The National Archives' Documented Rights exhibit is composed of many documents, stories, court cases, and other resources that document the struggle for equality and civil rights for all in the United States. The exhibit has five different sections which highlight different phases in United States history. It begins with a section titled "Let My People Go," which describes the slave trade in the nineteenth century U.S. and the issuance of the emancipation proclamation. The exhibit also shows copies of original documents such as the emancipation proclamation and photographs of Abraham Lincoln, writs of habeas corpus, and letters and photographs explaining personal stories of slavery, the slave trade, and also of those who tried to help in ending slavery. The second section of the exhibit, "Broke At Last," discusses and documents the continuing struggle for personal rights and freedoms and discusses the issue of segregation. "This Land is Your Land," is a section focusing on women's suffrage in the late 1800s and early 1900s and also discusses Native American citizenship and the relocation of Japanese Americans. This section of the exhibit includes primary sources such as petitions for women's suffrage, photographs of parades and a photograph of Susan B. Anthony, as well as her record of conviction. It also displays photographs of and letters from Native Americans and Japanese Americans who were fighting for personal rights. The fourth section is titled "A Change is Gonna Come." This section largely discusses Martin Luther King Jr. and the work that he and others did in order to advance rights for African Americans in the United States. It shows primary sources such as court documents, photographs, and publications by Martin Luther King Jr. and others such as "Heed Their Rising Voices," which was placed in the New York Times. Lastly, there is a section in the exhibit called "We Shall Overcome," which describes some of the accomplishments that have been made and in the fight for civil rights and equality and aspects of the fight, such as the landmark court case, Brown v. Board of Education, including some of the original case documents.
Primary sources are a valuable tool to use in order to give students a better connection and understanding of what they are learning. For example, when students learn about the history of the United States and slavery primary sources can better connect them to history by showing them plans for slave ships and how people were held, photos and letters from slaves discussing their lives and feelings, as well as copies of the Emancipation Proclamation. Using primary sources also shows students that they do not have to learn and acquire knowledge solely based upon what their teacher and others tell them, they can find the source of the information themselves and decide what they think about it.
# 2: NEA: Achievement Gaps
Achievement Gaps
According to the National Education Association (NEA), although the term "achievement gap" is often used to refer to the gap in scores between minority or low-income students and their white, more affluent counterparts, there are many groups that are likely to suffer from achievement gaps. The NEA proposes that the groups who are likely to exhibit achievement gaps include racial and ethnic minorities, such as American Indians and Alaskan Natives, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, African Americans, and Hispanics/Latinos, english language learners, students with disabilities, boys at some points, as well as girls, and students from low-income families. Additionally, the NEA has found that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students may suffer from achievement gaps as well.
Becoming a Culturally Competent Educator
The first suggestion from the NEA that I identify with as fitting in with my teaching style is to aid in the organization of a cultural competence committee. I feel that it is very important to examine and reflect the teaching practices, policies, and resources that are put in place at a school and that that is best done by self reflection and also by getting others together who are more knowledgeable in the area than you might be and discussing positive attributes of a program and possible changes that might work to benefit the school and the students. I am a very collaborative person and have gained a lot in my professional life from working with many people. This is a very important idea and practice to bring into schools and the classroom itself. The second suggestion for becoming a culturally competent educator that I feel fits my teaching style is building and using a network of helpers and experts both at school and in the community. I have found that it is very easy for me to appreciate others' areas of knowledge and expertise and it is very beneficial to see what those around you can offer and add to a classroom and school community. A third section of the listed suggestions which I feel fits my teaching style deals with networking with those people who are involved with students in order to learn more about and implement initiatives for students who are linguistically, culturally, racially, or ethnically, diverse. I enjoy learning about other people and the students that I work with and involving the people who are close to them in their school work and the process of learning and teaching.
#3 Stop Cyber Bullying
The quiz on cyber bullying was enlightening because it made me realize how many ways kids can take advantage of each other and exploit each other through technology and over the internet. I try to be a thoughtful person and have never felt a big need to make fun of others or make other people look badly and this was reflected in my score of 1 on the cyber bullying quiz. I will admit to forwarding conversations or emails to others without their permission; not necessarily to make someone look bad however. I remember doing this in high school in order to get advice about a boy or a friend with whom I was having trouble.
The cyber bullying website is designed in such a way that instead of focusing on parents' and teachers' power to censor and control their kids' use of technology and the internet, it works to inform adults about the reasons for cyber bullying and also to empower students to be informed about technology and how their use of it affects themselves and others. I found the website's description of the four different types of cyber bullies, their motives, and ways to address their bullying very helpful. For example, the "Mean Girl" bullies are described as females who typically bully other females as an ego-based way of looking for entertainment, and that this type of bullying grows when admired, or others stand by and let it happen. According to the website, it stops once the girls do not find the entertainment that they are looking for. This information can be used by teachers in the classroom when confronted by varying types of bullies and cyber bullies.
#4 Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
In the "Subject Access" section of Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators I found a link to children's literature activities that I think would be very useful in the classroom. The page was sorted by grade level, under each of which was many links to stories and activities for each story. The website also had stories separated by genre such as fairytales, mythology, and Hispanic literature. In Kathy Schrock's "Teacher Helpers" area, I found several areas to be very useful, including the assessment and rubric information section. In this section, there are several guides, articles, organizers, and other resources relating to assessments and rubrics, both general and subject-specific.
As a new teacher I feel that Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators will be extremely helpful in giving me ideas for lessons and building my classroom environment, such as making bulletin boards and implementing useful and fun projects. The website also offers useful tools such as clip-art and ideas for assessment and rubrics that I can get ideas from when building my own.
#5 Multiple Intelligences
My top three intelligences:
Naturalistic: 75%
Interpersonal: 69%
Intrapersonal: 63%
Although I was expecting some of my scores to be a bit higher, such as bodily-kinesthetic, I was not surprised to find that I received high scores in these categories. Throughout my life and experiences in school I have found that I do well with work in nature, enjoy science and scientific work, such as experimentation and observation. I also know that I am both very interpersonal and work well in groups and know myself and what I need to do in order to succeed very well.
I watched the video Multiple Intelligences Leave No Child Behind which highlighted the Key Learning Community school in Indianapolis, Indiana. The school has made it it's mission to gauge each student based upon his or her strengths according to Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory. They help to make each student aware of his or her strengths, guide them to hone in on these strengths and help them find career paths in which they might excel, and also help them build their other intelligences. I also learned how detrimental the constant testing that the No Child Left Behind Act can be on a school such as this, or any school, for that matter. While students are constantly being tested (in a non-authentic way) they are losing a lot of valuable instruction time with their teachers and peers. They Key Learning Community takes the students' strengths into account throughout the teaching and assessing process; and although they must perform the standard assessments for the state, they use authentic assessments such as online portfolios and exhibitions in order to assess student progress.
#6 Teaching Tolerance
Grade Level: Early Grades
Subject: Language Arts
Topic: Conflict Resolution
Lesson Title: Lessons from Goldilocks
Lessons from Goldilocks describes how storybooks and art can be used to teach children about respect, responsibility, and other positive behaviors and characteristics. This is done by first discussing with the students that there are things that people do that are responsible and irresponsible and what those things look and feel like. After the teacher and students discuss these points, they apply what they've learned to the work that they do in class and also to every-day happenings. For example, when the class reads Goldilocks and The Three Bears the students talk about the character of Goldilocks and whether she acts responsibly or not and why. The teacher also applies this to the students lives by having them examine their actions, giving examples of things that they do and see which exhibit responsible or irresponsible actions. One of the things that stood out to me about this lesson is that it is not just one isolated lesson, it is an ongoing process that is integrated into the curriculum as well as the students' life and interactions.
#7 Multicultural Education and Equity Awareness
I was shocked about many of the statistics that I found in the EdChange Multicultural Education and Equity Awareness quiz. Not only did I have to guess on most of the questions, the majority of my guesses were wrong because I underestimated the degree to which inequality exists in our society. One of the questions that most shocked me asked "According to a study by the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights, what percentage of physicians reported witnessing a colleague giving reduced care or refusing care to lesbian, gay, or bisexual patients?" to which the answer is 52% I expected that there would be some discrimination found, however I am astonished to find that more than half of the physicians reported that they had seen this occur. I cannot imagine feeling such hate for a person that I would go as far as to deny them care and possibly cause them harm or death by doing so. This makes me wonder why physicians who do this feel justified in their actions, or if they do. Along the same lines, I was surprised and saddened to find that 84.5% of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students reported that their teachers "never" or "rarely" respond to homophobic remarks made by their peers. As a future educator, I find it incomprehensible to hear or know that a student is making demeaning remarks about another student and not taking some course of action. In my opinion, school should be a place where students feel safe and taken care of; if these statistics really represent how this population of students is being cared for, the schools in which they are enrolled are not doing them justice.
#8 Netiquette
After reading "The Core Rules of Netiquette" and receiving a perfect score on the netiquette quiz I feel like I have a better idea of commonly used netiquette terminology and accepted practices. If we would like our students to be have like angels o:-) while using the internet and interacting with others, we should take it upon ourselves to remind them of common sense ideas such as treating others as they would like to be treated or as it is stated on the netiquette site, "Remember the Human." We also must inform them of what is and is not acceptable practice, as interacting with people online can commonly feel different and much more distant than interacting with someone in person, making it much easier to say things that you would not say in person.
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