Skip to main content

Teach Out Article Summary


Johnson, A. G. (2006). Privilege, power, and difference.

A central component of this article is the idea of privilege, and how privilege (or lack thereof) affects an individuals relationship to power. Johnson paraphrases McIntosh in his discussion of "unearned entitlements" (i.e. working in a safe environment) versus "unearned advantages" (when that safe environment is only guaranteed to one identity). I find this to be a major hurdle for those entering into discussions on race and identity. I intend to using Johnson's article to help in my Teach Out assignment based on LGBTQ identity markers, and hopefully by creating a LGBTQ club at my school next year. By having students interact with others that share the same identity, they can hopefully begin to make sense of the world and their own relation to the power systems at play.

Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT Youth
I was hoping to use this article as a main piece of my teach out project. As a queer educator, I have often thought about ways in which I can help students that may be struggling with their identity, similar to how I struggled in middle school and high school. In Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT youth, the authors discuss ways in which students have not been made safe in their own schools and lives. I hope that by utilizing the lessons taught in this piece, I can better support my students with colorful identities. I intend to utilize their work as a framework for creating a club at my school for the LGBTQ+ community. By integrating students identities, educators have the ability to transform education, according to the authors.
Vaccaro, A., August, G., & Kennedy, M. S. (2012). Safe spaces: Making schools and communities welcoming to LGBT youth. ABC-CLIO.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pecha Kucha + Reflection

Pecha Kucha Video Pecha Kucha Slides Pecha Kucha Rubric A central theme throughout this course has been the importance of understanding the ‘why’ behind our practice as educators. The day to day hustle of being a teacher can often cause us to neglect reflective processes, which can negatively affect our practice in the classroom. Having just finished my first year as an English Language Arts teacher for a 6th and 7th grade emergent bilingual population, my ‘why’ is tested daily. Juggling the various roles of teacher, mentor, counselor, and conflict negotiator, while attending professional development and master’s level courses, is a tiring day to day existence. Once I am at home, sitting down to reflect on my day and practice takes the back-burner to shutting my brain off for at least an hour, before going to bed in order to repeat the process over again. Like Sinek says in his TED Talk, knowing your ‘why’ is pivotal to having others buy into your messaging. If I want my students ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Assignment A: Safe Spaces

Quotes for Discussion "When the official curriculum stigmatizes or, worse yet, vilifies LGBT people, bullies feel like moral champions, like guardians of the American way." Standing up against bullies that stigmatize LGBT individuals can be incredibly difficult in a middle school (and, I am sure, all schools). I find myself having internal battles each day when I hear students use a slur for LGBT people, due it being so often and widespread. "If applied across all disciplines and grade levels, integration  and interpretation  of LGBT experiences and contributions can transform our classrooms into safe spaces." When starting teaching this year, I was actually surprised to see that one of our projects in our curriculum revolves around the story of a trans student. I am interested to see how many teachers are choosing to teach this unit as a form of integration, or how many do not due to its topics. "Teachers cannot legislate friendships or alliances; they ...
Post a Comment
Read more