This week was a crazy week of behaviors at my school. We are starting the argumentative writing unit in my class and it brought out many ideas and opinions that actually coincide with my problem of practice. After sharing some of the comments that were made in my class (see Recent Events box below) and the other core classes, the teachers who teach the same students that I do were ready to brainstorm possibilities for how to promote diversity. We brainstormed a few ways, but many teachers were stuck on how to fix a problem that has a long stem, back to the students’ houses and in their community. I took their ideas to our ELA department meeting, where once again, I found the diversity conversation to be on the tip of their tongues. I added to the notes from our 8th-grade meeting and here is what nine teachers and I came up with: For the past few days, I have been sitting on these notes, thinking more about them, and writing anything down that came to mind. I am a big fan of the “Stickies” app on my Macbook, so I decided to note things there: Overall, I was shocked to hear that the teachers were noticing similar trends among students that I was. Getting teachers to help in extra projects is typically a challenge, but this was almost part of the daily lunch conversation, so it seemed so natural. I really appreciate the ideas that were brainstormed even if they are few and far between. Coming up with ideas was a challenge and it still is, but I think it feels more manageable now, especially knowing other teachers are supportive of my efforts. While we did get stuck many times during brainstorming, one idea continues to stick in my head, which involves novel studies in the form of literature circles, mini-lessons to expose and transform their lack of knowledge surrounding diversity, and finally, an end project that puts it all together. I think it’s a really good base and it is time to develop the details, keeping in the back of my head the concerns about what perceptions the students will receive.
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When I first read of the incubation process, my response was, “Of course, that’s how I always work.” These days, particularly with social media and phones, I find it really hard to concentrate on a task, especially after a long day of school. When working on tasks, including chores at home, I like to work for a period of time and then rest for a period of time. Chunking my time has always seemed to be beneficial, so this process didn’t seem much different. Step 1: Prime Your MindFirst, I primed my mind, by writing down every thought I have had about my problem of practice project thus far: Step 2: IncubateThen, I took a break. I went on social media. I did a few mindless chores around the house. I took a shower. Step 3: Back to WorkAfter a long break, I refocused. I reread my notes and attempted to extend them: Step 4: ReflectionThis process was super helpful for me, as the work-break-work method typically is. I think what I noticed most from my first notes to my second is the shift in my mindset. When I first started writing notes down, I was able to get out a lot of the fears and frustrations that I was feeling about tackling (or at least attempting to tackle) such a large-scale issue. After taking a break, I was able to revisit what I had written and change my perspective. To make myself more confident with the prospect of talking about these topics in the classroom, I chose to take one of my ideas - novel studies - and map it out with more detail. This decreased my anxiety and I was able to truly become productive, generating a lot of ideas for the potential novels. I am definitely going to continue to suggest a process like this to others as it really does work wonders. I could see this process also being used for personal use, like journaling.
Finding the Root of the Problem (5 Whys)My Problem is: Teaching in a small, rural community, my students do not have much perspective of beliefs, experiences, and cultures that are outside of or different from their own.
Pushing Whys into HowsI have two ladders. Both are black and ask “why?” going up. The pink is the “how” for each ladder. Taking the PerspectiveMy user is a fourteen-year-old eighth-grader. He/she attends a small, rural school with the same students he/she has known since Kindergarten. He/she follows the same schedule every day. He/she does not have to worry about identifiers like race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation as many of the students are very similar and carry similar beliefs to him/her. This lack of diversity causes a lack of experience with perspectives that are different than his/her own. Exposure to these experiences would allow this student to be more well-rounded and successful in his/her future career or life. My Problem StatementThe eighth-grade students at my school are focused on preparations for high school, for their career, and for their life. Most of the students have grown up together and all have very similar backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs. Many of the families in the community stem back for generations, causing a lack of diversity. Due to a lack of diversity in the community, the students struggle to comprehend and take perspectives of people who act, think, and respond differently than they do. This is partially due to a lack of interaction with a variety of people and also due to parents and guardians wishing to limit their child’s experiences to ones that they can control. To potentially solve this problem, students will need to be exposed to a variety of people while also maintaining open communication with parents. According to research, many of the current eighth-graders are interested in discovering more about people who differ from them. This could be obtained by reading novels with diverse characters and connecting the issues they face to current events.
This week, I was challenged to design three Sniglets, or words that aren’t in the dictionary but should be. I designed them based on my experiences, which included a snowstorm, a night of reality television, and an exhausting day at school.
Here are my Sniglets:
I was also challenged to discuss a problem in my life and how it was defined and reformed. Here is what I found: When I first acquired my teaching job, it seemed like students could not keep anything organized. They were constantly losing papers, whether it was a homework assignment or a task we did in class. I continually lectured them on putting their name on their papers and putting them in a safe space. I told them many times that they were eighth-graders and should be able to be responsible. Nothing changed and I got sick of lecturing the students. I tried fewer worksheets, but even notes were getting lost. I tried creating safe places in the classroom for them to store their materials, but they didn’t use them. I felt like giving up. After some reflection, instead of talking AT them, I decided to talk WITH them about the issue. I used our announcement time at the end of the day to simply say: “Nothing has changed. How can I help you to fix this issue?” By trying to understand the students’ view, I figured the issue might be able to be solved. One student finally spoke up, “Ms. Stirling, look around, we all have binders for this class. It would be nice if you would hole punch the papers. That would keep us more organized.” The entire time I had thought the students were just that irresponsible and careless. To find out after a quick conversation that it was potentially fixable with a click of a button on the copy machine was eye-opening, to say the least. Since then, I always hole punch when using the copier and have seen great results with students not losing papers. According to our school demographics, the school district I work at is 87% white. Our school district lacks all types of diversity, also including religion, sexual orientation, and disability. To further my understanding of my students’ experiences, I wanted to gain some insight into how students felt about this lack of diversity. Talking about diversity, especially in our school district, is a challenge. Based on prior events in our district, I know that asking students bluntly about these issues can cause them to feel uncomfortable. So, I had to think of a creative way to understand my 140 eighth-graders’ mindsets. The best way I could do this, as a Language Arts teacher, was to relate it to novels. This week, I asked the students to use the back of their warm-up paper to answer a few questions for me. I phrased it as I was trying to find more book options for them to read and wanted them to design their ideal book and more importantly their ideal character, so I could get to know more about them as readers. I first asked: The fact that many students voted no surprised me. A lot of the students added additional comments clarifying their response, which resulted in a lot of “sort of” responses. This is probably due to the fact that while they were writing I was asking verbally: “Are they the same race as you?” etc. I observed that the minute I mentioned race, many students turned to look at students whose race differs from the majority at our school. Most of the students responded that they would want the character to be the same age as them to make it relatable, but gender, race, or other factors did not matter. I found that not a single student made any comment about sexual orientation, which I think is due to a lack of experience with that topic. Then, I asked a further question to see what students thought characters should be struggling within their ideal novel. Their responses are recorded below: While some of these conflicts may seem more like genres, it did give me some insight. Clearly, family issues was the clear leader. A clear connection can be made. Many of my students come from families that are broken or extremely dysfunctional. This clearly shows that students want to read a novel where a character is dealing with something that is relatable to them. On the other hand, there were many votes for mental health and physical disabilities. The students who selected these conflicts were also students that said that they wanted characters that were not like them in any way. This shows that there are students willing to gain knowledge of people who differ from themselves. Overall, I felt I knew my students well before by building relationships with them, but this showed me that there are many more students open to experiencing new content. It’s clear that by connecting the research to novels, students feel they want some elements to be relatable like age and conflicts, while other elements seem to be less important. I would argue that the data shows room for opportunity, much more than I originally thought. ReferencesAll photos and graphs are originals to the author of this post.
School data acquired from www.mischooldata.org. |
Jennifer StirlingThis is my #MAET journey! Thanks for reading! Archives
August 2020
CategoriesThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. |