Social Justice

I took social justice as more of a broad term instead of relating it to education because in order to relate it to education, I feel like I need to understand it as a whole. 

Social justice to me seems to be how people can function within their community or their society; that each and every person has the equal opportunities to education, health, work rights, etc. in life. I can think of many different examples of social justice within our history and the world's history. One that instantly came to my mind was that of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's following Martin Luther King Jr. I'm not even sure if it applies to social justice, but it is what came to my mind when I heard the term. 

Jim Crow laws were an act against social justice, making it so that Blacks were not granted the equal rights that Whites were granted. They were subjected to separate facilities such as schools, drinking fountains, and restrooms. To this day, we do not have an Equal Rights Amendment that has, throughout our history, not been ratified to prevent acts such as social justice. 

One text that comes to mind when I think of social justice is "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr. I chose this text because the throughout the letter King is constantly battling the meaning of justice and injustice within his community. He is writing this from a jail in Birmingham after he was imprisoned. In the letter addressed to Clergymen, he states "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects directly, affects all destiny".  Also he states that "any law that uplifts human personality in just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust". 

Reaching social justice is something that King strived for. When we stray away from what is just, we dehumanize and we strip away individuality and identity. 

We can relate this into the classroom by letting our students know that they all start with a blank canvas and all judgements and stereotypes are put aside. Our students should know that no matter their SES, gender, race, or ethnicity, their opportunities with education are endless. 

The Pedagogical Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy

I have always wanted to teach inner city. This article was interesting to me because it pertained to multiculturalism. I really liked the section about teaching texts that are taught in the class and how they can be taught in a multicultural way. I think that any text can be adapted to a way that can be applicable to all cultures and can be related to everyone. I remember from The Freedom Writer's, Erin Gruwell wanted to teach her students Romeo and Juliet because of the "gang" mentality of the Capulets and Montegues. Even though the actual text has nothing to do with race or culture, she found it applicable to the students' lives. I do like the idea of integrating texts of people with color as the protagonist but not simply to cater to the duiferent cultures in the classroom. I think that it can help the students learn different perspectives (CCSS) and help with the cultural gap. 

I like the idea of hegemonic texts being local and included in everyday lives. I think that it makes it more relevant and more closer to home for the students. 

I think it gets really tricky when it comes to teaching traditional texts, but I think there is a way to teach it so that the biases of "American" backgrounds, such as industrial schooling does. 

I remember learning about Vygotsky in Educational Psychology and I liked some points that he had and that he based his theories off of. I liked that the reading pointed out that "tapping into young people's everyday experiences as participants in popular culture to scaffold academic literacies". In my opinion, when a teacher makes whatever text he or she may be reading in class more current and relate it to the lives of the students, it makes it more interesting and more fun to read. In some curriculum's, the texts are still the same, classic pieces of literature like The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, Huck Finn,  The Great Gatsby, etc. We cannot change the literature that we are given to teach, but we can change how we teach it and how the students can learn it.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

While reading this, I couldn't help but think of Plato's Theaetetus. I know that this article is about education theory, which is kind of what Socrates and Plato were about. This text was very overwhelming and tough to sift through, though it was intriguing and insightful.
The word pedagogy has come up in the past couple weeks in my classes more than I have ever heard before in my entire life. I remember first hearing the word "pedagogy" in a learning community of English, Philosophy, and Psychology at Spokane Falls CC. I remember how well it went with Theaetetus. 
How do we justify what we teach? How do we teach the way we do? All of those things are pedagogy. As we are going through the education process, we are learning our own pedagogy.
While trying to sift through this text, I really liked the analogy of teachers being depositors and how they just deposit information into their students and their students just take it as they will, not reciprocating.
Again, the text is very Socratic in the way that he turns to discussion as a means of acquiring knowledge. Through discussions and through questioning. We learn so much from one another and we can grow so much. I think it is such a genuine skill and process to learn through questioning and through dialogue. The students are learning to form a voice and form an opinion, rather than thinking their own opinion is correct. Questioning should always be welcomed in a classroom, as well as dialogue and discussions. Which is really how freedom in a classroom is established. The students should be able to have a voice in the classroom and express their opinion. They should always take part in their education and their learning.
I really enjoyed thinking about students as "containers" and that we are filling those containers with what we teach. The fuller the container, the better of a teacher you may be. Some may agree or some may disagree with that statement, but as education is evolving and shifting, the students should embrace the autonomy that the teacher is giving them. I think this is something that the article touched upon, in so many words.

Common Core

I think that I am entering a time when education is not only changing, but transforming. I could not be more interested and excited to see where it takes me and my students.
The talk about Common Core State Standards has been looming in my mind since I took Intro to Education in the Fall 2010 but I didn't really understand what it was all about.
When I got placed at Horizon Middle School, Common Core was all I heard and all lessons were planned around.
I was getting used to having the words "Common Core" float around and implementing them into my lesson plans.
I feel like the transition to Common Core will be beneficial to students because it focuses on key concepts that are essential for growth throughout grades 1-12. As teachers, we don't just simply teach a concept and move on, each standard builds upon one another instead of just teaching it and never using it again. Though that may be beneficial for our students, it could also be detrimental. If a student does not grasp a certain concept and we move on to another standard, they could fall behind. I haven't noticed this too much in the classroom, but it is just a worst case scenario.
I am very impressed with the accessibility of the CCSS. It doesn't have to be a 900 page document that costs as much as the pages that are contained in it. Although a paper copy is very nice to have, I think the recent dependence on technology serves a great purpose for this. I have the CCSS app on both my phone and my iPad. It's nice to be able to access them at random times during the day or at night because of my crazy schedule. Also, the app was free to download and is easy to navigate through.
The only negative I have about CCSS is that it isn't prevalent to every subject area such as the arts. This doesn't effect me personally, but I know music majors in my sequence are struggling with the transition to CCSS.
Overall, I am very excited to see where CCSS will take education.

Discussion in a Democratic Society

I loved reading this article because this is exactly what my master teacher teaches the students. She introduced the activity called Fishbowl. It is very similar to a Socratic Seminar. The students would receive a text to analyze and a guiding question at the beginning of the week. They would read the article and decide whether or not it agreed with the guiding question. They would have to make an argument and support it with textual evidence. The goal of the Fishbowl was not to decide which stance was correct, but to get a deeper understanding of each other's opinions and how to make and support a claim. As the article states "...discussion imply a process of giving and taking, speaking and listening, describing and witnessing..." which are all concepts that we stress to the students. The point of a discussion is not to debate, although sometimes that's what it leads to, but to gather a deeper understanding of one another.

Whether it is called a discussion, conversation, or dialogue, it was always my favorite thing to do in a class. Like the teacher in the article, I get so excited to have my mind be changed by a point that someone has called attention to. I think one of the greatest things is going into a discussion thinking something else and having your mind be changed by the end of a discussion. I like hearing everyone's side of the story and everyone's opinions about the issue at hand. Sometimes I do more listening than speaking just because I am so engulfed in the conversations that were happening.

The article points out the goals and the concepts that we stress during Fishbowl: hospitality, participation, mindfulness, humility, mutuality, deliberation, appreciation, hope, and autonomy. We highly stress all of these to the children because they are what makes a great, appropriate discussion.
The greatest thing about having Fishbowls continually throughout the year is that we continue to see growth. Every time we have one, we see new voices emerge and such deep, higher level thinking that is amazing to see in a seventh grade class.

I love that the packet included fifteen benefits of  discussion. I could see myself using this list in the future and posting in my own classroom. Number 10 was starred on the list and I think that it is one of the most important, with or without the star. The teacher in the article said that he knew he didn't have to make connections for the students and that he was uncertain where the discussion was going and how he could stay on top of everything. I like that about discussion, that it is unpredictable.

Introductory Letter

My name is Jordan Lehman. I graduated from University High School in 2010 and received my AA from Spokane Falls Community  in June 2012. My plan wasn't always to attend Eastern though.

Ever since I can remember, I knew I wanted to be in law enforcement like my father. I wasn't too sure about going to school for anything else. Until my junior year of high school, I was dead set on that plan, then one day I changed my mind after a student teacher encouraged me to be a teacher. Then it really hit me. I could make a difference just as I would of done as a cop, but it all started in a classroom. I made the decision of wanting to teach in an inner city school. It was really just second nature. When I graduated with my AA, I was determined to leave Spokane. I had been accepted to University of Las Vegas Nevada and all the plans were set about me moving there. I had a made great connections through an instructor at SFCC and I was ready to pursue this new adventure in my life.

My plans had fell through with UNLV because of finances and I was absolutely heartbroken. I think God helped in me realizing that that wasn't my fate. My boyfriend and I of 5 years, who I was traveling to UNLV with, had broken up and I needed to follow my own path, alone.

Everything in my life started falling into place this summer. The upcoming fall quarter meant a placement, and getting that much closer to becoming a teacher. I was placed at Horizon Middle School with the best master teacher I think I could ever ask for. The great thing about her is that she hasn't been teaching for decades, so every year is a learning experience for her. I was hired at Garry Middle School as an AVID tutor in August for the following year and I was finally getting my name out and my foot in the door.

Now in my second quarter of being placed, I find myself still falling in love with teaching every single day, though I still have a long way to go. I find my weaknesses are commanding attention and being fully confident in what I am doing and saying. My strengths are observing the classroom and everything that is going on around me and making connections with the students.

In this course, I want to become more comfortable with my content areas and become more confident in teaching it to my students. I always get overwhelmed thinking that I will never know what I need to know in order to teach my content areas effectively, which seems so silly. Overall, I just want my passion and love of literature to translate into a love of teaching it as well.