Friday, February 21, 2025

Ethnic Studies

    This week in FNED 246, I got the chance to read, Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies by Christine E. Sleeter. It consists of, how ethnic studies can drive students to participate and engage in the classroom environment. As a future educator, it's meaningful to learn and understand your students in the classroom. Students want to learn and they want to feel like they belong in the classroom. Sleeter says, "It is important to recognize that ethnic studies grew from a desire to counterbalance both inaccuracies and the predominance of Euro-American perspectives that underlie mainstream curricula. Because of this bias, mainstream curricula contribute to the academic disengagement of students of color. Ethnic studies can reverse that disengagement, as the remainder of this paper shows"(Sleeter, pg 6). In education, teachers should involve students' cultures in their curriculum to engage students and learn about others. 
   For the past few months, I have been working at a daycare. During the first few weeks, it was crucial to get to know the kids. I learned their likes, dislikes, their behaviors towards certain things, and what family means to them. It is important to learn about your students and they will teach you something every day. In every classroom at the daycare there are pictures around the room of the children's families and the students tell the teacher or their friends who they are. 
    I can relate this reading to a video analysis that we did in class, Precious knowledge students wanted to learn and the teachers would make the ethnic studies more engaging in and out of the classroom setting.  The teachers were making a community with the students and treating them like they were part of a family. All the students wanted was to have an education and the ethics studies class helped them break out of their shells and go into the world and advocate for what they believe in. As a future educator, it is important to give your students a high-quality education and a feeling of togetherness. Build a community for your students so they can break out of their shells and express their feelings and opinions. 
 

4 comments:

  1. Hi Taryn! I really love what you said about getting to know your students and how you related that to Precious Knowledge. I have always found that you can't really properly teach someone without knowing them and how they learn.

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  2. Hey Taryn! I also agree that "as a future educator, it's meaningful to learn and understand your students in the classroom." I work at a dance studio teaching kids starting at the age of 2, and especially with the 2-year-olds, it is important to get to know the kids and their likes and dislikes. For example, one girl in the toddler class will focus and follow directions if she has a toy or something in her hand. If you try to take whatever object away from her, she will follow directions for maybe 2 minutes and then just stare or sit down instead of dancing. After many weeks of figuring out what was best for her to learn and stay engaged, we realized she feels more comfortable with a toy or another object in her hand or by her side because she is so little.

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  3. Getting to know your students and then introducing what you have learned from their different background is so important to bring to a classroom. As a future art educator, I plan on introducing many different kinds of cultures to my classrooms in the forms of artwork! A popular one is having students decorate sugar skulls during the Day of the Dead celebration, but there are other cultures that can be brought to students knowledge as well.

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  4. Great work, my goodness! The sentence, "It is important to learn about your students and they will teach you something every day." is so true. I learn from these kids everytime im with them.

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The Final days of FNED 246

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