- Aug 2018
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drive.google.com drive.google.com
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These kids just don’t want to learn” and “These kids don’t care about their education
I think a lot of teachers become overwhelmed and frustrated when students aren't engaged in their lessons and throw their hands up and say things like this. Thinking back to my own experience as a student, I can remember 'not wanting' to learn math. But in retrospect, it wasn't that I didn't want to learn math, it's that I didn't want to fail at learning math. I didn't want to struggle. I just wanted to already know all the answers and skip the process. I 'didn't want to learn' because I didn't know how to learn math. But understanding how I worked as a student gives me more insight into how my students may see things and how to be a better teacher.
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I have to raise the curtain on the myths that control the narrative of our community: for example, that our predominantly African American Albina neighborhood was “bad” or “run down” before Whites moved in, or ignore the Black-owned businesses that lined the streets before urban renewal bulldozed them, or that imply that it takes White wealth and money to make a neighborhood “good.
Is it possible to unlearn the "myths" or cultural stereotypes that are imposed on us within a school year? How do we continue to break free and be more than what society teaches us is normal or correct?
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