Summary of Learning – ECS 203

Summary of learning for ECS 203. This semester has brought a lot of new terms and knowledge for myself and I am looking forward to continue to grow and learn as an educator.

Week Eleven – Allyship

• [“As a Sort of Blanket Term”: Qualitative Analysis of Queer Sexual Identity Marking]: In what ways is queer sexual identity marking both similar to and distinct from other forms of sexuality marking? 
• [Queering Curriculum Studies]: What does integrating queerness into curriculum studies mean to you? What will it look like, sound like, feel like in your classroom?
• [Post-gay, Political, and Pieced Together- Queer Expectations of Straight Allies]: This research suggests that the idea of allyship is not fixed but can vary within a marginalized population, having different meanings for different people. With this in mind, what are teacher implications for allyship?

To me queer sexual identity marking is similar or different from other forms in sexual marking, in that people might not be as open or comfortable expressing themselves if they are not a cisgender heterosexual person. I do think this is changing daily, I believe our society is changing for the better as far as accepting everyone, no matter your sexual orientation.

Integrating queerness into the classroom to me would look like, making sure all voices are heard. Say, if I were to teach an English class, I would make sure the content included authentic queer voices. It would mean talking about issues involving queerness and making my classroom a safe space for all.

To me teacher implications of allyship means creating a safe classroom that is accepting of everyone. It also means standing up for your students and colleagues who are part of the LGBTQ2SA+ community. It also means supporting them no matter what even privately if the person is not openly out or isn’t comfortable with their sexuality yet, just being that pillar of support for them.

Week Ten – Single Stories

• Respond to the following in a blog post:

1. How has your upbringing/schooling shaped how you “read the world?” What biases and lenses do you bring to the classroom? How might we unlearn / work against these biases?
2. Which “single stories” were present in your own schooling? Whose truth mattered?

My upbringing was pretty humble. I come from an immigrant family and moved to Canada when I was seven years old. School in El Salvador (where I come from) wasn’t much different from here, we sat in rows, went to class, had recess. I think the way I viewed the world when I was younger changed in high school, I went from going to a community elementary school where the majority of the students came from poor lower class families to attending a high school where the majority of the students were upper middle class/higher class. I think going from one extreme to another has definitely shaped how I “read the world” because I have seen many perspectives and how even in the same city there are wide differences between the quality of life between one person to another. I think by getting to know our city and our community we can unlearn our biases. If we only have one single experience it makes us have blinders on to anything else going on.

Now that I think about it “single stories” were present in the classroom all the time. I think it was more common when I was younger and in the early elementary school years. Something that comes to mind is Christmas concerts, there was always a Christmas concert, every grade had to get up and sign a Christmas song, but not everyone celebrated Christmas. It was like it was assumed everyone celebrated Christmas. It seemed like the truth of the majority of the population mattered and other groups were left in the dark. I can relate to this because I come from a country in Central America where everyone I meet seems to think everyone lives in huts and in major poverty, but truth is we have malls, and law firms, and grocery stores and bowling alleys and movie theatres and houses just like we do here. Yes, there are people who live in poverty but that does not define the country.

Week Nine: Teaching Mathematics

Part 1: At the beginning of the reading, Leroy Little Bear (2000) states that colonialism “tries to maintain a singular social order by means of force and law, suppressing the diversity of human worldviews. … Typically, this proposition creates oppression and discrimination” (p. 77). Think back on your experiences of the teaching and learning of mathematics — were there aspects of it that were oppressive and/or discriminating for you or other students?

When I was in school both elementary and secondary, I do not recall any moments of my learning of mathematics to be discriminatory or oppressive. I was the kid who LOVED mathematics and the love of the topic could of blinded me from seeing any discriminations or oppressions. Thinking back now, I know in elementary school we almost always had two math groups in the classroom, one was more advanced than the other. I could see how the kids who were in the “lower” level math could maybe feel oppressed, maybe the school and teacher’s could of found a way to teach us all together or find different ways so ensure everyone stays at the same level and understands the content.

Part 2: After reading Poirier’s article: Teaching mathematics and the Inuit Community, identify at least three ways in which Inuit mathematics challenge Eurocentric ideas about the purposes of mathematics and the way we learn it.

• Several remarks can be made. First, the numbers 20 and 400 are pivotal
  numbers, as other numbers are built from these two numbers. The Inuit
  have a base-20 numeral system. (57) In the math I learned growing up we worked in the base-10 numeral system.

• As soon as humans needed clothing and shelter, they needed to
  measure. The first measuring tools were parts of the body (the finger, the
  foot, etc.). Still today, Inuit women use certain parts of their bodies to
  measure length—for example, the palm when making atigi (parkas). (60) – when in school, we used measuring tools like rulers or meter sticks.

• Their traditional calendar is neither lunar nor solar, since it is based on naturally independently recurring yearly events. (60) In school we learned that each month has X amount of days, this stays the same year to year with the exception of February which has 29 days every 4 years.

Poirier, L. (2007). Teaching mathematics and the Inuit community, Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 7(1), p. 53-67.

Week 8: Treaty Education

In response to the Student’s email regarding treaty education in the classroom:

• What is the purpose of teaching Treaty Ed (specifically) or First Nations, Metis, and Inuit (FNMI) Content and Perspectives (generally) where there are few or no First Nations, Metis, Inuit peoples?
• What does it mean for your understanding of curriculum that “We are all treaty people”?

I would tell the student to stand up for what they believe in, especially if Treaty education is part of the curriculum there is no reason this part should be skipped over and not taught. I would tell the student to try and find a unique and engaging way to get the students to think about the treaties and the land that we live on that will make them engaged and interested in the topic. I would also talk to the cooperating teacher who doesn’t think that Treaty Education needs to be taught as there are no First Nations students know that treaty education is not only for First Nations people, it is for all of us and it is part of our history and it’s a history that needs to be taught no matter your background.

For me being a treaty person means that we all have a responsibly towards working through truth and reconciliation whether we identify as First Nations, Inuit, Metis or not. Whatever our background might be and whatever we identify as, as pre-service teachers we need to recognize and implement the importance of treaty education and we need to be able to give our students the education that they deserve.

Week 7 – Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Place Based Learning

In response to:

1) [Culturally relevant pedagogy and critical literacy in diverse English classrooms: A case study of a secondary English teacher’s activism and agency]: What will culturally relevant pedagogy look like, sound like, feel like, in your future classroom?

I believe that knowing your students and having a connection with them is extremely important. I think a way I might be able to do that while implementing cultural relevant pedagogy, is to let students be who they are, have an open classroom where everyone is accepted. Students should be proud of who they are and where they come from. Hearing and listening to stories, their stories, having them share their stories is something I would value. This could look like a visual project where students draw or make a collage of where they are from and their background, it could also look like a simple shorty story. This not only allowed the individual student to learn more about themselves but it allows other students to learn and understand, cultures and practices that they are not aware of. I also think making sure that the way the content and the education is delivered would be really important, no two students are the same and being able to have a plan that would allow everyone to learn would be really important.

2) [Placing elementary music education: a case study of a Canadian rural music program.]: How will you, as teacher, contribute to the sense of place for your future students?

As a teacher I can contribute to the sense of place for my future students in respect to connecting to your local place by learning about the community and landscapes around us. I think learning about the community and being active community members gives you a sense of place. Being part of a local sports team, getting to know the land around us or attending community events. I think knowing the history of the place you are in is really important. When you can make connections between what you are learning and where you reside I think gives you a sense of place. A connection I can make to send of place and place based learning is, learning about how diverse Saskatchewan is when it comes to landscape, you have forests up north, fields of wheat in between and grasslands/badlands in the south. Doing a class lesson out in nature and learning what our province has to offer has given me a sense of place, it makes me feel safe here, it makes me proud to live in Saskatchewan and explore all the hikes and trails it has to offer. Place based learning and exploring or even learning about certain parts of Saskatchewan as a student is something that I want to do in return for my future students.

Hip Hop in the Classroom

In Response To:

 [Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy as a Form of Liberatory Praxis]: How can hip hop be used as a tool to promote social justice and youth activism in the classroom? What is the relationship between hip hop culture and the development of critical consciousness amongst students?

Hip hop can be used in the classroom to promote social and youth activism by allowing students to listen and relate to the music. A lot of hip hop music talks about social injustices that some students may be facing. It is a way for them to relate and express themselves and can help students understand their feelings, emotions, etc. At the same time I think if Hip Hop is to be used in the classroom we need to ensure that we are using Hip Hop that is helpful and useful for students. A lot of Hip Hop can also be seen as problematic and glorifies violent acts, I believe there is a fine line we need to keep an eye out for. I think as long as we can use Hip Hop in a positive way this can greatly benefit students who can relate and are able to use Hip Hop as a way to social justice.

The Saskatchewan Way

Response To:

• [Curriculum Policy and the Politics of What Should Be Learned in Schools]:  Although curriculum is a fundamental part of the framework of schooling, curriculum decisions and choices are shaped in large measure by other considerations—ideology, personal values, issues in the public domain, and interests. Curriculum decisions are often part of a much larger public debate that often extends beyond education to larger questions of public goods.
• [The Saskatchewan Way: Professional-Led Curriculum Development]: Curriculum is complicated. At first glance, one might think that curriculum is just a set of documents to be taught to students. However, as you delve deeper and consider everything that is taught and learned in a classroom, curriculum becomes much more involved … Curriculum is ‘a complicated system of interpretation, interactions, transmissions – planned and unplanned’. Curriculum is complicated – particularly when examined within its relationship with teaching.

From reading the two article we can agree that curriculum is a complicated topic. I think what is taught it schools has mainly remained the same throughout the years, this do to social norms and doing what we’ve always done. Change is often not easily accepted. I think this starting to change and shift especially in the past few years. Curriculum is something we really need to look at as future teachers and we need to be able to critique it and find areas where we can improve and make school a rewarding experience for all students.

The “good” Student

To be a “good” student means to be the type of student who always listens, follows the rules, doesn’t create chaos, and does as they are told. A good student is the “ideal” student that parents and teacher’s desire, someone who is easy to manage.

Students who are privileged by this definition are the student who follow these ideals – easy to teach, behave, listen, do as they are told. These students might come from families who are not “broken”, student’s who do not suffer from a mental illness and students who might not be as oppressed as others.

The “good” student is shaped by historical factors as European colonizers only saw certain students as “the good students” as the only one’s worth teaching. This idea left a lot of children who didn’t fit the standard out and made to feel like they were not worthy enough to get an education. I think the most important point to take away from this week’s readings is that we are going to be dealing with all types of student’s whether we think they are misbehaved or well behaved. We have one goal and that is to ensure they receive the education they deserve and to find new and proactive ways to help us teach all students and no two students are the same.

Assignment 1 – A Further Look Into The Hidden Curriculum

The topic I chose for the critical summary assignment is the hidden curriculum. This area piqued my interest as I am curious to know what topics are considered hidden curriculum. Before this class I wasn’t aware of the hidden curriculum and I knew it was a topic I wanted to explore in further detail. I’m curious to see what everyday tasks students are expected to do and what norms teachers feel are important enough that students should know that would be considered as part of the hidden curriculum.

Some things I have discovered so far to be part of the hidden curriculum are things like social norms which would be things like raising your hand, taking turns, or in kindergarten when we first learn how to sit down and be quiet. The hidden curriculum creates norms, values and procedures for us, we might see these things are rules that the school has.

My next steps to completing this project is to spend some more time researching the hidden curriculum, and organizing all my data. Finding out both pros and cons about the hidden curriculum and how it effects students today. I believe as a future educator that having a good understanding of the hidden curriculum will help me become a better teacher.