Connor
Undergraduate
English Education |
Connor
Undergraduate
English Education |
Another week here in Siena down in the books, and it was a really quick one all things considered. Sweat went well, for the most part. I only got to teach it for one day today, but we had some interesting discussions for that shortened period. We continued with the theme of intersectionality, and I showed the students some of the Crenshaw TED Talk I mentioned last week, but some students were just not having it. In the video, Crenshaw speaks about a case where a black woman wasn't hired and it cited that white women were hired for secretarial work, and black men were hired for factory work, so there was no place for her to go and as a result it was both gender and racial discrimination. And this discussion got heated very very quickly with the male student who was very firm in his stance of "there's no way to prove discrimination, she might just not have been good enough for the job". My mentor teacher came in an asked him who seemed to rule the world and he said it was men, but couldn't give reasons why. Another friend of his took the defense against almost everyone else in the classroom. There was a group of female students who got very heated with the discussion as well and it went very long. I'm normally okay with controversial discussions, and in fact thrive on it in classrooms since this is what I wanted. In my previous placement, which was a majority students of color environment, we had a lot of these kinds of discussions. However, I could relate to them more and have more experience with relating to those students than these ones. It's not to easy to bring up the study done on hiring discrimination when it comes to names that sound "black" and names that sound "white" (taken from this article https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/08/18/name-discrimination-jobs) without then having to give longer backstory on the significance of names and name stereotypes. Maybe it isn't as complicated as I think, and in theory could be easily put into practice, but it's such unknown territory. I can't say to my male student that he has horrible ideas and should be put down as a result, since we're not told to discourage student's opinions. However, I also can't let him think these things to say are okay without inputting my personal beliefs, which I'm learning is very difficult when it comes to teaching. How do you learn to separate yourself from your beliefs in a classroom of wildly different personalities and beliefs? How do you separate your identity from when students are hateful towards it, whether through willful or unknowing ignorance? When do I step in as a teacher to make sure students are able to articulate opinions for grades when I do not want them regurgitating those opinions, no matter how sound and well put they might be? Teaching is full of very fine lines and as a teacher, I think I need to learn more about them in the next few years and really develop my identity quickly with how the current generations and this country is turning out. On a lighter note: I went with my host lady to a dinner at her contrada, which is sort of a neighborhood with more pride attached to it in Siena. A lot of it has to do with Il Palio, which is a huge horse race in Siena twice a year in the summer. The food was wonderful (three courses minus dessert), and the aesthetic was very vintage which I could get behind! I fully intend to enjoy my Bob Dylan and Nick Cave CDs that I purchased there once I am back on home soil (in 11 days).
Some of the younger students that I see when I'm working on the library also saw me and stopped to talk in the street yesterday, which filled my heart because they were so excited! It means a lot to me. I was more than happy to dole out hi-fives to those who asked.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHello! My name is Connor and I am thrilled to be on this journey of teaching. I'm from Buffalo, born and raised, and am starting this experience as an English Education major. Looking forward to meeting my students and seeing all that Siena has to offer for the next few months! Archives
May 2023
Categories |