Inclusivity In The Classroom

As a social studies teacher I feel I have a responsibility to challenge the status quo, create more equity, and inclusivity in the classroom and bring awareness to issues of social justice. I look forward to expanding and deepening my understanding of issues such as, poverty, racism, abuse, gender inequality, and LGBTQ concerns. Some of which I have and awareness of but not necessarily a deep understanding. For this reason I found that the quote from Einid Lee “those with more privilege have much to learn from listening to those with less” resonated with me, increasing my desire to learn from people who have lived such experiences. I was having a conversation with a Second year about her practicum placement and she mentioned some of the challenges …show more content…
I feel the following quote from Socrates really encompases the way that I want to approach student learning. Socrates said “I cannot teach anybody anything I can only make them think.” I will encourage students to have autonomy of thought in my classroom, I want to present them with a breadth of facts and diversificated ideas from which to form their own opinions, perceptions, and actions. This method is my way of respecting them as autonomous thinkers and persons. I feel it would be wrong to teach them to adopt opinions that are not their own, or as I won’t learn from you touched on, to inundate them with subject matter that fundamentally goes against their sense of self, culturally, religiously, linguistically etcetera (Khol, 1994). That being said I need to remind myself to do the …show more content…
The teaching assistant at my brothers elementary school labeled him as a troubled child and wanted him diagnosed with ADD. I watched my parents put up a fight against this stigma that followed him from grades 1-5. They refused to have him diagnosed and I am proud of that decision. My brother does not have ADD, inside sources have confirmed that they wanted to diagnose him with it so that the school would get more funding. I have witnessed the zombification of my own adult friends who were “diagnosed” with ADD and put on medication for something they probably don 't have. How many people has the system done this to? How many bright lights have been snuffed out by Dextrin, Ritalin etc? I just read that the “long-term impact of these medications on the youthful, developing brain is not yet known.”(Robinson, Smith, Segal, Ramsey, 2016). We aren’t even giving kids a fighting chance because it’s easier to give them sedative drugs then it is to fix our mind numbing school system. I am so grateful that my brother was never diagnosed, unfortunately the system still got to him in other ways. His elementary education was miseducative to the point where he still dislikes school. He is apathetic towards a lot of his school work, and he often shows signs of anxiety on Sunday nights when faced with the prospect of the school week. My brother