students!

Here is how the day went. We arrived in the orange room in Krause at our normal class start time, 11:15. We took about thirty minutes to set up the room how we wanted and run through our script. We used the TV as our background and used Cassidy's phone to film. We also used Ava's computer to read the script, and I played the music off of my phone. We then all got situated on the floor and began practicing our puppet show.

We decided it was important to run through our lines and the songs a few times before we actually started filming. This was a great idea because the first few times were definitely a little rough. We would stumble over our words and get offbeat during the songs. However, after some quick practice, we were able to get the hang of it. Once we actually started filming I think it went pretty well. We were able to do most of it without issue, and I think the songs actually sound pretty good. It also did take some practice to get a hang of manipulating the puppet and figuring out how to make it look as realistic. It definitely did not end uo being perfect, but I did not except it ro because we of course are not professional puppeteers. However, I know that we did our best, and I think it turned out pretty well.

It is important to note that we did not do the whole puppet show in one take. We decided to cut before each song so that if we messed up, we could easily redo it without having to redo the entire show from the beginning. I think this was a really great idea because it allowed us to perfect each individual scene instead of having to settle for something mediocre. I also think it allowed us to finish much faster, instead of having to be there for multiple hours which was nice. Ava was super kind and actually volunteered to edit the clips together. This was so thoughtful and kind of her, and I completely trusted her because she actually as a background in editing. She already finished it and it looks great! I was really impressed with how prompt and on top of it she was.

Overall, I love how our show turned out, and I am so grateful for this group and this experiance. I cannot wait to show everyone our masterpiece, and get the opportunity to see everyone else's hard work!

We then began to shoot our video and we definitely all messed up a few times, because this is not easy! I think this was something I had to wrap my brain around for sure, but being comfortable singing and even talking using a puppet is not something that just comes natural. After a few mess ups, we decided to “chunk” our script and focus on one part then stop the video, then record the next part, and then we were just going to put the clips together at the end! This ended up working perfectly and we got our recording done in no time! Honestly, this project was a huge bonding experience. Obviously me, Mary Grace, Ella, and Cassidy have never met each other before, but coming to class each day and working together brought us all super close. I am definitely thankful for this project because now I have some new friends and familiar faces in some of my other education classes. 

When I got home from recording our video, I told my group members that I could put the clips together because in high school I took 3 video production courses that I loved. I used a website called “WeVideo” because we used this all the time in high school and I was comfortable using it. It took me about 30 minutes to complete this because I was messing around with transitions and final edits, but finally the project was finished and we as a group can say we are so proud of our efforts!

I want to reflect back to the first few weeks where everyone in class was doing their sewing, but I waited as long as I could because I had no idea what I was doing. I’d call my mom freaking out so many times, but she knew that I was fully capable of doing this. Looking back now that my puppet is complete, I believe this class taught me so many valuable lessons. I was very confused in the beginning what this class would teach me, but now I know and I couldn’t be more grateful that I took this class, and with the BEST professor.

We all agreed on so many ideas that were presented to us in the class. We learned about entire systems of learning like Reggio Emilia and Montessori schools as well as activities like loose parts and clay-making. The variety of readings and conversations really made for an easy search when finding articles and ideas to use in my paper. I also appreciated that we read about the theoretical foundations of our own class, ECE 451, and Julie shared her pedagogy, which made it easier to see what on-paper ideas could manifest as in practice. Relational practices were evident as quite literally everything we accomplished in this class was because of the group work.

Writing my platform paper was initially extremely daunting. Not only was I supposed to write a 5-8 page paper, but it had to be on pedagogy I felt confident enough in to share with principals and school districts during my job search after college. I struggle with procrastination, especially the more important the project is, so I started my first paper basically right before the due date. Quite honestly, I was afraid to choose anti-bias education as the basis of my pedagogy because of how contested it is. However, I was distinctly more passionate about it than any other topic we had discussed so far, and I knew I wouldn’t have been able to write a paper half as good about anything else.

I’m a part of Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schreyer (as a resident of the building, not a member of the Honors College), and a few days before I sat down to write my paper, we had an alumni speaker join our meeting. Someone had asked, “If you were to write a resume now, would you include your LGBTQ+ volunteering and activism?” I remember clearly that he said yes, because “If they have a problem with it, it’s not a company that you want to work for in the long run anyway.” That really inspired me to not only write my foundation about anti-bias and anti-racist education, but also include my personal story as a measure of my dedication to said pedagogy.

For the second half of my paper, I used a lot of social justice ideas from articles in class and included child-led learning as a foundation, because that really is what leads an anti-bias and anti-racist classroom. Attached is a picture of me working on the paper on Sunday, thankful that the due date was moved because of my aforementioned procrastination.