Equity Reflection 1.1-1.4 and 1.11-1.13

Reflections 1.1 - 1.4

1.1) My vision of myself as a fantastic teacher:
- Engaging
- Helpful
- Resourceful
- Respectful
- Knowledgeable
- Willingness to push the student who needs to be pushed

1.2) What I mean by...

a) Love(ing) children means: I don’t think I would use the word love when it comes to one of my reasons for wanting to be a teacher, but I would use the word respect. I want to respect my students enough that they know I care about them and their future. I want them to know that I care about their success and where they end up in life.

b) Want(ing) to help students means: When I use the word help, I mean that I want to be a resource for my students. I want them to be able to come to me for the knowledge and resources to develop into the person/student they want to be.

c) Another reason I want to teach includes: One of the obvious reasons anyone becomes a teacher is to make a difference in a students life. I worked at a after-school program at a Salem middle school and met so many students who needed someone in their life who was their for them. Someone who was willing to listen to them even when they weren’t saying very much. I noticed the difference when someone took an interest in a student and that student understood.

1.3) What will sustain me:

a) Loving Children: What will sustain me when it comes to “loving children” is their acknowledgment of my respect for them and their willingness to give me the same kind of respect. What won’t sustain me is a student’s inability to recognize that I’m there to help them and my inability to give them they respect they deserve. I really do worry about how I will react when I can’t respect one of my students.

b) Wanting to help students: What will sustain me when it comes to “helping students” having the resources to give my students what they deserve. What will make this difficult for me will be my inability to obtain the resources I need to help my students.

c) Reaching out to students: I will be able to sustain this reasoning for teaching when I see that my acknowledgment of a student is recognized and sought after. This reason for teaching won’t sustain me when my students won’t accept my reaching out to them.

1.4) Love and help reexamined:

a) Similarities between the statements: After writing about my reasons for wanting to be a teacher I found that all of my statements center around respect. I want my students to respect me and me to respect them. This will push me to be more resourceful when it come to my students needs.

b) Differences between the statements: There aren’t very many differences between my statements.

Reflections 1.11 - 1.13

1.11) Dale Spender’s or Sojourner Truth’s interpretations:
I think Sojourner Truth brings up an interesting question, one that we will all be faced with as educators and that is do we value the same work done by different people? In Truth’s situation it’s the difference between a man and a woman, but in a classroom we will be dealing with the gender, ethnicity, disabilities, sexual orientation, as well as intelligence. We have to learn to look at each student individually and not compare them to the student sitting next to them or the class coming in after them. We have to ask ourselves, does the same work done by different people all have the same value?

1.12) Your philosophy of education:

a) What is the main purpose of schools? I believe the main purpose for schools is to provide a safe, encouraging, stable learning environment for any student, willing or not, to learn.

b) How does this purpose relate to or serve a diverse society? It shouldn’t matter how different a person is from ourselves. I’ve always believed that if a student wants and education than I’m going to give them an education to the best of my ability.

c) How does this purpose relate to or serve a socially stratified society? Again, it doesn’t matter how different my students are from myself. They are in school to get an education and that is what a school should be providing them.

d) What are the implications of what you wrote above for the work of a teacher? What this basically means is that a teacher will have to put aside any differences they might have with a student and just focus on what the student needs and how it can be given to them.

1.13) My vision revisited:
Not much has changed from my list at the beginning. I still want to be a resource for my students with the knowledge they are looking for. I want to be open minded to their ideas and their culture and push them when they need to be pushed. I want to respect them and receive that respect in return.