InTASC Reflection
The Learning Differences Standard is meant to communicate the understanding that our students are individuals that come from a variety of backgrounds, genders, races, and sexualities. We, as teachers, must ensure that we create an environment that accepts and celebrates each individual as they come so that they are comfortable and motivated to learn and meet high standards.
As fallible people, we hold pre constructed ideas about what a child should look like, act like, talk like, and essentially be. These are stereotypes, and there’s nothing wrong with having them, as they reflect our brain making generalized assumptions on patterns that it has seen it it's life. The girls should maybe wear pink and talk about boys and have bows in their hair and chat a lot. The white girls should like Taylor Swift, the black girls Beyonce and the latina girls Jennifer Lopez. Perhaps the boys should push each other around in the locker room and talk about skateboards and soccer. Obviously these are gross stereotypes about who people are, informed by what we have seen, but it is impossible for our brain to see every last one of them fit in their respective categories so we may as well not assume.
It does a great injustice to assume too quickly who our students are and how they identify themselves. In the classroom, these identities come out in their every behaviour and in the way they treat the content at hand. As applied to a Spanish second-language classroom, the way students treat learning a new language I think largely determines how they will do (with the exception of students who already have a such a solidification of academic behaviour). Foreign language is often seen as an extra class and has only recently become a requirement for the students. Because of this, it takes a bit of extra explanation and grit to convince them that this is a useful thing. Whilst convincing, a part of learning a new language comes out which is understanding the cultural identity of an entirely new group of people; their music, history, and most importantly, the way they speak. A language classroom could be, especially with middle schoolers, a parallel reflection of the exploration of identity. Furthermore, if there is time for more in depth linguistic exploration of Spanish, it can be communicated the diversity of dialects, phonetics, and vocabulary within Spanish, all of which are highly involved with the identities of speakers at a regional level. Acknowledging that the diversity of humans occurs at the level of language and indeed within it should inherently create an environment that is inclusive of all people. In addition, lots of what happens in the earlier levels of foreign language learning deals with introducing yourself and exploring your own identity and things that you like to do. This let's students have a fresh start at presenting themselves, something I think most people do not often get. If they have slightly red hair but everyone has been calling them a brown haired person since birth, maybe the class period on hair colour is when they decide that they want to be seen as a redhead.
In my personal experience I have also seen attitudes change when differentiation occurs in their favour. For example, for a group activity I allowed students to either work alone, work with a partner, or work with in a clique of people. This gave students a perfect degree of choice that also kept them productive, or arguably more productive than they otherwise would have been. Students happily walked around the room with their close friend or alone, if that's what they preferred.
The importance of understanding the individual differences in a classroom cannot be understated by any means. Motivation is a tricky thing, and if someone doesn’t feel as though they have a personal belonging in your classroom, it will be difficult to see results from them. This can also be taken to a more abstract level. Having an inclusive classroom not only validates whatever identities they may have, but it exemplifies an ideal room: one that explicitly chooses not to discriminate and instead chooses inclusivity.
As fallible people, we hold pre constructed ideas about what a child should look like, act like, talk like, and essentially be. These are stereotypes, and there’s nothing wrong with having them, as they reflect our brain making generalized assumptions on patterns that it has seen it it's life. The girls should maybe wear pink and talk about boys and have bows in their hair and chat a lot. The white girls should like Taylor Swift, the black girls Beyonce and the latina girls Jennifer Lopez. Perhaps the boys should push each other around in the locker room and talk about skateboards and soccer. Obviously these are gross stereotypes about who people are, informed by what we have seen, but it is impossible for our brain to see every last one of them fit in their respective categories so we may as well not assume.
It does a great injustice to assume too quickly who our students are and how they identify themselves. In the classroom, these identities come out in their every behaviour and in the way they treat the content at hand. As applied to a Spanish second-language classroom, the way students treat learning a new language I think largely determines how they will do (with the exception of students who already have a such a solidification of academic behaviour). Foreign language is often seen as an extra class and has only recently become a requirement for the students. Because of this, it takes a bit of extra explanation and grit to convince them that this is a useful thing. Whilst convincing, a part of learning a new language comes out which is understanding the cultural identity of an entirely new group of people; their music, history, and most importantly, the way they speak. A language classroom could be, especially with middle schoolers, a parallel reflection of the exploration of identity. Furthermore, if there is time for more in depth linguistic exploration of Spanish, it can be communicated the diversity of dialects, phonetics, and vocabulary within Spanish, all of which are highly involved with the identities of speakers at a regional level. Acknowledging that the diversity of humans occurs at the level of language and indeed within it should inherently create an environment that is inclusive of all people. In addition, lots of what happens in the earlier levels of foreign language learning deals with introducing yourself and exploring your own identity and things that you like to do. This let's students have a fresh start at presenting themselves, something I think most people do not often get. If they have slightly red hair but everyone has been calling them a brown haired person since birth, maybe the class period on hair colour is when they decide that they want to be seen as a redhead.
In my personal experience I have also seen attitudes change when differentiation occurs in their favour. For example, for a group activity I allowed students to either work alone, work with a partner, or work with in a clique of people. This gave students a perfect degree of choice that also kept them productive, or arguably more productive than they otherwise would have been. Students happily walked around the room with their close friend or alone, if that's what they preferred.
The importance of understanding the individual differences in a classroom cannot be understated by any means. Motivation is a tricky thing, and if someone doesn’t feel as though they have a personal belonging in your classroom, it will be difficult to see results from them. This can also be taken to a more abstract level. Having an inclusive classroom not only validates whatever identities they may have, but it exemplifies an ideal room: one that explicitly chooses not to discriminate and instead chooses inclusivity.
Artifact: Lesson Plan - Differentiation
Please click the button to the right to learn about the artifact that accompanies this InTASC.
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