he found himself (e.g., voice, confidence, agency) and became interested in increas-ing his participation in the community. He shared: “It’s a way to give back, and think about what the community needs.
This is shows how impactful a simple project can be for a school. That by giving students these opportunities they might start to develop a new identity and develop counter narratives.
It highlights that although their “experiences are often overshadowed by the master narrative that amplifies Black male underachievement, disengagement, and attrition” (Harper, 2009, p. 708), countless Black males who are academically successful also encounter racism
I think this is an important point. That you can be the most educated person in the world but you can still encounter racism. Education may help with economic status but that doesn't fix the prejudice embedded in society.
What happens, then, when students are preparing to exit those schools after having learned under the very same conditions that were present when they first entered them? Why is education not a great equalizer for the lives and literacies of many students of color who rely on public education to prepare them for opportunities that may have been denied to their parents or grandparents, and that are now being denied to them?
I think this is a very valid point. What happens when public education does not accurately prepare students for the real world. Students often feel like they are being prepared for prison because the conditions in the classroom or school often emulate those of prison conditions.
Some protest activism has the potential to become reactionary and filled with anger, name- calling, and sometimes violence. A dejected spirit of de-featism can appear. Nonetheless, the students, later renamed youth participatory action researchers, re-sponded
I think this is an important distinction. Students may feel passionate about an issue and it is important to turn that passion into tangible action that they can use to further empower themselves.
What do you think can be done to change the name?” Silence. Wait time. Heads shook from side to side. I ob-served subdued bodies and even slumping at desks. As if in a chorus from an Aztec or Greek drama, the students raised their voices and spoke: “We won’t be able to do anything!” “Who will listen to us?” “They [staff] won’t listen to us. We’re just students.” “What is there to do about it, anyway?
This is an interesting observation. I experience similar responses to students when I try to make them civically engaged or have them combat against a rule that they deem as unjust. They talk a lot but when it comes to actions there is almost a type of indoctrinated helplessness.
“Most people that are obese are not treated fairly and can’t do certain things. This is not only cause your[sic] . . . obese but also because you are Black.”
I like this quote here because it shows the intersectionality of issues. Very rarely is it only a race, health, or class issues but it can be a mixture of all of these things put together! Having students understand these power dynamics is extremely valuable.
This assignment positioned students as experts with insider knowledge about their local environment (Machado, Vaughan, Coppola, & Woodard, 2017)—knowledge that often differs from outside perspectives
I like this idea in particular because it is creating counter narratives that can combat stereotypes. In addition, it draws on funds of knowledges that the students may have. This is a great way to take ownership over their education.
To go even further, use the provocative but accurate word “invaded”
I think this is an important point along with the rest of the paragraph. That the language we uses softens the blow of what happens. That this was another nation we took over and we act like they disappeared and treat them as a monolith when these people exist are some of the marginalized people in this nation. Marginalized to the point that they are often left out of discussions of people of color.
The outcomes of those negotiations were treaties, much like the ones the United States forges with foreign nations today. Nonetheless, depictions of Native peoples as primitive or uncivilized are one of the reasons our nationhood is difficult to accept or understand.
I think this is a very important point to dehumanizing Native Americans or depicting them as "savages". They had university, school, made complex calendars, and had advanced farming techniques. The idea of Native Americans as one monolith who never had a real civilization is propaganda.
Therefore, if students are never presented with pos-itive visions of their own lived experiences in the stories they read, there is a need for them to create their own stories through the use of counternarra-tives in writing instruction
This is a really important point as it relates to the importance of counternarratives and why representation matters. In recent years you will hear artists say that they created their story, movie or hero because they did not see themselves represented and wanted young kids to have someone to look up to.
n-glish education teachers expose Black students, and Black girls in particular, to mostly Western European thought and tradition that mutes the racial, ethnic, and gendered experiences of individuals who look like the students whom they are teaching
I think an important point of this is that it's not only in English classes that there is a Eurocentric focus but in history classes as well. I think the fact that there is an AP Us History and an AP European History speak to how Eurocentric the education system is.
Production and distribution components of critical media pedagogy go hand in hand and involve prepar-ing youth to be agents of change by producing “counter-knowledge through the manipulation of media tools” (
The production part of counter narratives is really important to shifting dominant narratives and countering white supremacist practices. By allowing our students to do this we get them to question the status quo and realize that they can be products of change which can be invaluable in the future.
In the case of Black victims, however, media outlets tend to use compromising and damaging photos.
I think one thing that is not brought up here is the deliberate altering of photos as well. In the OJ Simpsons case Time Magazine deliberately altered photos of OJ Simpson to seem darker and more menacing. This is in contrast to Newsweek which just used a photo of him unaltered. So there is the addition of deliberate choices by the media to negatively stereotype African Americans. Time Magazine also changed the image in response to backlash stating they had no racial agenda. Which may further bemoan the point they may even be participating in white supremacist practices unconsciously
As the consequences of this election continue to directly affect stu-dents and families, healing requires not offering false reassurances. We cannot suggest the certainty of a more hopeful future for all members in our classrooms. Rather, such work must be framed in English education as a continual process that is never “done.”
I think this is an important reminder to ourselves and to our students. That it is important to be hopeful to our students but it is important to not lie to them. We need to have them engage with the world in order to make the world a better place.
At its core, education must be focused on the relationship between teachers and their students “and the extent to which that relationship nurtures the longing of the child to matter in the world” (Shriver & Buffett, 2015, p. xv). The fundamental role that SEL plays in classrooms hints at a broader consideration: What does it mean to matter (or #matter) in this world? In this way, SEL must address what it means to cultivate belonging in a broken world.
This is an interesting idea. It very much reminds me of the TED talk video "Every Kid Needs a Champion.". The idea being that Kids don't learn from someone the don't like. It reminds me very much of a parent and child relationship or a mentorship. It just makes me realize just how important being a teacher is to a person. That we see kids so frequently that we can have a profound impact on them.
following the 2016 election provided striking and poignant reminders that students of all ages carry with them into school the myriad worries, ideas, and oft-repeated phrases of indoctrination spouted on television, websites, and in neighborhoods.
This is an important point for helping our students and people generally become more politically active and avoid indoctrination. Have them realize that maybe they are just repeating lines or ideas that they have heard. Are they engaging with the discourse that is happening or are they passively accepting it. This could also relate to the banking model of education. Remember education does not just happen in school.
Teachers must be writers.n Students must see themselves as writers.n Teachers must cultivate spaces for students to write.n Students must have opportunities to write in multiple ways, for multiple purposes, and in multiple genres.n Teachers must honor and respect youth-led and youth-centered writing practices
This very much reminds me of Pose, Wobble, Flow where it was stated one should assume the pose of a writer in order to teaching writing and said similar things about cultivating a space where students have opportunities to write. It is similar in the considering the context of the students as well. I wonder if the author would include social media in this new form of writing.
a “struggling” writer, created and maintained three websites and blogs each day. From his bedroom to his neighborhood streets, he wrote and composed music lyrics, uploaded audio files, and directed music videos.
I think this shows the practice of just doing actions daily and encouraging one to become a writer instead of just writing. By becoming a writer they are likely to increase in skill every day. However, in school we can often discourage this type of behavior by having students write in only set spaces.
“I didn’t realize that other people went through the same things we [African Americans] did.”
I think this is an important point. Though we may certain experiences because of our racial or ethnic history that does not mean that other people could not experience similar things. There are stories and experiences that are universal amongst the human experience.
And yet “these kids” could out argue me about everything under the sun: the inherent problems with school policies, the merits of long lunches, why we should hold class outside, and about local issues that reverberated through the building like desegregation and school closures. When they wrote, they had spelling errors and grammar issues, despite—or because of—the Warriner drills or my lack of knowledge about African American Vernacular English, but their logic and evidence spun circles around me.
I think this is an important paragraph because it points out that academic English can often times act as a barrier to acknowledging the true ability of our students. We may focus on the grammar or misspellings and mistake that for a lack of intelligence or ability when it's simply the hegemonic norm we continue to enforce.