First-Year Teaching Reflections
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Teaching Reflection: Week 5
Finish what you started. An activity may not have worked out the way you wanted it to, but you gotta see it through. You can adjust as you go, but students don’t know what you had in your head and most likely don’t know you messed up. Critical decolonization for children: Sometimes you just gotta…
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Teaching Reflection: Week 4
Questioning the binary/LGBTQ+ pedagogy: Pronouns. Like I’m eyeing the possibly queer (sexuality/gender) kids in my classes and the way they react when I blow up the binary. Also finding out kids who do not visually appear gender non-conforming may be/may be questioning their assigned gender. And all this from a short worksheet. No complex discussions,…
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Teaching Reflection: Week 3
Questioning the binary: You tell kids there are more than 2 genders and they won’t freak out. Like they really don’t care. Developing cultural identity: Kids don’t implicitly know how unique their experiences are. That their culture(s) is (are) special and unique and important. Reaffirming cultural identity: Recognizing the cultures that students come from is…
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Teaching Reflection: Week 2
Finished my first full week of teaching middle school French and I’m exhausted but so elated. Injecting critical pedagogy into a curriculum is hard. The county curriculum isn’t openly anti-critical, but upholds the status quo that accepts French as an esteemed language to be learned without questioning why so many people speak it outside of…
The Alvearie 