A couple of weeks ago at my service learning internship, I go into the school expecting the same stuff as usual and for the most part things were the same but as it got to the time where the students had to start getting ready to go to lunch and the little girl that's in the group I work with every week "Lindsey" tells me that the boy that's also in the group "Issac" punched another little boy from a different classroom in the face so the principal and teacher decided that "Issac" should be disciplined by being forced to eat in the office away from all other students and his classmates for the foreseeable future. I connected a number of authors to this one story. Some of the authors that I connected to my experience and story are August because in her article said said that students cannot learn if they do not feel safe in their school settings, I connected August because "Issac" probably didn't feel completely safe in his environment for whatever the reason may be and made the wrong decision to punch the other student in the face. I believe that instead of just giving him what's known as in-school suspension, the principal and teacher could have tried and talked to "Issac" to find out not only what made him decide to punch another kid but why did he decide that was his best option? Did he not feel safe or confident enough to be able to go to an adult and tell them about an issue? Did the teacher and principal not make "Issac" feel safe within his school? A second author that I connected my story to was McIntosh, in her article she talks about how white people do not recognize how their race is valued higher unless they are actively paying attention to it. I connected McIntosh to my story because as expected the teachers and other faculty members are predominantly white so I would say that this story is a prime example of how whiteness in valued at the school and also how whiteness shows its power to all of the students, not just "Issac". A third and final author that I'm going to talk about that I connected to this story, is Christensen, in her article she discusses how schools need to help students acquire the tools to interpret the media and other cultural texts to be able to recognize oppression and stereotypes so they don't feel excluded or like something is wrong with them. I connected Christensen to my story because from what I've witnessed at my visits, not just this particular one is the teacher and other staff members tend to 'single out' "Issac" quite a bit over some of the other kids I work with. I can imagine and also relate to the fact that "Issac" felt like he was a problem when the principal and teacher forced him to eat lunch alone in the office and that he also felt very excluded as well. Seeing as "Issac" is apart of the minority population I feel that the school principal and teacher could have tried to find a better less excluding way to discipline "Isaac" for his negative behavior that wouldn't have made him felt singled out or like a problem that needed to be corrected.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PAH_eki-CiWtNSg0CUHIVQUehp92rE3UUF8JeiolrGQ/edit
Finished Map the Authors
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1PAH_eki-CiWtNSg0CUHIVQUehp92rE3UUF8JeiolrGQ/edit
Hi Alex, This is exactly the kind of story I was looking for this week. You have made nice connections to the authors, and you make incredibly important points about issues of race, power, and exclusion. You've also started thinking about alternative ways to frame this scenerio if you were a teacher or administrator.
ReplyDeleteOne small suggestion is to explain the racial differences up front in your story -- the race difference is important but only comes out at the end.