Reflective Summary

This class has been great. I feel like I have learned a lot about myself and different things that I want to be the case in my future classroom.

I have learned how important it is to have cultural and social capital in different settings. And how some people will have cultural capital no matter where they go, for example Dalton Conley in Honky. Because he was white he was treated like royalty in some cases even when he was the minority. In order to fit in you need some sort of social capital, without it you may not be taken seriously. Being the other put this idea of having cultural and social capital being tools that can be used to fit in.

I also learned that poverty is a thing that people really do struggle with even in todays world. Even if students are at a Title I school, this doesn't mean that they have then materials needed to complete every thing that you may require for homework. For example a student whose family is considered working poor, probably doesn't have a computer that is needed to do research outside of class. I think I understand this a little bit more after having applied for food stamps and seeing how poor some people actually are.

Though I think that inclusive pedagogy is probably the thing that thing that I learned most about. I hadn't every really thought about how important it is to structure lessons so that all cultures felt included. And it isn't only your lessons that need this structuring, your classroom does as well.

I think that as a whole the different values that I have will allow me to accomplish this idea of inclusive pedagogy within my classroom. Hard work allows all individuals to overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable. I also think that after hearing about single stories and how misleading they can be have helped me to realize how important it is to get to know your students for yourself and not make any quick judgments.

All in all this class has taught me a lot and I think that is evident in my desire to get to know my students at a more deeper level so that I can best help them to succeed not only within my classroom, but in life as a whole.

Book Club

Honky, was a very interesting book. This book put a lot of things into prospective for me. At first I did not realize that honky was a racial slur against white people. I think the thing that I learned the most is that you can't make any quick judgments about anybody based on where they live, their skin color, etc... There are so many different single stories out there, and they are probably wrong.
I really enjoyed how once the author went to a different school, and made some new friends, his desire to learn new things skyrocketed. Because of this desire he spent so much time and effort to learn the mysteries of math and science. This leads me to believe that everyone wants to learn they just need help finding what interests them the most. As a teacher, I plan on trying to make connections with a lot of different things so that everybody can have a chance finding out what interests them the most, leading to a stronger desire to learn mathematics. All to often I think teachers are not ready to help a student get past their "past" and find out what they are really made of.
I thought it was really neat how at first the author was "ignorant" of his ethnicity and how it varied from others. What would happen if we could have that ignorance at our age. Would this make the world a better place? Teachers are in a very good spot to be able to help others break down these misconceptions about other races and ethnicities and help students become "one" regardless of backgrounds.

Community Experience

For this activity I applied for food stamps.
As I was doing this, there were a couple of things that really stuck out to me. For example the monthly gross income that would qualify a household for food stamps was staggeringly low. For a household of two individuals the income couldn't surpass $1,594 which is pretty low. My wife and I both work and we bring in more money than that but we still struggle to pay for groceries some months. Now once you for every individual on top of that you get an additional $414. So if my wife and I were to have a kid, then we would only need to make less than $2,008 a month, which would be the case. This makes me wonder about those families that do receive food stamps. And on a educational basis, I wonder how their children are holding up in school.
If families were to receive food stamps they probably don't have very many "extras" that I have, for example that probably don't have a nice tv, laptop, car, and other "toys" like I do. This would be very difficult. I couldn't imagine doing my homework without access to a computer.
It could also be the case that some individuals who would qualify for these food stamps would be afraid to actually apply, because they would be too afraid of being judged by their friends and others that know them. Just like when we talked about being the other and being put into a new situation, applying for food stamps could be very hard and scary, if you were in a position were you didn't have much.
I think this is where it is important for you to look at your own values and aspirations. Would you rather be made fun of because you qualified for food stamps or would you like to be able to buy food for your family so that they can survive without too much stress?
Poverty is a very real thing in todays world, but I feel like that those that are in the heart of it are to afraid to ask for the right help because of the judgement that may come down on them by their peers.
As a result of participating in this activity, I have made a goal to be more understanding of those that may be experiencing poverty and do what I can to make things easier for them.