Semester Reflection

    Looking back at this semester, I can say with confidence that this class and its teachings are so valuable not only for future educators, but also for all humans. I can also say that I truly have learned so much, and I feel like my eyes have been opened to various things in the world that I had only ever had limited knowledge about. Although I believe that everything in this class contained valuable information, there were a few things that have stuck out to me and that I will carry on with me throughout my life and my career as an educator. 

    One of the things that stuck out to me the most was Shalaby's "Troublemakers". Before coming into this class, I had the typical preconceived that most people have -- a troublemaker is a student who is disruptive, doesn't care about learning, and only wants to fool around in class. Although this could be the case for some students that are classified as troublemakers, this is not the case for everyone. Shalaby showed me that. This reading taught me that in order to fully teach these "troublemakers", we as teachers need to stop seeing them as nuisances and seeing them as students who are trying to break out of the systematic mold that is the education system. In order to better help these students succeed, we need to reflect on our teaching and our own biases so that we are not singling out students based on our own notions and instead changing our pedagogy to help them.

    In addition to "Troublemakers", another thing this semester that has stuck out to me was the activity where we had to translate a paragraph in another language, but we were only given three words to decipher it. For me, without those three words, I had no idea how to go about completing this activity. When the words were given, though, I found that I had an easier time figuring it out and I got pretty close to deciphering the whole thing. This is something that really stuck out to me because it is something I see every time I go to my clinical placement. Three quarters of my class are either ESL or come from majority Spanish speaking households. So, they are coming in with little to no knowledge of English, and they are being thrown into a fully English-speaking classroom. With this, they are only able to grab bits and pieces of information, causing them to not understand everything and really struggle in class, much like I did with that paragraph. However, when I have spoken to these students in Spanish, they understand what they are supposed to be doing, or they understand whatever topic we're going over. Even with my broken Spanish, they are succeeding more. This activity showed me that it is important for teachers to use dual language education when necessary in their classrooms so that these students can get the full picture and not fall behind. 

The final thing this semester that has really impacted me was the "Precious Knowledge" video. As someone who is proud of her own cultural background, I wish that there was more ethnic teachings in school. There was a time in my life where I wasn't really in touch with my roots, and during that time, I always felt incomplete. However, now that I am in touch with my roots, I feel whole because I know about every part of me. There are many students who don't know the ethnic roots where they come from, and I feel like this is a disservice in education. I feel like educators really have a big role in teaching students where they come from through culturally responsive pedagogy, but oftentimes there is not enough space for teachers to do this. So, "Precious Knowledge" really stuck out to me because the teachers and students in this video really cared about integrating their backgrounds into their education and they advocated for it. To me, it was really refreshing to see a group of people stand up for learning their cultures -- something I wish could have been done for me at a young age.