Portfolio Review

I think that the greatest shift in my paradigm that has occurred in result of taking this Multicultural Education course at BYU and completing the assigned readings, writing assignments, and portfolios, is shown through a quote from our first week of class by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin in his talk “Concern for the One”:

“Jesus Christ is our greatest example. He was surrounded by multitudes and spoke to thousands, yet He always had concern for the one… We are commanded to seek out those who are lost. We are to be our brother’s keeper. We cannot neglect this commission given by our Savior. We must be concerned for the one.”

I have realized the truth that teaching is not about reaching the greatest amount of people, marginalizing children, students, and humanity along the way in order to reach the end goal of an educated population by justifying not focusing on “the one” because it would detract from “the whole.” Rather, teaching is about being concerned for each individual’s needs and actually recognizing and meeting those needs. This mentality requires much more attention and effort than marginalization, but I believe that it is possible to change societal structures and myself in order to benefit the greatest number of people by focusing on individual needs.

Especially as an educator, I need to take responsibility not only for the intent of my actions, but for the impact that my actions have on students. As Gorski explained, “I can never be totally aware of the biases and prejudices I carry into the classroom and how my students or colleagues experience me,” but I have to take responsibility for the consequences of my actions despite how I intended them. In order to do so, I need to be in a constant state of self-reflection. It is also beneficial and necessary for students to learn how to be self-reflective because “an education for equity enables students not only to acquire basic skills, but to use those skills to become agents for social change,” (BANKS). Self refection is critical, as well as teaching students to question the structure of society, enabling everyone to promote social change and better human rights. My portfolio has aided my process of change prompted by self reflection, as shown and outlined below:

In Portfolio I, I created an imagined classroom. I had no idea what I wanted to put in my classroom and I had no idea what student needs even existed that would need to be addressed. This portfolio helped me to assess how much I already knew about what kind of teacher I wanted to become and how much I would have to learn in order to reach that point. By the end of the semester, my standards for the teacher I would like to become have undergone a great shift; they are much more specific and take multicultural issues into consideration.

In Portfolio II, I created a cultural snapshot of a single story for feminists. Undergoing the process of recognizing how students are affected by this specific single story, as well as how school policy and curriculum is affected by a single story, helped me to feel personally connected to the oppression that victims of other single stories face. This portfolio also helped me to recognize some societal standards for gender expression that can be oppressive and incorrect.

In Portfolio III, I described my experience as being the “Other.” I was able to learn that just because society has labeled some stereotypes as “bad,” does not mean that they are bad. Just because society and culture says that something should be a certain way does not mean that it is correct. Previous to this experience, I had tried to justify my interactions with people that I perceived as gay by reassuring myself that just because they seem gay does not mean that they actually are. I tried to give them the “benefit of the doubt.” This experience required me to reevaluate why I would feel that I would have to give anyone the “benefit of the doubt” about being gay because that mentality implies that being gay is bad. This experience also helped me to recognize that stereotypes do not always or usually ring true. I need to be aware and careful of how I label people: good or bad. I need to be aware of my own prejudices and how those prejudices influence the way that I treat people.

In Portfolio IV, I assembled some of my personal cultural artifacts and explained how the values, beliefs, and norms of my personal culture could affect my classroom. It was super interesting to me to explicitly outline what concepts I hold as good and just in society, what beliefs or convictions I hold to be true, and how those things influence what cultural norms I adhere to. My beliefs will be different and even seen as oppressive by my students and other members of the community, and I need to be able to recognize and validate others’ beliefs, values, and norms while creating a better environment for my students to learn and grow and gain better opportunities for themselves in the culture that we live in.

For Portfolio V, I had a community experience where I attended a forum that provided perspective on Mormon black history. My main takeaway from this experience was realizing that we don’t necessarily had to forfeit our own culture in order to appreciate other cultures, but that what is more beneficial to every culture is to recognize the similarities between cultures. By recognizing similarities, we can open a means of communication and better understand and get along with one another, diminishing whatever feelings of hate occur by “othering” someone. This experience also gave a specific example of how to be anti-racist as opposed to a passive racist. By including multicultural texts and perspectives in the classroom, we can help show similarities between cultures and minimize the negative affects caused by ignorance and misinformation.

For Portfolio VI, I revised my imagined classroom. By the end of the semester, my standards for the teacher I would like to become underwent a great shift; they are much more specific and take many more multicultural issues into consideration. This portfolio helped me to recognize that there are many opportunities to address multicultural issues in the classroom, whether through curriculum, policy, teaching style, or classroom surroundings. Everything about the classroom can either reinforce the dominant culture and structures, or appropriately, positively recognize non-dominant cultures and break down oppressive societal structures.

For Portfolio VII, I reviewed the book, “The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens” by Brooke Hauser. This book provided perspective on race, immigration, language, religion, and homelessness. What was most influential to me was feeling like the school was a positive environment compared to other schools that the students might have attended, even though education was still difficult for most of the students. Many resources were provided for the students and International High School that they would have not received elsewhere, and that I didn’t realize where even available when I was a student in high school. Reviewing this novel helped me to recognize ways to implement structural ideology, as well as just how critically necessary structural ideology is for multicultural education. I need to adopt and be an advocate for structural ideology and help my students to break down the structures that oppress them and limit their opportunities for success.

In order to illustrate the process that I have undergone throughout the course of this class and the creation of this portfolio, I have included my weekly disruptions that occurred from the reading assignments in the form of journal entries. Some are only a few lines; some I felt required greater explanation.

DISRUPTIONS:

January 25 Culture

Some disruptions that I had from the reading were that my pity, or attempt at sympathy, however well intended, can be just as offensive and unacceptable as intolerance, as well as that hegemony is so invasive that it tends to be invisible, and I can go on not even knowing that there’s a problem at all.

February 1 Costs and Benefits of Culture

What made me uncomfortable from the readings was realizing that my judgments on other cultures can come from my unconscious, and I can’t usually explain why I might feel the way that I do, or where those feelings originated. I benefit by white supremacy through my own unconscious, as well as others unconscious. Even if I try to be reasonable and aware of white supremacy, my bias is often unconscious. As an educator, my unconscious analysis of students will affect the way that I treat them, which in turn affects the way that they act and learn.

February 8 Language and Culture

I felt discomfort that Lisa Delpit was not speaking of how things should be, but of how they currently are. Just because things are a certain way doesn’t mean that they are correct or should stay that way, but we as educators have a responsibility to prepare our students to be able to function in the world we live in. My disruption was the reality that I need to prepare my students to function in a society whose cultural norms and expectations I don’t even agree with. We can’t create change unless we already function in the system, and our students need to be able to function in the system.

February 15 Race and Ethnicity

I was very, very bothered about the Japanese concentration camps during WWII. I was bothered that I hadn’t learned much about them. Yes, there was maybe a sentence or two in my 11^th grade U.S. history book, and maybe one test question, but the importance of the reality wasn’t there. Our education was posed from a very pro-American standpoint, and bad parts of American society were always deemphasized. I think that this “America is so great” teaching standpoint reinforces white privilege, racism, and discrimination both within schools and in society. By not acknowledging that racism exists, those that benefit from it go on believing that racism is not something that they should worry about. What bothered me the most was the realization that not only do teachers and administrators act racist in the way that we treat students, but that the material that we teach is also racist and we usually don’t realize it or don’t teach it.

February 22 Class and Poverty

The greatest general discomfort came from the assertion that education is about so much more than being smart and capable – where you come from really does have an effect of where you go. I have been becoming more and more aware of the difficulty level of getting out of poverty, but I didn’t realize the details of extremity. Schools provide different opportunities to different economic classes simply because different economic classes values different things, influencing each culture to reinforce the values unique to their class. Teachers can make many incorrect assumptions about the students they teach surrounding the issue of poverty. For example, if a student is sleeping in class because they are homeless and uncomfortable in a car, or waking up at night because of his or her hunger, the teacher might assume that the student is disinterested in school or lazy.

February 29 Language and Immigration

I hadn’t before realized how hostile and cruel the education system often is for immigrant students. Where I’m going to school to become an educator, I value education as a means for helping others to learn and better their lives. To realize that the structure of schooling environments often does just the opposite for immigrant students, that their educational success is “not necessarily because of the system, but despite the system,” was very upsetting to me (Gonzalez 242). In Portes’ article, Unz and his supporters fought to end the bilingual education of their communities. This was at first surprising to me because of the videos talking about how we learn language and about how the students struggled when they hadn’t first learned English before taking the regular classes. As I read further, I realized that this fight against bilingual education was not against “bilingual education at all, but a well intentioned albeit misguided security blanket thrown at immigrant children” (570). While bi-lingual education can help students to learn English as a secondary language, it often enforces the assumption that because someone can’t speak English that they are insufficiently capable in other academic areas as well. I was upset hostility, cruelty, and unfairness of well-intentioned programs as well as the bullying and racism that occurred among the students as reinforced by the school.

March 7 Utah NAME Conference

In “Increasing Global Understanding with international and Multicultural Literature,” at the Utah National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME) Conference, I was upset that it’s now acceptable to study literature from different cultures including Latino/a, African and African American, differing socioeconomic levels, religion, Asian and Asian American, Native American, and even literature with strong female protagonists as part of class curriculum in order to provide a “sliding glass door” through which students can experience these different cultures, but it’s not yet acceptable to do so with LGBTQ literature. The presenters gave different reasons for including all of these varying genres of literature, as well as different ways to incorporate the suggested novels into class time. However, the suggestion for incorporating LGBTQ literature was to provide the literature at the library and within your own classroom, but not necessarily to focus on it as a whole class because it is still an extremely controversial and not yet generally accepted for discussion. We talked about the concerned parents and citizens who would fight back and possibly cause you to lose your job. My disruption was realizing that I could lose my job by trying to educate my students about different cultures.

March 7 Religion

I think that a statement found within the Rolling Stone article, “The Forsaken, A rising Number of Homeless Gay Teens Are Being Cast Out by Religious Families,” can summarize my greatest discomfort. Alex Morris wrote, “The number one hurdle to LBGT equality is religious based bigotry,” and I think that religious based bigotry is the number one hurdle for creating a safe, positive learning environment within my own classroom.

This statement is especially difficult for me because I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I do believe this church to be true. The Mormon church believes marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and that acting on “same-sex attraction” is a serious sin, even though being attracted to someone of the same sex is not. In addition to this belief, there are certain doctrines that I believe to be true that other religions do not. Our church is very devoted to missionary efforts, and we ask others to build upon the truth that they already know and value, but in order to be an active member there are certain rules that must be followed. While I concur with the belief that marriage between a man and a woman is God’s ordained way, I also believe that people who identify as LGBTQ need to feel accepted, loved, and supported. Everyone needs to feel that their lives have value, and I believe that “religious based bigotry” doesn’t help anyone. I need to figure out how to validate my own religious beliefs while simultaneously respecting and validating those that differ from my own. Just because I believe my religion to be the restored truth does not mean that other people are inherently “bad” or “wrong,” and they need to be supported in their own beliefs.

March 14 Ability

My disruption is best summarized by the statement from Nocella, “The disabled are not ill, sick, or diseased. They are different. A disease or illness is not part of ones characteristic or being.” While I previously understood this to an extent, the videos and reading helped to analyze and understand some of my own beliefs about disability. My sister has a physical disability that limits the function of the left half of her body. When she first received the traumatic brain injury that caused her hemiplegia, my mom dedicated all of her time to finding Kaylee the best occupational therapists and physical therapists. She fought through the systems to get Kaylee the help that she needed, but at times she was frustrated at different approaches from different therapists or educators. I remember her trying to explain it to me, that one approach enforced the idea that Kaylee could improve and her disability could be made less and the other approach settled on the idea that the disability was permanent and she would not improve and she just had to figure out how to function around her disability. It has been 13 years since the accident, and while Kaylee regained a lot of functionality, her disability will remain throughout her entire life and it is part of who she is. While her disability presents limitations, it is different from a “disease or illness” because it has become part of her identity.

March 21 Gender

My greatest disruption came from the “Dude, You’re a Fag” article where the students talked with the experimenter about their use of the word “fag” and how they would never actually call an openly homosexual person a fag. They said that they accepted homosexuality as a lifestyle or personal choice of whom you want to sleep with, and implied that they didn’t have a problem with it and didn’t want to offend homosexual people. The real issue for these adolescents was whether or not there was conformity to gender stereotypes, and I realized that I enforce this same mentality. I never use the word fag, but I have come to be more accepting of the idea of someone being gay or lesbian than the idea of someone being transgender and completely rejecting the gender that they were born with. I hadn’t realized that homosexuality and gender conformity were completely different concepts, and it made me uncomfortable to realize both my ignorance and that I was reinforcing the same gender stereotypes that bother me.

March 28 Sexual Orientation

Up until this point in my life, I have been fairly neutral in my views and actions in concerns to gay rights and interacting with the LGBTQ community. I knew that hate was wrong and that all people deserved love and respect, but I didn’t know how to interact with people who identified or had strong feelings about LGBTQ from either side (supportive or unsupportive). I felt uneducated and uninformed and unqualified to speak about LGBTQ and therefore didn’t stand up for members of that community because I didn’t know how. What hit me hardest from the videos and from our discussion here is that by trying to remain neutral I have contributed to the hate and discrimination against LGBTQ. It’s not that I was unaware, but that I didn’t know the best course to take because I felt conflicted between my desire to love everyone and my testimony of the truth of a Gospel that condemns homosexuality.

The videos helped me to understand that I am definitely not forfeiting my faith by standing up for members of the LGBTQ community, and that is my responsibility not only as a future educator but also as a Christian. I really liked what Jonathan said about preferring to have a live, unchaste student than a dead, chaste one. This rings true to me. All life has value and we need to encourage life and learning rather than hate.

April 4 Teaching for Social Justice

My experience this week was different in that the article by Ladson-Billings didn’t really make me uncomfortable. It felt like a good wrap up to the semester by suggesting that teachers need to utilize a culturally relevant pedagogy by helping students achieve academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness. How I felt during the article rather confirmed necessary action to a disruption that I had during the videos. I realized that instead of being anti-racist, I am non-racist, and I have come to be more comfortable with Grit Ideology than Structural Ideology. Because the issues of multicultural feel so huge, I have come to adopt the mentality that I need to help students be aware of the structures of inequality and know how to work within the system. My disruption was acknowledging that learning to navigate the system is different from refusing to challenge the system. I need to be careful that I don’t just become comfortable with working the system rather than trying to change it.

Rather than provide a works cited page from everything from the course, I have labeled the lesson topic for each of my disruptions and you can explore the course readings associated with each lesson through this link:

https://sites.google.com/site/mceddraper/lessons

By recognizing my disruptions I have been able to evaluate what I should do and what I am willing to do in order to become the teacher that I want to be: focusing on the one, creating a safe class room environment, enabling student success, and inspiring social change.

The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens by Brooke Hauser –A Review by Abigail Funk

Rather than give a summary book report, I want to provide a review of the book based off of quotes that I feel demonstrate the complexity and value of the issues we have been learning about in class. After providing each quote and the page number where it can be found, I will give a reflective response based off the assignment guidelines for each of the three sections: (1) points of disruption, (2) descriptions of the stories from the book that clarify or provide examples of the ideas we have been discussing in class, and (3) how the stories from the book will influence my thinking about my future work as an educator.

Points of disruption (places in the book that caused me to feel uncomfortable or angry or curious):

“It’s easy to forget sometimes that by the time they walk into room 337 on the first day of senior year, many students had already survived more trauma and hardship than she could imagine” (51).

One of my greatest disruptions was that many students will have already survived more trauma in their short lives than I will ever see in mine. That alone puts me at an advantage to be able to deal mentally with surviving everyday life. I’ve had my own forms of struggles, but they don’t compare to the experiences that my future students will have faced as immigrants or anyone not a part of the dominant race and class. I need to figure out how to help my students learn despite these difficult backgrounds and being at a disadvantage with the time running out for them to learn English and get educated in a way that can significantly improve their lives.

“Legal status is a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell thing,’ Miguel explains. All students, whether documented or not, are legally entitled to attend public school from kindergarten through the twelfth grade as a result of the 1982 United States Supreme Court ruling, Plyer v. Doe, which came out after a group of undocumented Mexican children living in Tyler, Texas, were effectively denied free public education at local schools. The ruling has been called into question several times over the past three decades, with each new anti-immigrant wave. However, the alternative – not educating the hundreds of thousands of undocumented children who currently live in this country – could help grow an impoverished underclass” (31).

It was surprising to me that the school could be so fluid on their rules and regulations concerning undocumented immigrants for both students and their parents. While I have been becoming more comfortable with the whole idea of accepting immigrants and providing affordable, appropriate education, the idea of being at odds with government rules is still difficult for me. I liked how this quote pointed out that we are bettering immigrants lives by making education affordable, and by so doing we better our own lives (the privileged lives) by preventing crime.

“As immigrants in America, [the students at International] are divided into one of two categories: Legal or Illegal. The new haves and have-nots.  The kids with documents plan for college and careers. Those without documents take the same college-prep classes. They learn how to apply for the same financial aid. They network with the same professionals in the fields of their choice. But whether they will ever get the opportunity to follow through with any of it is largely dependent on the fate of a bill known as the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would create a conditional path to citizenship for high school graduates who arrived in the United States before their were sixteen and have been here for at least five years, in exchange for completing two years of college or military service” (96).

I am curious to know more about the DREAM Act, and how it is being carried out and enforced today (4 years after the book was published). By reading this book, I was able to better see that immigrants fight to be in America harder than I ever have and ever will. Just because I was born here I have more of a financial right to education? This seems silly and bothersome to me.

“One essay can make or break a student’s chance of getting into college, which is why Ann and Vadim have been using journal warm-ups to prepare the seniors for the challenge that lies ahead: writing college essays” (39).

The idea that student’s chances of getting into college hinge entirely on one application, and even one essay is upsetting to me. It’s so difficult to show the person and the student you have become on paper, and for immigrants to be competing with students who have English as a first language, that seems unfair. I need to be able to prepare my students to work with what they have to their best advantage because time can’t necessarily be made up.

“‘This is the honorable Mohamed Bah speaking to you all,’ it reads in fading pencil” (193).

This quote occurs after Mohammed moves in with Cindy and his past experiences of taking advantage of people in order to get ahead are brought to light. He came to America on a Christian scholarship to experience American education and then return to Sierra Leone, but ran away in order to not be forced to return home. He then lived with other Sierra Leone men who provided him with food and shelter, but in return expected him to help them pirate CD’s and DVD’s. Mohammed had no family, even though he would call home, and he was mostly on his own. He would have been homeless if these men hadn’t taken in him, and he therefore felt obligated to do whatever they asked even when it wasn’t best for him. When he leaves in order to gain citizenship and be adopted by Cindy, these men felt taken advantage of and unappreciated. I think that the quote above shows Mohamed’s honor, like fading pencil, eroding and decaying. My disruption was that undocumented immigrants really do need to watch out for their own safety, and because of that they will often use people to their best advantage. I can’t blame them, but if I were in either the shoes of the church members or Mohamed’s roommates, I would have felt abused.

 “‘Is Mohammed going to have to live the rest of his life as a fugitive?’ she asked. He simply laughed and said, ‘His life is going to be so much better than it ever was’” (155). – Pat

The disruption associated with this quote was that despite all of the discrimination and opposition and legal consequences that undocumented immigrants face in the United States, their lives are so much better than what it would have been in their previous countries.

“Aside from raising her siblings and finding a career for herself – her first and second wishes – Yasmeen’s third and final wish is more childish than anything her younger siblings said. After all, despite everything they have been through, they are getting the chance to have a childhood, and that is mainly thanks do their big sister, who sacrificed hers a long time ago./ ‘The third wish,’ Yasmeen says, ‘is to go to Disney World with Jessica’” (121).

This quote from the book actually made me cry. The lawyer asked Yasmeen’s siblings what their three wishes would be, if they had them, and they gave heartfelt responses (as would have Yasmeen). For Yasmeen’s third wish to be to go to Disney world with her best friend was heartbreaking to me. She is responsible and hopeful and helping her family figure everything out, and because of this she missed out on childhood. Students that I teach will have missed opportunities for happiness and exploring their imaginations. I need to figure out how to connect with my students and help them to have hope despite their difficult circumstances.

Other disruptions that occurred by reading this novel included:

Students represent everything about their previous countries – political, economic, culturally – to everyone else and that’s not fair. Even though it’s a part of their identities, they shouldn’t be labeled as them to everyone else. It affects daily interactions with everyone.

In the first weeks of class, when Dr. Draper said that when AP/honors classes are filled with white kids and remedial classes are filled with all brown kids, racism is at play, I was very uncomfortable with that idea. I had taken AP and honors classes, and I had worked very hard to be able to get in to those classes and to stay in those classes. I have realized that the racism occurs through the entire institution, not just signing up for classes.

Descriptions of the stories from the book that clarify or provide examples of the ideas we have been discussing in class:

From English Class to advisory meetings, from Jessica’s kitchen in Chinatown to Yasmeen’s Muslim engagement party, from the first day of school to prom to graduation, we get to know the students and teachers at Brooklyn’s International High School at Prospect Heights. The students and culture of the school can be described similarly to how the different groups in the lunch room are described as “Geographically close, but galaxies apart in every other aspect…” (19). The school is focused on helping immigrants learn English and receive the bet education possible. The book explores the topics of immigration, undocumented immigration, gender roles, cultural hegemony, institutional racism, privilege, race, ethnicity, refugees, religion, and culturally responsive pedagogy through the eyes and experiences of various students and teachers. I chose my favorite quotes concerning the students, teachers, and school and provide them below to illustrate the ideas we have been discussing in class.

Teachers and School:

“Alexandra had a vision of what the school could be. She imagined filling the spacious classrooms with students of every color and painting the putty-gray walls a warm peach. . . . Since the school opened in 2004, Alexandra has filled it with a staff that is almost as divers as the students. They are from Puerto Rico and the suburbs of Philadelphia, the Deep South and Nairobi. They are straight, gay, single, married, black, white, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Taoist, conservative, radical Democratic Socialist, pierced, parents, tattooed, graying, blue-eyed and blue-haired” (16).

Not only are the students at International extremely diverse, but the teachers are too. I believe that this helps to foster a more positive school culture where someone is not put down because they are different – everyone is different. What is difficult is the cultural hegemony that does occur between the different cultural groups of students.

“at nineteen, [Bilguissa Diallo] is a wife to a Fula taxi driver and mother to their baby, born last year. Every morning before school Bulguissa wakes at 7:30 to pack her daughter’s pink knapsack with Huggies diapers and two plastic bottles filled with milk, which she hands over to the child-care specialists who work at a campus nursery on the first floor. . . Despite her responsibilities at home, she has managed to become one of the top students in her grade” (22).

In class we talked about providing resources and accommodations to students and parents from lower classes who can’t get off work or can’t find child care in order to come to school functions. The novel pointed out many  resources that schools can provide in order to help immigrants and impoverished people to get an education despite the circumstances of their lives.

 “‘Now, I’m going to throw some Tibetans in there! Then I’m going to throw some Mexicans in there, and maybe a few Domincans.’ She points to a sprout-sized girl from Puebla with straight black hair who erupts into giggles. ‘This is the idea of assimilation,’ Minerva continues, ‘all these different cultures blending together. And this’ –she taps the image of the stockpot – ‘this is America’” (235).

We discussed the idea of America as a mixing pot or salad bowl full of different races and ethnicities, and I thought that this quote was a positive way that the teacher explained the situation to the students. The teacher then went on to describe how a salad bowl is more accurate, because even though we come together to make a whole, we maintain our unique differences.

“When the director said, ‘Congratulations,’ Marie had to put the phone down so she could start jumping. Minutes later, her parents were calling everyone they knew and telling their friends that Marie had won ‘a scholarship.’ But it wasn’t until they translated the word into Creole that their friends really understood. ‘Bous.’ That one word said it all. It said that Marie was a good student, but also that she was a good daughter, which meant that her parents were good parents, that they had made a good decision coming to the United States, and that all of their struggles up to this point had been worth it. It also said that she was from a good country that turned out good people” (201).

This quote gives a good example of language and how meaning is transferred through various different languages, affected by culture. The parents and friends didn’t necessarily know why it was so significant to receive a scholarship, but when translated everyone understood the importance of it! It’s also very culturally relevant that receiving a scholarship reflected on the students’ parents, their immigration to America, their struggles, and their previous countries.

Mohammed:

“Children were seen as assets, and the underlying expectation is that, someday, the ‘fostered’ child will be able to offer assistance in return. But sometimes the arrangement is abused, and the child may end up being maltreated or exploited, doing work that borders on slavery, while the other children in the family are going to school” (89).

“Before Mohammed left Africa, Abdulai had spoken to him about the struggle and that it’s necessary for success. Over the phone, Abdulai reminded his little brother that the men he lived with had no real obligation to him. As long as they provided food and shelter, he should do whatever they said because he wouldn’t be there forever” (177).

Mohammed’s experience shows the struggle that people go through just to get to the United states and to stay in it. Had he gone back to Sierra Leone when his time with the church was up, he would have probably never been able to get citizenship in the United States or come back at all. The chances are incredibly slim. Because of this, his brother encouraged him to stay in the states by any means. As a part of the Sierra Leone culture, they hand over their children to strangers all the time if they believe that it will give the children greater opportunities. This is in an attempt to combat homelessness, a serious threat and possibility to undocumented immigrants. Because of this threat, children and basically any homeless person can get put in compromising, abusive  conditions in exchange for food and shelter.

Yasmeen

“By the time she was seventeen, Yasmeen had received four marriage proposals, mostly from cousins back in Yemen who wanted a wife in the United States. . . . Compared to some other girls from her country, her parents gave her relative freedom. College was at least a possibility” (77).

The cultural expectation for Yasmeen was that she would conform to re-established Muslim gender roles and get married youn (through an arranged marriage) and give up her education. Her family was already uncomfortable with the idea of her going to high school, but college just seemed absurd because it was so untraditional in their culture. At the same time, Yasmeen was more privileged than other girls in her country because she at least had the option to go to college. In her home country, that option didn’t even exist for women. Here in the states, Yasmeen was also privileged over undocumented immigrants because her family had gained legal citizenship and in result college is a much more realistic possibility.

“I’m trying to tell you that I know what you’re going through. Life took me from my parents. But I’m going to take from life as much as I can. You’ve already overcome so many obstacles – learning English, coming to the U.S. There’s only a few steps left. Just get the diploma, and then do whatever you want” (216).

Immigrants have to go through so much in order to get to the states, learn English, get an education, become functioning members of their homes and society, and maybe gain citizenship. I feel like many people who grew up in the states and only know English think that immigrants need to “just figure out how to assimilate” by learning English and adopting our culture, and those who cannot or do not are either stupid or rude. This is not the case. Learning English is a serious struggle and we should not expect people to forfeit their cultural identities because they are different from our own.

“‘Who’s going to be your advocate?’ No one – not if she’s in a situation where there are two people and a culture against her” (220).

One of the biggest issues brought up with Yasmeen’s story was that the gender roles and expectations of her culture put her in a position where she does not have very much power or control if she conforms. Her teacher thinks that by getting married, Yasmeen is forfeiting her chances to go to school. At the beginning of the novel Yasmeen said she would only marry for love, but after her parents die she agrees to marry one of her cousins. In the end, Yasmeen wants to conform to her own culture and values it highly.

Jessica:

“Mr. Tan left his wife and sons behind to watch his daughter accept an honor that symbolizes everything he has given to her, including a ticket to the United States and the means to pursue her education and future, as well as everything he has denied her: a home and a father. There is no war he can undo the painful events of the past year, but soon Mr. Tan’s new family is going back to China, where they will stay for the summer. While they are gone, he has asked Jessica to move back in so that they can spend time together before she leaves for college in September” (276).

Jessica’s story deals with gender roles and expectations, gender norms, homelessness, cost of living, immigration, privilege, and many other issues that we discussed in our class. Because Jessica is a girl, her father values his new wife and two sons more than her or her mother. He makes obvious choices that show that sexist preferences dominate his important life decisions. He is at least able to bring Jessica to the states, get her citizenship, and keep her off of the streets. He now provides for her financially, but she can’t live with them and the only time he spends with her is to provide food for her and not eat it with her. Jessica’s story also shows how difficult legal and illegal immigration is, and that it can tear apart families. Although Jessica is physically separated from her mother and emotionally separated from her father, she is still privileged in terms of educational and career opportunities because she was able to obtain documented citizenship.

Ngawang:

“However they ended up here, almost all of the Tibetan students have crazy pilgrimage stories about how they fled: crossing the Himalayas by foot in the middle of winter, getting thrown in jail, and being held at gunpoint by Chinese police. . . . Even thousands of miles away from home, age-old animosities between the two cultures play out in the cafeteria” (23).

Ngawang escaped his country in a suitcase, traveling for 24 hours in pitch black and under crushing weight. Immigrants go through crazy, dangerous things and often see America as a hope to ending their repression. But after they get here, there are still incredible difficulties, however different. This quote also illustrates how cultural hegemony occurs, and “age-old animosities” not only exist but thrive in schools and society. As teachers, we can help to diminish animosity by encouraging and appreciating different cultures.

How the stories from the book will influence my work as a future teacher:

My favorite quote came from Yasmeen about hope:

“For once, the future seemed full of possibilities that were not just meant for other people, and in her final minutes of high school, Yasmeen struggled to put into words exactly what it was that had gotten her through this year – and would get her through the next twenty. . . . ‘The things that you care for, they drag you, they push you to move on. Inside of me, I felt like I am nothing, I felt dead – but I was breathing. You will get there, as long as you keep hope alive. Keep it breathing’ . . . . ‘Keep hope breathing’” (280).

Whatever our students are dealing with, we can help them maintain hope for the future; we can help them to realize their opportunities and capabilities. Some of my biggest takeaways from the book that will influence my work as a future teacher were that I need to be a part of my students’ lives and I need to fight for them to receive the help and support they need to succeed in school. I need to be their advocates, and in order to do so I need to know them. I need to be able to help them without pitying them; I need to do my best to understand where they are individually coming from. I need to work to their strengths and encourage their cultural appreciation while helping to respectfully push back against the more repressive parts of their cultures. I need to advocate the provision of resources that make learning possible, such as child care or fundraisers or translators or my extra time. Over all, I need to care for my students and use structural ideology to help break down the barriers in place that limit student opportunities.

Revised Imagined Classroom

Revised Imagined Classroom

1. Five images that reflect, in some way, what you imagine your classroom will look like once you are a teacher. Please annotate your images by providing a description of the image and how it relates to your future classroom.  I found the first images at http://www.slj.com/2014/05/diversity/culturally-diverse-books-selected-by-sljs-review-editors/#_ and at http://yaloveblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/0041.jpg. I found the second images at  https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/is-there-a-future-for-e-textbooks-in-online-courses/ and http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eHvkUsgG1YA/Ugqseiud5XI/AAAAAAAABEg/Dd1ZOq-PIrA/s1600/CIMG1068.JPG, the third image at http://www.weareteachers.com/images/default-source/default-album/bgt45c4278481ca6f21a07aff0000a50561.tmb-blogs-3x25.jpg?sfvrsn=2, the fourth image at http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-DIY-100quot-Projector-Screen/, and the fifth image at https://sonatamathematique.wordpress.com/page/2/ .
1. 
1. Here is an example of an in-class library bookshelf with example novels that could relate to the coursework or material being studied that year. The first image provides specific culturally diverse books, but they are for younger students. I believe that a in-class library with books that include strong female leads, LGBT issues, and non-western writers, I can provide new perspectives to my students and opportunities for them to feel validated in their own feelings and identities.
2.  Here are examples of how I might want my classroom to be set up. The important elements include a board, a teacher's desk, and individual students desks, but I want the desks organized into groups so to foster group discussion and learning. I also want the class to be neat and orderly in order to provide access to students with disabilities and limit distractions.
3. Here is an example of how to keep the students’ work organized; the first image represents being able to turn in work on line and the second image represents turning in hard copies of assignments according to student name, class, and section. There have been various studies on the use of technology improving student success, but I would want to provide alternative options to students who don't have access t a computer or printer at home or need to work with hard copies rather than on line.
4. This is an example of using the projector and screen for class lessons. The projector enables me to provide students with visual aides, assignment information, and video clips in order to provide for different means of interaction and engagement. If students don't understand English, seeing the words and corresponding pictures could help them to understand what is expected of them and what is going on better.
5. Here is an example of how to return work to students without losing it or allowing it to get disorganized. Each students has a folder where they can retrieve graded work. If students can find their names, they can find their work. However, if they have limited physical ability, retrieving their graded work could be difficult for them and I would need to hand it back to them directly, have another student help them, or provide them feedback and grading online.
2. Imagine the surrounding in your classroom. What does the room look like? What resources are available for students? How are the resources used during the lesson?
1.  I want a diverse library, and I want decorations and inspirational posters on the walls. I have an English classroom and I want creativity to flourish – I don’t care if the walls are “busy” or what other people might term “distracting.” I would rather make the classroom feel like a safe place where students can explore the interests they already have through reading, writing, and English. I could put up one of my own quotes and then have students create something to put up in my classroom. I would want the desks set up in a way that everyone could see the board, but where there is an obvious separation into groups so that group work is made easier (there would be a seating chart, of course). I would want the teacher's desk at the back of the classroom rather than the front, but I want to teach from the front and walking around the classroom. The classroom would have to be set up in a way that provided wheelchair access, as well as room next to desks for a teacher or aide to work with individual students without making them feel isolated or singled out. Students would have access to textbooks and my class library for class assignments and readings. Depending on the school, we could use chrome-books or tablets or laptops in order to research or type assignments during class. I would hopefully have access to a computer that I could use to display PowerPoints during my lessons.
3. Describe the students in your classroom. What are their backgrounds? What are their interests? What are they doing during the lesson?
1. The students in my classroom will have a variety of identities, values, and beliefs, all influenced by their various cultures, languages, races, religions, ability levels, genders, immigrant statuses, and sexual orientations. They could be interested in just about anything - sports, dance, theater, singing, comic books, technology, cooking, science, environment, exercise, health, relationships, beauty - the list goes on forever. In order to interest and engage every variety of students, I need to provide a safe and positive learning environment created through the inclusion and appreciation of their cultures. I want my students to feel comfortable discussing different issues and forming their own opinions and expressing them through writing after educating themselves through reading. This would require them all to be respectful of one another, which I know is a lot to ask of high schoolers, especially when each identity can be emotionally and politically charged. I would need to carefully evaluate how to separate students for group work and even just seating chart locations in order to help students feel comfortable, prevent bullying, and help students pay attention and learn.
4. Describe you classroom policies.
1. Classroom Rules:
1. Show Respect (self, classmates, teacher, materials)
2. Actively Participate
1. responses, discussions, reading, be there when you are there
3. Timeliness (Expected to be on time to class and handing in homework)
1.  come to class on time, turn in work on time, have your materials
4. Intellectual Integrity (I will hand in my best work, my own work - no plagiarism)
5. Have an Attitude of Exploration (Willingness to try new things, to challenge ideas)
1. be willing to see different perspectives and discuss different perspective
2. be willing to try new approaches to learning, reading, writing, and group work
3. take feedback and input in a positive way
2. Discipline Plan:
1.  Disrespectful or distracting students will first receive a verbal warning. If behavior escalates they will be asked to go to the hall, and teacher will discuss behavior with them. If further escalation student will be asked to go to office and will get a call home to their parents.
2.  Late assignments lose 5 percentage points per late day for the first 5 days.
3.  Late assignments turned in a week after the due date will be given an automatic 50%. 
4. Students who plagiarize an assignment receive an automatic zero on that assignment.
5. Utilize “intervention” time (extra time outside of class, still during the school day, allotted to students who need extra help) by making up/re-doing late/incomplete/not passing assignments
3. Positive Consequences:
1.  Giving “intervention time” back to students (if such a thing exists at the school) to catch up on/ to get ahead on homework or use as free time if student has a passing grade
2. If feedback is given upon initial grading of an assignment, students can make up missing points by incorporating the feedback into the assignment and re-submitting within a week
3.  Only students who have all work turned in can utilize extra credit opportunities.
4. Besides points lost for turning in late work, all work can be re-done to receive up to half credit on the missing points, and all late assignments will be accepted for partial credit for the entire semester
5. Describe a typical lesson you will teach in your classroom.
1. What will I teach: I will be teaching English (preferably 10^th or 11^th grade).
2. What is the topic: The topic of a typical lesson could be how to write a personal narrative. This would require various steps involving learning vocabulary, learning sentence structure, learning paragraph structure, organizing the entire paper/narrative, editing and revising, and formatting.
3. Why did you choose this topic: I chose this topic because writing personal narratives requires self-reflection and can be very interesting at the same time that required English skills are acquired and strengthened.
4.  How will you teach it: In order to teach this specific lesson, I would start by asking the students for examples of their favorite book, movie, or story (this could serve a wide variety of interests and personalities). I would provide a graphic organizer that visually separated terms such as personal narrative, setting, conflict, rising, action, climax, resolution, and themes. At the same time, I could have a PowerPoint or use the board to write down definitions while giving verbal explanations of the vocabulary and carrying a class discussion where students discuss examples from their own favorite movies/books/stories. After discussing the different elements of a personal narrative, I would give a writing prompt to help brainstorm ideas for writing their own personal narrative.
5. What is the main thing you want students to learn during this lesson: This lesson would be geared towards helping students gain the ability to engage and orient a reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation and create a smooth progression of events and experiences.
6. Imagine your work as a teacher during this lesson. What are you doing during the lesson? 
1. As the teacher in the lesson, I want to engage the students by tying the lesson back to what interests them or what they already know. I want to begin the lesson all together and then instruct how to work in groups discussing how the elements of personal narratives can be found in their own favorite movies/books/stories. I would facilitate group work while walking around and talking shortly with each group. I would then bring the class back together in order to explain the writing prompt and expectations and then provide time to work independently on the writing prompt.
7. Imagine your students again, what are they doing during the lesson?
1. I would hope that students would participate by raising their hands and contributing during the class discussions, and then also be willing to share their thoughts and collaborate with their classmates in order to find examples of the definitions. Because the students will have different backgrounds (cultural, racial, sexual, varied ability), there might be hesitation to working in groups with people outside of their immediate circles of comfort. There would also be difficulty for students who don’t speak English well or speak English as a second language because this class would involve a lot of speaking and then writing. I would hope that these students could get help from bi-lingual peers to understand the expectations, and I would also need to provide extra time or explanation to them. When the time came to write, I would want the students to take the prompt seriously and write about something important to them, but they would first have to feel comfortable and safe in order to do so.
8. Imagine how you will assess your students' learning and achievement. How will you know they have learned?
1. To evaluate students’ learning and achievement, I would require various forms of assessment. Because I’m teaching an English class, students would be required to read and write in various forms. The final assessment would be a 3-4 page paper, but leading up to that, evaluation would take place with different drafts of individual paragraphs, various rough drafts and revisions, and worksheets outlining a problem, situation, or observation and the contributing points. Students could submit these by hand or electronically, whichever worked for them best. For grading on neatness and requiring a typed paper, I could provide some class time to type up the assignment in the school computer lab or library. For students who speak English as a second language, I would allow them to first complete worksheets in their first language and respond to writing prompts in their first language, but the final paper needs to be either translated or written in as much English as they can. Grades will be evaluated on content knowledge (of material read or discussed) as well as structural elements (grammar, sentence structure, etc.). Students with limited ability or a disability would need various forms of adaptations, accommodations, and modifications depending on their specific disability and 504 plan. 
9. You will also include a reflective piece that describes why you made changes (or didn't) to your original classroom description.
1. Most of the changes that I made to my original imagined classroom involved providing much more specific information to each individual section. For the pictures, I made my classroom bookshelf culturally diverse rather than just saying that I would have a class library. I changed the structure of desks from rows to pods in order to provide for group work and discussion. I considered handicap access and how different cultures would respond and interact during group work. I evaluated how to further use the technology or organization techniques in order to address specific student needs. I decided that I no longer wanted to only teach honors students, but even with honors students I realized that there are a variety of cultures even among demographically similar or racially similar groups. Each student has an individual identity. I completely restructured both my classroom policies and the typical lesson that I would teach. A large part of this was due to my feeling better prepared to address both issues, but also just that I needed to be incredibly more specific. My previous answers were too vague and made many assumptions about education and my students. I kept some of my pictures because I felt like the ideas were still good, I just needed to be more specific in my reasoning for using them. I also severely altered the structural format of my original post in order to make it more neat and orderly and aesthetically pleasing.