Social Justice Event

Equality vs. Equity

Fun fact about me: I'm part of this leadership group called emerging leaders where we learn what it means to be a leader in today's society. In order to be a good leader, it is important to understand when someone is not being treated fairly compared to others. 

On October 20th, my group held a workshop to discuss social justice and the difference between equality and equity. An activity that the speaker had us do was to close our eyes and imagine 3 people standing in front of a fence. one tall, one average height, and one short. They are all given an equal amount of boxes, but that only helps the tallest ones to see better, not the shortest one. that is equality: an equal distribution of resources that can only work if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same amount of help. Equity is giving someone what they need to promote fairness, rather than focusing on whether everyone has been given the same amount of resources.



We then went on to discuss real life situations where people need equity, but instead are given equality and told that it is the same thing. For example, the black lives matter movement when people respond with "all lives matter". I personally felt well prepared for this workshop because of the readings that we had done in class. I was able to make connections from our "all lives matter reading" and McIntosh. 

We also spent a chunk of our time going into police brutality and mass incarcerations and the effect that has on the black community and other people of color. we had then moved on to talk about the unequal distribution of resources in our schools between white and minority neighborhoods.

I then realized by the end of the workshop, with the help of the speaker and going back to the fence metaphor, that it is just as important to break down the systems that puts up fences to begin with. giving out crates to shorter people is a great temporary fix, but it distracts us from the problem and allows the government to not be held accountable. 

This took me back to one of our first days of class and we watched this video

Service hours

My hours signed by Ms. Schmeller at alan Shawn Feinstein elementary school at broad st

Free Journal Entry

Overall reflection

This class, in conjunction with the service learning project, has been one of my absolute 

favorites of my college experience and has sparked a different passion and excitement for 

becoming a future educator. There are many things that we have discussed that have made 

me sad, but also inspired me to try to impart some change. I have even created a booklet of 

ideas for research including translanguaging, and ways to create an inviting atmosphere in 

my classroom. Being able to keep the reading that we did in class in mind when visiting my 

kindergarten class has allowed me to see things from a different perspective. It has opened 

a window to the desire to learn how to be the best teacher to my students.

I feel like learning is an art-- there are so many different things to learn about and every 

teacher is an artist representing their interpretation of certain information. But every good 

artist should know their target audience (the students). It does not matter what you were 

trying to convey, what matters is what is perceived. If you create a lesson plan that only 

caters to the students that are visual learners, then it does not matter whether you have 

provided all the necessary information, because those hands-on learners are not going to be 

able to absorb the information the way you intended them to. As an educator, it is 

important that you try to cover all of your bases with your students, and make sure that no 

one is left out. 

The idea of social justice and awareness is not to always be right and make the best 

decisions 24/7, but it is to accept accountability when someone is left out of your plan and 

always be willing to adapt and adjust.

Article connection

Garcia

I definitely have seen a lot of Garcia in my service learning classroom. Translanguaging has become 

a new concept for me that I have graciously accepted. Being able to walk into my classroom and 

see that the students do not have to repress their home language is refreshing. Growing up for three 

years in the Dominican Republic, I know  how it feels to not feel completely connected to those 

around you, because they do not share the culture that you grew up with, and often times people will 

not accept it. 

Watching my kindergarten friends freely communicate with each other in Spanish is not only good 

for the ones that understand Spanish, but it is also good for the students around them to be exposed to

languages and cultures that are different from their own. 

"I use my entire language repertoire...", "English and Spanish for a bilingual person is not separate, 

but a unitary linguistic system...", "translanguaging returns power to the speaker [not the to the language]".

A multilingual child uses all of their languages all of the time. There is no need to select a dominant 

language but rather to understand when it would be useful to use a certain language. When 

translanguaging is not taken into account, it takes away from the students that might need 

tanslanguaging to do well. My classroom teacher does verbal assessments of a students progress. I 

witnessed her ask him questions and both languages, which levels the playing field so to speak, and 

allows the child to use more than 50% of their language repertoire. 

I definitely was left wondering how to incorporate translanguaging into my future classroom.

Seeing differences

Throughout this experience, it is hard to say whether or not I have been opened up to a new understanding of poverty and racial issues, only because I know that this is what I have grown up with myself. I think one thing that I should take upon myself to do is to visit school with less diversity and more funding. Do the teachers seem less tired? Are the students better behaved? If so, how do the resources that these other schools contribute to their success?

In my classroom, the race of the teacher definitely plays a role in her relationship with the students. I believe that because she is a woman of color, it is easier for them to relate to her. She speaks spanish, which definitely helps her to connect with her class of mostly hispanic students.  Her gender also plays a role in her relationship because she is able to have a student on her lap or hug them for a long time without it seeming as suspicious as it might with a male teacher.

My race will play a role with my future students, as it already does with my kindergarten friends. A lot of them assume that I am just white, and when I speak spanish to them they are shocked or confused, but also kind of happy. I also do not connect as well with the boys as I do with the girls, and I’m sure it is because I seem young enough to still have cooties lol.

Kohn

Here is my Kohn spreadsheet

I personally really enjoyed filling out this chart. it really helped me think abou ways to keep students 

engaged and how to create the type of classroom that I feel is the best for my students. coming from 

my own school experiences, I know that I always felt more included in a classroom that displayed 

my work when I did a good job. I also felt that I learned more by doing and communicating with my 

peers as a group rather than simply listening to a teacher and following direct instruction. 

One thing that I did not agree with was the atmosphere portion-- part of the reason that my school is 

not considered inviting is because of a lack of funding. not every teacher can afford to spend money 

on supplies for their classes let alone furniture. I'm sure the school itself has not had much updated in 

quite a long time as well. I also think that every teacher has their own methods and that Kohns idea of a "good" classroom is not the only one. different things work for different students and at the end of the day, it might be up to the parent, if they can, to look into schools that have the best teaching styles for their child.

demographics

Today I’m in my math 144 class for elementary school teachers. There are probably about 28 people in this class, but out of all of us, I can count the students of color on one hand and still have room for my index finger to point out that there is a crazy lack of diversity amongst school teachers, especially elementary school teachers (not to mention there are only 2 guys in the entire class, both white).

At my service learning site, there is exactly one white student in my class. All of the others are either black, latinx, or asian (from what I can see). The majority of my kindergarten friends are hispanic, which is a reflection of the demographics for the entire school.

Over half of the students are hispanic, and only 10% are white.

I must admit, I felt more comfortable being in a more diverse place considering it is what I am used to. I’m used to switching between english and spanish with my friends and knowing that not everyone has money to get things done easily, but also knowing it will get done regardless. I love being able to speak to the students in spanish when some of them are having a hard time adjusting. Maybe this is their first time being in a mostly english-using space, and speaking their home language can help them feel more welcome.

Students will also receive letters home in both english and whatever language is spoken at home. It is important to be able to communicate with all students and families.

The students of course do not really understand yet that they have major differences. One boy, who I will call evan, shared a name with a character from a book who is white, and told me that the character is him. Charlie is black, so I found this to be a bit funny, but simply agreed with him and told him how cool it was that they share a name.