Tiaja's Blog

 Rodriguez's text discusses his conformity to the English language in both his school life and his home life. Due to his lack of English, Rodriguez would often be called out by the nuns and expected to answer questions in English which is considered the native language. When he couldn't do this 'successfully,' the nuns decided to make a house call and encourage the parents to have all the children practice their English more. While this was a method that helped the children become successful in speaking English, it turned them away from their cultural native language and forced them to adopt English as their primary language and Spanish as secondary.  As someone who works with children from different walks of life, I found the reading to be disheartening. In my field of work, we are expected to communicate in English and also encouraged to interact with children in their home language as well. This helps ensure that we are respecting the children's culture and also ...

 Knowledge is defined as facts, information and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. In Finn's text, the idea of knowledge is presented as a definition that has different meanings depending on economic status. Many people know and believe that those in richer neighborhoods have the best education and those in middle and lower class do not. However, the idea that education and knowledge comes from a textbook and primary sources is challenged as it is believed that knowledge is best acquired when individuals are allowed to dive into their creativity and spontaneity.  For this reading, I connected it to the Ted Talk in which Joe Rohl discusses how he decided to change his ninth grade Biology classroom from a teacher led classroom to a student led one. In his reflection, he highlights the idea that in giving his students choices  it not only allowed for their creativity to flow through but for th...

   Kohn's assessment of what a good classroom environment looks, sounds and feels like mimics the beliefs of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory which states that students learn best through social interactions or a more knowledgeable other.    Starting out, Kohn believes that a good classroom environment is set up for students to interact with one another, areas are comfortable and has some open space for gatherings. The space is inclusive enough for both students and teachers to have discussions and ask questions that keeps the learning going. Lastly, children's work should always be displayed for student encouragement and to highlight the work that gets done in the space.  Working in a daycare setting, these are the same guidelines we follow for young children as well. We create a space that encourages social interactions, open space for learning and exploration and display the children's work and pictures to showcase what they are working on but also the fr...

I wanted to start this blog with my video first. After reading the preface, I had to reshape my thinking on children's behaviors. See, I work with toddler aged children so I already have an understanding of temperaments, behaviors and how to manage them. When observing a toddlers challenging behavior, the one thing an educator is always thinking is 'What's triggering this?' It's interesting to hear and read the differing perspectives on behavior and redirecting depending on the age and the child. This Ted Talk featuring Rosemarie Allen, highlights the notion that certain consequences are adult consequences and why do we hold children to those standards and not ourselves. She talks about the way children react when they become upset and compares it to adults and realizes that the behaviors mirror one another. When a child becomes upset they may cry, scream, cuss and fight. What do adults do? In coming to this realization, the term 'adultism' comes to mind. Th...

Oppression is defined as a systemic subjugation in which those belonging to the dominant group have access to privilege and benefit at the expense of individuals in the subordinate group. To many, one group of people comes to mind and that is white people. However, after analyzing the wheel of privilege and discussing the importance of knowing our own, I have come to realize there's more than our ideological beliefs. Ideological Oppression is the belief that one group is dominant or superior to the other; this is often misconstrued as "common sense" and how others see the world. An example of ideological beliefs that I have personally been affected by is the "You're pretty for a black girl" or simply putting that "I'm very articulate." This type of ideological racism puts out the idea that you cannot be black and pretty or black and well spoken. This belief stems from the comparison of black people and animals such as gorillas and monkeys. Com...