“I was tired of being alone”

That statement stopped me dead in my tracks while reading a document very close to:

http://www.canadianliving.com/life/community/growing_up_lesbian_or_gay_in_canada.php

an article that describes athlete Mark Tewksbury experiences through life and current awareness and education fronts on  Lesbian and Gay youth. 

The reason these 6 words made me put the article down is because in such a short, concise manner this man has described everything wrong with teaching, especially when it comes to youth who are queer in our classrooms.  There are very few people in this world that can fathom what it means to be alone.  This is especially true in every other way you should fit in (this boy in particular was athletic, presumably doing well in school, probably otherwise socially adept) but for one reason that you cannot change about yourself you are ostracized. 

Now what about youth “in the closet”?  They would feel the exact same sense of loneliness (not being able to relate, be a “normal” student in the eyes of society) except.  We have so many terms these days, just look at the alphabet soup of lgbttiqqccp2sa, and as teachers it is very easy to say something that will make a student feel more alone.  Especially when we are the role models of the classroom and set the tone of most interactions in our school.  Now I am not saying lets all jump on the PC bandwagon, but a certain care must be taken to inform ourselves on all of these issues.  Otherwise we will continue to make students feel more alone, and not even know it.

Autism Spectrum

The latest lecture we had was on Autism Spectrum Disorder.  What really hit home with me was the activities we played, revealing how everyday interactions can be very difficult for those who are autistic.  Idioms, for example, cloud communication as people with autism tend to take statements at face value.  From the usage of “face value” you can see how I enjoy idioms and use them in every day conversations.  We all tend to.  However we are blocking the understanding of people we can possibly be speaking to.  It is not unlike English Language Learners.  If someone were to say to me “avoir la chaire de poule” I might hear something about chicken and get a little hungry. 

So when we are in the front of classrooms, and we bring who we are to the profession, how easy will it be to continue this pattern of speech?  To continue this disconnection we have between us and students with autism?  Just something to think about.

I will admit this was the subject out of all the exceptionalities and equity issues we have discussed that I am the least comfortable with.  I do not know a lot about the subject of autism and I am a little embarrassed about it.  However it was great to have a lecture on the subject and I’m definitely going to read more on the subject.  You should learn something every day, right?

Body Image Issues.

In first year at university, I would have been classified as Class II Obese.  Over the course of last year I was able to (safely) lose and keep off about 90 pounds and am currently in a normal weight range.  To this day I still have very prevalent body image issues.  However I would not have been able to do any of this without taking a good look in the mirror and saying I was not happy with myself. I was not okay with who I was.

  

What irked me during our lecture on body image and when I read statistics in general, is the very "accept your body for what it is" and "be happy to be you" mentality and the always negative statistics on diets.  For most people this is a wonderful idea and should be in more people's ideologies .  However I guess my question is what about the kids that really do need to lose weight?  How are their body image issues when they go through day to day life?  How can we have so much information on the epidemic in this country yet still I walk through the ARC and pay $8 for a booster juice when it's $5 for a pizza, chips and fries combo.  When someone on the Biggest Loser (which lets face it, is probably the most widely viewed work out program) loses 10 pounds a week and a student loses 1, how do we ensure they know that that's okay.  If stores sell triple XL tshirts, is that normalizing obesity?  If I am a teacher teaching positive body images and "be happy with yourself" do we lose opportunities to talk frankly with students about safe workout routines and nutrition to accommodate physical activity?  (which to be honest, I am just learning about now through friends I go to the gym with.  From my experience this information seems to be reserved for the athletes in high schools)

I apologize for another rant post, however this issue strikes a chord with me.   What would be interesting in the future is more date on successes/failures of plans made by school boards to promote healthy lifestyles.  Or on society's role on obesity.  This is because everyone seems to talk a big game about obesity, about how it’s on the rise, how our children are in danger etc…but nothing, in my eyes, is constructively being done about it.  It’s time for a change.

I’m a poser

I decided the best place to start writing my blogs this semester is to look back at my blogs from last semester.  Upon doing this I realized one thing:  I like to pose a lot of questions.  Rarely do I answer them, that’s for someone else to do.  But nonetheless a question mark gets used frequently. Why do I do this?

Well that’s one question, after some reflection, that I can answer.  I’d like to make the conjuncture that as young educators, our role is to pose the questions.  Questions that don’t necessarily need answers, but questions that need to be asked.

In the past week or so, it has been amazing the amount of discussion I have had on students identified with giftedness in our classroom.  The majority of them have been based around a comment made by a professor that (and I am paraphrasing) gifted students are the ones that will be future leaders and should be treated accordingly in the classroom.  What was great is most people questioned the validity and intention of this statement. 

As a former gifted student, the discussion touches a bit of nerves. I use the word former since my record states I was “demitted” from the program after middle school.   One reason I left the program was because I didn’t like the type of people it seemed to breed.  It might have been just my experience, but there was a sense of elitism that just rubbed me the wrong way.  As well, when everyone is put in the program based on math/science and only one in Language/Verbal, one has to question how we test these students.  Does Gifted just mean smarter?  Should students with tutors or who had Kumon as a kid have an IEP?  Because as of right now, at least for the kids who get in for their math capabilities, this seems to be a way to do it.

At the end of the day I’m all for the idea of Giftedness as a reason to have an IEP.  However in the way it is tested at the moment, we lose a lot of the aspects that I believe to be important for someone to deserve an IEP in a classroom in favour of how well they can perform on a standardized test.

Classism. Period.

Creative title, I know.

But I think it deserves to be stated outright.  Its often forgotten over the other "-isms" that we commonly think of.  Ironically, in my opinion, it is one of the more prevalent and wide-ranging inclusivity issues that youth deal with.  On a very superficial level, we judge people by how well kept they are, if they have the trendy clothes/styles and whether or not they have the latest Apple gizmo (this is especially true in younger kids).  Commercials and media don't help this idea either.  So I don't think we have to even go as far as looking at poverty to see classism in everyday life and easily in our classrooms.

But looking at the more serious issue of child poverty.  Reading the 2003 Report Card on Child Poverty, by the Canadian Council on Social Development, I was astonished to read that 390,000 children live below the poverty line.  14.4%.  Imagine having 4 kids in each one of your class below the poverty line.

To me, it makes me wonder as to why we don't see classism as much as an issue as I've seen in the past.  Is there some reason we don't want to talk about it?

Most of my teaching experiences so far have been in summer school.  Sadly that means there is a whole bunch of material to cover and not a whole lot of time to worry about a lot of "under the surface" kind of issues such as the "-isms".  To me, a successful day was if the students came to class and didn't get into a fight (the ratio of successful days to unsuccessful days was about 1:1).  So it makes me excited to get my own class and actually have the time to establish a classroom atmosphere.  And for an inclusivity issue that does not get brought into schools all that often, this will definitely be another "-ism" that will be in the back of my mind while trying to create the best environment my classroom can be.

Inclusion <=> Innovation

Read Inclusion Promotes Innovation by Jutta Treviranus on Thestar.com, September 12, 2007.

What I like about this article is it flips how we view inclusion of students with disability (or at least my view).  The normal perspective is that innovation is needed to promote inclusion in the classroom (ie hearing aids can help students with hearing difficulties).  However, what is needed is the idea of inclusion to not only support innovation directly, but to support others who would otherwise not be able to reach their full potential.  We don't have to look further from Einstein, Beethoven, and Stephen Hawking to see true innovators who all have disabilities in some way.  Imagine

The second part of this article that really intrigued me can be summarized by the quote:

"We train educators to teach the norm"

This (in lack of a better word) sucks.  Mainly because it's true.  It's hard when society gives us perceptions of "normal" students, how "normal" students learn, and how "normal" students behave.  How can we expect to teach anything different?  Well think of that 1 amazing teacher we all had in high school.  The one that did something different.  The one that geeks and gangsters alike adored and listened to.  They didn't teach the norm.  So why should we?  

And this is why I love Education courses so far.  We question ourselves and convention on a weekly basis.  What I hope happens is that this teaches us, as future educators, to do this on our own constantly in schools.  Question inclusivity issues.  Question our own practices.  Question our own bias.  Because so far, thats been the best thing that we can do before we have our own classroom and even after we have established ourselves as professionals.  It's always time to grow, especially in a growing world that requires inclusivity.

Students do not drop out, they are forced out.

Consider that statement for a second.

For me, it's a powerful one.  Along the lines with "Consider the glass half full, rather than half empty", it really changes how you view at-risk students in schools.  Essentially students will not leave a place that is doing them a service.  Maybe instead of viewing the disengaged student as someone who can't be helped, or needs to change, we should look at how the teaching can change to serve the student (to a point obviously, we aren't going to make a candy, puppy and firework course just because a student is skipping math).

I want to extend this a little bit further however.  We have the "force out" instead of the "drop-out", but we should also recognize students that are at risk of becoming a force out.  Let's call them, a "fade out".  I work as an EA in Peel Board's Summer School and these are the students I see most often.  The ones that are genuinely bright, capable students but either never show up or disrupt others around them because they aren't getting anything out of their school experience (for a variety of reasons).

With this different perspective of how students are feeling, I think we all as current and future educators can better serve others.  So please give it a second thought the next time you are ever frustrated with the performance or attitude of a student