What makes great teaching?

        If you walked up to someone right now and asked them "Who was your favorite teacher?" I bet it would take them no longer than five seconds to answer. However, if you went up to the same person and asked them "Who was your least favorite teacher?" they could probably come up with an answer with no hesitation. So the question is: what are the qualities a teacher must possess in order to become someone's favorite. On the other hand, what are some qualities a teacher must avoid in order not to become someone's least favorite teacher? The answer is simple. Great teaching directly correlates to how much a teacher cares for their students. If a teacher cares enough, it does not matter what kind of strategies or helping hands she uses, her students will benefit from her all the same. However, a teacher who doe not care could use all the strategies in the world, and still not do her students an ounce of good. Of course, this is just a disclaimer because I do love a good strategy or two. So let's say that we are going to be teachers who care and use great strategies to help us out. I am going to post the list of my top 5 favorite strategies I have learned throughout the semester. Please keep in mind, that I use checklists like they are my lifeline on a day-to-day basis. A day when I do not have a checklist is a day when I do not get anything done. With that being said, nearly all of my favorite strategies require you to jot down a list of some sort, so if checklists are not your cup of tea this list might not be something you are interested in.                           

It's 2022, why are schools still separated?

     In response to the Great Depression, President FDR enacted the New Deal Program. One part of this program was to give out money for housing. However, when deciding who received this money and who did not they drew red lines around African American neighborhoods. If you lived inside those redlines it made it a million times harder for you to receive loans. In the video, The Disturbing History of the Suburbs they play a game similar to monopoly except one team is playing by the unfair rulebook the government has given to African Americans and the other team is able to purchase property and expand their wealth with ease. This has to be one of the most frustrating games I have ever witnessed. Of course, over time the federal government made it illegal to ban African Americans from specific neighborhoods. However, the story of Harvey, a WWII veteran, told in the podcast "Redlining" shows that African Americans were often forced out of their homes if they tried to move into predominately white neighborhoods and then would be persecuted afterward for instigating riots and plotting to lower market rates. 

    As we learned in the previous module, public schools are primarily funded by property taxes, so the schools that are in African American neighborhoods, or as the video Segregated by Design coined slums because of the toxic power plants that were placed there and their likeliness to be overcrowded, are less funded than the schools that are in the mainly white suburbs. A common misconception is that people of color have the ability to move, but choose not to. In reality, they were not given the same opportunities for wealth as most white people. The houses that were previously banned from being owned by African Americans have skyrocketed in value. This profit has given white people the funds to send their children to college and to buy bigger houses in even nicer suburbs. People of color were never given the opportunity to purchase houses in the first place, so they did not get this same privilege. 

What does money really have to do with it?

    In the United States, each state has its own system for funding its public schools. In this post, I want to discuss the Texas system for funding public schools. It is no secret that this system has some major flaws. In fact, it is so well-known that "despite their political rifts, Republicans, and Democrats, House and Senate lawmakers, and rural and urban Texans all agree the state needs to change the way it funds public schools," as Aliyya Swaby states in her article Texas' school finance system is unpopular and complex. Here's how it works. One issue with Texas' system for funding public schools is that it focuses too heavily on equality instead of equity. In reality, some students need more resources and funding in order to obtain equality.

    Another major problem with the way Texas' public schools are funded is that the system is rarely ever revised. The state of Texas has a base amount of funding that it gives to each student, and this number has remained stagnant for decades despite the steep increase in inflation in recent years. Anyone that lives in Texas knows that it is constantly changing. What used to be a small rural town is now a blossoming suburb. This plays a major role because teachers are paid according to the cost of living where they are teaching. However, the calculations for this system has not been changed in decades. Overall, the system that is currently in place only helps the privileged kids get access to more and more resources while the students who are impoverished get swept under the rug.

Do I Have the Full Picture?

  As educators, it is our duty to teach an unbiased curriculum that gives students the full picture. It is also our duty to make sure we make it known to our students what stance we take on issues that directly affect them. However, I do not promote using political terms such as democrat and republican. It is possible to let our students know how we feel about issues concerning race without using this terminology. An example, of a stance that I will take with my students, is that dysconscious racism is the direct root of economic inequality in the United States. It is important to teach our students about what this term means and what its results included. The video “We Must Talk About Race to Fix Economic Inequality”, defines dysconscious racism as “habits, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs that justify racial inequality, the social and economic advantages of being white that does not allow alternate visions of society”. The main example the video gives of this is dog whistling. Dog whistling is a way to talk about people of color in a demeaning way that still allows the people speaking to have deniability about who they are directing their comments. An example of this would be freeloaders. It is important that we as educators learn how to spot this kind of derogatory language so that we can prohibit it in our classroom, and properly explain to our students why it will not be tolerated. 

The TikTok posted by Victoria really hit home with me because I distinctly remember learning about Ruby Bridges in school. However, I was taught that Ruby was welcomed into her new school with open arms with little to no resistance. I did not learn that fifty other children of color applied to this same school, and were rejected. In fact, I did not even learn that they had to apply at all. The point I am trying to make here is that, as educators, it is our job to do our own research and learning because it is almost a certainty that we have been fed biased information and mistaken them for facts of history. If we fail to educate ourselves then we just continue this vicious cycle.

    I think many people are so willing to leave this in the past because they think it is ancient history. This is a picture of Ruby Bridgers now; she is 68 years old.

Why Teach?

       For as long as I can recall teaching has always been a profession I admired. I remember sitting in my Kindergarten classroom and staring at my teacher in awe. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I didn't say princess like my best friend and I didn't say astronaut like the boy who spoke a little too loudly. No, instead I said I wanted to be Mrs. Smith. I remember the smile the answer brought to my role model's face, and I have not changed my career path since and almost definitely because of that memory.

    The first thing I did when I graduated high school was I applied to a college's education program and to work at a preschool. I originally wanted to teach upper elementary grade levels, but I have deviated from that path after being able to be a teacher to eleven wonderful two-year-olds. I know that does not sound as amazing to everyone as it does to me, but let me tell you, those kids amaze me every day. I found out very quickly that children are way more intelligent than we think. They know how to find a solution to most problems that pop up in their everyday lives (this usually has something to do with toys and snacks haha)    and they know how to make their friends feel better when they are having a hard day. Because of this, I think I am becoming more drawn to the younger grades such as Kindergarten (Mrs. Smith may have some influence on this) and first grade. 

    I obviously could not upload a picture of my actual students, but this is a pretty good depiction of what my classroom looks like on most days.