bullying issues.

My younger sister is a freshman in high school and had an eventful week at school this past week. After her second period class one day, she had four of her friends come and tell her that in their last class the TEACHER had been discussing with the class about how she didn’t like my little sister’s personality, and how rude and conceited she was. This then prompted the class to continue talking about her, and the teacher allowed it to go on. What? How is this even remotely ok? It is so frustrating for me to hear this. It is our job to make sure students feel accepted and safe within the classroom, and here is an example of bullying from the teacher! Luckily, administration was contacted and things are getting figured out, but this just infuriates me. It is NEVER ok to talk about other students especially when they are not even present and in such a harmful manner. This now also has lasting effects. My little sister now has NO reason to want to learn in that class; she will never trust that teacher again; she won’t feel like her grade has been fairly given to her; her peers won’t look at her the same way, and for those students who don’t already know her, they may have a bad impression of her. These students in the class also have been sent the message that bullying is tolerated, and encouraged. A teacher who has been given this authority should absolutely NOT be giving these kinds of ideas to kids. Sorry for the rant, but this whole situation bothers me on two different levels: one, as an older sister who hears that her younger sister has been hurt, and two as a future teacher. It is insulting to think that students are going to hear about this and think it is ok to treat people like that.

HIV AIDS

There is so much information that teachers should have, trainings that we should go through, knowledge that would be useful within the classroom setting, and yet there never seems to be enough time or effort put into keeping us all up to date on how to treat different situations. I really enjoyed having the lecture about HIV/AIDS and how that can really impact us as teachers in a classroom setting. Hearing all of the statistics about children who were impacted by HIV/AIDS was really astounding to me and it broke my heart. What was one of the most sobering facts that we were given was the idea of mothers being able to pay around four dollars to keep their children from being infected by the virus at birth so that it cannot be passed along to them, but for so many people, either they do not know that they have HIV/ AIDS or they are not given the information that that treatment is a possibility. So many students could be spared from living with this debilitating disease if this information was made more mainstream. HIV AIDS is preventable. So why is this outbreak still reaching pandemic levels in the United States and worldwide? Before this lecture, I do not think that I even understood the severity and how this continues to be such a problem all over the world. I am really thankful that we now have this information that will most likely be a part of our lives because of the number of people who are directly or indirectly affected by HIV/AIDS. I think that if I had not been given the opportunity to sit in on this lecture, then I would be afraid of the situation if one of my students had HIV/AIDS. So, how can we better prepare ourselves for the real world of pain and disease and sadness that is inevitably going to touch our students?

funding.

Teaching is going to bring its fair share of difficulties and controversial subjects. There are not ever going to be groups of people that you can agree with people on. This kind of came to my attention when we talked about funding for students with disabilities after our class watched the video about the family with their three sons who had severe autism. Funding from the government is such a frustrating issue to discuss because I think that we all agree that if there was enough money, then we would love to be able to provide each child with an education that best allows them to grow and learn to the best of their ability. Unfortunately, that is not the case and it gets even trickier when the money issue impacts people who genuinely need it (like the family in the video). It is such a difficult issue to think about, and try to figure out because there is definitely no easy answer. I do not know how to change the way that people see each of these controversial issues, but I think, as teachers, it is our job to make sure that no matter how each student walks into the classroom, they walk out more confident and with a feeling of being valued. That is as far as we can impact them, and yes, it would be phenomenal if our classroom was the best place for them, and they could reach every goal that they set for themselves, but we also have to deal with the fact that this may not be the case. Even if it is not a disability that causes this lack of connection, it could be something as simple as a student walks in and doesn’t connect with how you teach the class. We can definitely help spread awareness about how to reach different types of students. Its not fair that some students cannot be in their best environment all the time, but we have to do the best we can with what we have.

language

Language is a very important topic for me. As someone who would eventually like to teach ELL classes and spend a great deal of time with students who either come to the United States and do not speak the language at all, or are learning, I think it is the teachers’ duty to teach these children. But most of all, be respectful about this journey as well. From my time translating for the school system, I have been given the opportunity to learn from the parent teacher conferences that go on twice a year. Many of these ELL students have parents who desperately want their children to succeed, and will do anything they can to make a better life a reality for their kids. Do we as teachers to the same thing for these students who are learning English? Do we push them, or do we tend to write them off as SWD simply because it is difficult to teach a fourth grader how to understand multiplication in a language that they are uncomfortable with. It is frustrating. For so many of these students, the drive to learn is there. In a majority of these conferences, the parents inform the teachers how much their child loves to read at home, and loves to talk about what they are learning at school. So in the classroom, how to we continue to push these children in their studies? I want them to understand just as much as they do in class, and outside of class. These children are also useful tools for their parents as well because in many situations, I have seen them serve as a type of stand-in translator. So as we educate these students, we are also helping an entire family find change in the United States. It becomes much more difficult for other languages (I’m only sure of how things function for some Spanish-speaking families). But these kinds of things take time, and simple steps. So what other steps can we take to get the ball rolling?

SWD

Two summers ago, I worked as a day camp counselor for a church near my home. The camp included elementary ages students from kindergarten to kids who were going into the sixth grade that next year. About a month into the program we had a student start. I got a chance to talk with his mom, and she informed me that her son, we’ll call him Max had Asperger’s Syndrome. I was not very educated about this disorder and therefore was not expecting it to be that big of a disturbance on the rest of the campers and their experiences. She told me that it was only a mild case and that the only major thing that would be helpful would be if there was going to be a change in the schedule, I should let him know ahead of time so that he could adjust. That was not necessarily the case. We had multiple incidences over the course of the next 2 weeks in which this student had to be taken home early because he got violent with other campers. One day it was raining outside so we were playing board games in one of the rooms, and he was playing really well with another camper, but when he lost at “Guess Who?” he proceeded to jump on top of the person he lost to and try to pull out his hair. Another day, Max wanted to swing on the tire swing, but there were already students on it. So, he went to the student who was pushing them and bit him so hard that he started to bleed! Unfortunately, Max couldn’t stay with our program after that situation. The part that was so upsetting to me was when we had to confront Max’s mom and let her know that he would not be allowed to come back. She started to cry and told us that this was the 5^thcamp that summer that he was kicked out of. She didn’t know how to handle her own son, and didn’t have the resources to figure out what environment was best for him. As a counselor I was frustrated because she did not inform us accurately of how much this disorder really affected his life, but as a person, I was hurting for her because she didn’t know what to do, and proceeded to tell us that school was a similar situation. I can’t begin to imagine being a teacher and having this happen. Max’s mom just needed information.

respect

I really enjoyed having the panel of students come in and talk to our class about the LGBT club on campus. The most important part of hearing them talk was hearing their own stories. I think that for many people, it is easier to think about the “hot issue” of gay rights as an overall group, but they do not think about individuals. Just like within the classroom, each of our students will be an individual. They will not only be seventh grade language arts students, or first graders or sophomores in high school. Each one of them has a personal story to talk about. Each one is learning about themselves, and other people. Therefore, it is our duty as teachers to stop the injustice that happens in our classroom. One of the students was talking about one of the best things we can do is take control over our own classroom. We cannot tell our students what to think, but if possible, we can help change HOW they think, how they interact with other people; we can teach them about respect. In my opinion, our students need to respect not only us, but also each other to have a functioning classroom. The argument that some people have used “there is no way that we can change what they do outside of class” doesn’t hold up for me. I know that things that my teacher has said have changed my life. Even if it is not every student that walks into our classroom that has a little light bulb go off in their head, we can impact students. It is our decision whether it’s for good, or for bad. I really appreciated the group of students coming in and discussing their stories with our class, and I think it is more discussions and questions that they responded to that can get us thinking about how we can better prepare ourselves for what will be walking into our classrooms, and how we can best respond. More than anything, it is our opportunity to help our students learn, about the class material, and about themselves, and hopefully provide them a space to be themselves.

life outside of school.

I lead a small group of freshmen girls here on campus. And as I was talking with a few of them over the break, they kept talking about school work, and how it was taking a back seat to other issues that were going on in their lives. It made me start thinking, how do we help our students balance their personal lives with the class work that we will give them as they walk into our classrooms? We’ve all had those days when something crazy happened the night before, a break up, a fight with parents, or a friend desperately needed to talk, so you didn’t get as much sleep as you needed. So how can we best prepare our students for college life? When you have so much freedom, and so many opportunities facing you head on, and you have to decide whether to stay up all night watching a “Friends” marathon, or to start writing the essay that is due the next day at 5:00? Some situations we have to be compassionate about what is going on, but at the same time, college professors aren’t nearly as accommodating to hearing that we broke up with our significant other and its still really bothering us, so we didn’t study for the test as much as we should have. Or is that even our place? Is that something that each student has to decide on his or her own? I guess this would pertain mostly to high school, but it is still something that we have to deal with. How about those teachers (we’ve all had them…) that give you so much work that you and all your friends talk about saying “does he/she not realize that we have a life outside of his/her class? There is no way I’ll be able to finish all of this…” While I don’t want to be “that teacher” I still want to challenge my students; I want to be known as a difficult teacher, but you come out of the class knowing a whole lot more than you did when you first came in. But where is the balance?