Saturday, November 6, 2010

Promising Practices

PROMISING PRACTICES

When I first got to the conference, there was a lot less people than I first assumed. It quickly filled up though. We started a little bit late, so it was confusing that my first session with Elizabeth Rowell, started while everyone was still coming in the room. I learned a lot in this first session and it made me feel more comfortable for next semester, because the session leader will be one of my teachers. The subject for my class next semester and this session intertwine, both about the LGBT group. This session was mainly focused on how harassment hurts. Rowell gave the group. She said that 50% of transsexuals will have at least one suicide attempt by age 20. Self mutilation is also something else that these people may go through due to the stress of bullying and harassment.

We watched a video of mainly inner city teens singing a song to encourage others that, yes, bullying happens now, but it gets better. They shared a generalized story about their lives and what has happened to them, including being part of the LGBT group. They all confirmed that it had gotten better for them in life. I think that this video will help people, but I think it is unrealistic in the fact that it does not get better for everyone. It seems that they may give false hope, telling everyone it gets better. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Rowell told us about different groups, like FLSEN and The Trevor Project, that help support LGBT students. They talk about how it goes from “teasing to torment.” She talked about people’s views on homosexuality and what can happen because of it. Missing class or days of school, poor grades, and dropping out are some of the things that happen when harassment becomes too much for students.

She told us one interesting concept about bullying in general. She said that bullying (that’s not about gayness) is usually taken care of properly. But in today’s society, gay bullying is more accepted. In the world, it is not firmly stated that gay bullying is absolutely prohibited, so people feel as though it is acceptable. These people that are bullied and harassed feel unsupported, isolated, invisible, and feel like they are in a hostile environment. Some cannot turn to their families for support. This made me feel sad because I know it’s true and know that some children and teens lose their families because parents disown them. This session made me think of the media literacy videos we examined in class and Christensen. Christensen said how the media, at a young age, teaches people how to act or their stereotypes about different topics. Rowell showed us different videos that supported gay bullying and discrimination against LGBT’s. I believe that Christensen’s ideas relate to this because there are still videos, television shows, and movies that still support the idea that gays are bad and should be discriminated against.

Also in this session, we watched a “What would you do” episode about gay bullying. I found it very surprising that it took over 30 minutes for the first people to come up to stop the scene. It really made me think about the world and what it has come to. People really won’t stop if there is a teenager being pushed around and having people yelling gay slurs at him on a public board walk? It made me disgusted that there are people in this world that don’t seem to care about someone’s well being, but would probably want somebody to stop if it was them.
Go to this site, http://abcnews.go.com/whatwouldyoudo, and look for Bullied for Being Gay. This is the “What would you do” video we watched.
We also watched “It’s Elementary”, the show we watched part of in class. One point I found slightly disturbing was that students assume that only gay teachers want to talk about gays and other members of LGBT. I do not understand why children would even think of this. I think it may be because some people have the notion that only gays care about the way gays are treated.

It’s Elementary


Its STILL Elementary

This is the sequel to the previous video. It shows the problems people had when children were to learn about gays in elementary schools. It has the original cast members from the elementary schools and interviews with them.
I thought I would just add in 2 last statistics she gave the group. 9/10 gays face harassment, and gays are three times more likely to commit suicide that straight people. This session then also reminded me about Wise. He said that discrimination against blacks has gotten better, but it has taken a lot of time. It takes time to change this big of a thing, and I think that this relates to this situation. I think that gays or slightly more accepted now than what they were 20 years ago. I think that it will get better as time goes on, I just think that it will take a long time.

I then went to the Resource fair. It was so busy, that unless you were visiting a booth that was completely empty (which was very unlikely), you were unable to speak to the person at the table. I did get a lot of resources though. My concentration is geography and one of the tables had a great, large map that is great. At the same table, I got other geography brochures.

I was disappointed at the second session. I went to the “Universal Design for Learning” session with Maria Lawrence. She described what the topic is. She said its materials and activities used by the teacher that allows learning goals to be attainable by individuals with wide differences in their ability to see, hear, speak, move, read, write, understand language, attend, organize, engages, and remember without having to adapt the curriculum repeatedly to meet special needs. The purpose of this is also to “make instruction readily accessible for the widest range of learners”

She said that there are three components to the universal design for learning. Once was multiple means of representation, the teacher’s plan and presentation of information. Another is multiple means of expression, how students show what they know and learned, and then also multiple means of engagement. Lawrence related this workshop to her science career, teaching us about the brain, but failing to connect it back to this design for learning. I felt that a majority of the time was spent on science and her career rather than what the workshop was said to be about, so I was upset. I was very interested in this session, believing that it would give me insight into teaching students of all different levels. Lawrence was a very funny, knowledgeable woman, but I feel there was a lack of concentration on the subject at hand.

The end speeches, before Shirley’s, had one interesting point. One of the speakers said not to be afraid of curiosity and to ask questions. She used life experiences which was helpful to understand the concept of asking questions. I was taught, just like her, not to be rude and don’t ask personal questions. But this speaker made me feel more confident in asking questions about other people’s cultures and lives.

I was under the impression that the seminar was to be about multicultural relations. But when Shirley spoke, I rarely felt this was the case. Yes, he did incorporate some cultural differences and made us more aware, but most of his speech was about different teaching techniques and what happens in a teaching seminar. He gave five dimensions of multicultural education. He said they were content integration, knowledge construction process, prejudice reduction, an equity pedagogy, and an empowering school culture.

Shirley gave an interesting thought that I had noticed in high school, teachers act different and use a different curriculum when being judged, but go back to the original curriculum that worked. He also used the phrase “plate of locust” when he was discussing giving an assignment that requires the student to write about what they think their assignment would be about. I’ve never heard this phrase before and he used it in a clever way and it made me think.

One thing Shirley said I found disturbing was someone was “better off having a few drinks before driving than having a cell phone.” I thought that this thought was very disconcerting because of all the fatalities due to alcohol and driving. I understand that cell phones are bad, but if used properly, there should be no dangerous accidents. He used this phrase in order to talk about how technology has become such a big part of our life, technocracy. Shirley continued to give teaching tips, like to give students quiet time or chime time. I thought that this was a good concept because I know it can help relax the students, so by the time they are done with this quiet time, they are calmed and are able to concentrate more.

Shirley gave two different lists, the first of which teachers should have or be aware of, cultural sensitivity for second language learners, learn the pressure on leaders, you need to know what your vision is, and have a supportive network. I thought that this was a good thing for him to say because I don’t think that many people realize these traits. I’ve just recently realized you need to have a support system in a school so then your students don’t suffer from it either. The second list was the seven synergies of mind, teaching, and learning. They are openmindedness, caring and loving, stopping, professional expertise, authentic alignment, harmonizing and integrating, and collective responsibility. These traits are also important I think because they encompass everything a teacher should be about.

Overall, if the conference was to be about Multicultural beliefs, it was not successful. There was a lack of concentration on the subject. If the conference was meant to help college students get techniques for teaching and help teachers with new skills, it was successful. There were a lot of different techniques and tips given. I feel that from an educational stand point, learning to be a teacher, I learned valuable ideas that will help support my future career.

1 comment:

  1. Very thoughtful response, Darlene. Great connections and links, too.

    ReplyDelete