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?