I am intrigued by the Inside-Outside Circle. I needed another example, so I found one online

http://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/inside-outside-circles

This is so important. The Tardy sweeps assumes students as disposable and that they must not care about school which is why they are late. Offering solutions considers the fact that they are still kids learning how to time manage! I love this line because the goal should be to help kids not punish them.

I feel that this really connects to the "Precious Knowledge" documentary connection mentioned above where the point between students having a dysfunctional relationship to school vs. students having a dysfunctional relationship to learning was made; students love learning. It is the harmful structures and feeling of voicelessness they are left with that causes them to have a dysfunctional relationship with school, not learning.

Video: I thought it was really powerful how Kara spoke about this portrayal of the south as trauma inflicted on her students. She spoke about their spoken word and their personal appreciation of place narrative projects as avenues to collective healing and repositioning. While they also did town halls, petitions, spoke with stakeholders, etc. I definitely agree that the discourse and personal appreciation of place as a means of healing is just as important, if not more, than that immediate action step.

I think this really rings true for Chicago and its varying neighborhoods. Each neighborhood really is its own complex system. From an outsider's perspective, they can be lumped together when they are really quite different and have unique needs, histories, and inequities.

I think this specificity is important because it allows students to be critical in indigenous literacies which can then enable them to be critical in other pursuits and literacies as well when questioning why people, places, etc get "lumped" together in the first place.

I feel this inadvertent locating of Native Lives in the past also happens on Indigenous peoples day unless intentionally planned to break past that mistake. For example, if we merely do a land acknowledgement and mention the land in Chicago that has Native origins, or was lived on primarily by native peoples, without paying mind to the struggles of indigenous communities today, then aren't we just situating natives in the past? What happens if we don't speak about reparations or current issues and actions we should take? Their lives are here today, and this something that comes as a surprise to some students.

This makes me think of civic literacies and how it can be an example of those ideological literacies often missing from school.

This is a very powerful statement that captures how school can be a place of disconnect where students feel suffocated vs. empowered or liberated.

This is a great question that can be posed by the teacher that enforces skills and reading strategies while validating the reader's experience. It also makes space for being critical of the original story.

I really appreciate this because it sums up a major shift I have made in my approach to teaching language arts this year. I no longer refer to it as ELA or English Language Arts because my bilingual students are pulling from multiple literacies and language repertoires, so why would I refer to something so complex as just english language arts? I agree that it is a white patriarchal term.

An important note as we are life long learners.

How can we incorporate this thinking into our practice/project paper for CI450? Is this something that could be authentic and based on lives experiences of students/families?

This right here. This is definitely the charge educators have. This strays from the behaviorism theories that focus more on isolated skills that lack critical thinking or an expansion into different literacies. I think before even being able to see themselves this way, educators need to take time to understand the inherently sociopolitical nature of being an educator and look beyond our roles as authority figures imparting knowledge and into facilitators and co collaborators of these healing and transformative spaces.

Based on my interactions with other teachers, I think first what needs to happen is teachers simply understanding that students identities ARE politicized. In addition, they need to realize their own identities are politicized as well in different ways...what I have found is that many educators believe in the meritocratic narrative, and if students aren't performing it is because of their own deficits and not an external influence. Many teachers don't want to bring these political conversations into the classroom because they do not yet recognize the sociopolitical and sociocultural context of schooling and classrooms. It can be an uncomfortable thing to do, but it is necessary.

I think this is a really important and critical stance on SEL. Social emotional learning needs to be cultivated in the classroom, but if there is no action step or means of "repair", then it is lacking and it might be more of a decoration or ornament vs. a vehicle for change.

Once again, this reminds me of Dutro's emphasis on the importance of a teacher having a critical understanding of how these issues affect the lives of our students in ways they may or may not affect our own. Young people are affected by these issues, and we need to create opportunities to be critical of these issues in literacy.

In other words, as out in the vulnerable heart of literacy, they bare critical witness and testimony to one another while learning skills. Love this.

I really appreciate this "Want" for students. This is a powerful example of critical race theory as a means for students to identify and challenge these power imbalances that are often discreet in literature. Students should talk back about about books and the monoliths and stereotypes they often reproduce.

This is a really powerful sentence. There are so many ways we can increase our capacities to better engage students; if students are not engaged, then there is a high chance it is something the teacher needs to change or adjust. This reminds me of the Vulnerable Heart of Literacy and how Dutro asks educators to increase our capacity to be vulnerable and bare critical witness and testimony in the classroom in order to use student testimony as an entry point and tool for literacy. This is a way we can work on ourselves as educators.