Anatomy of an Ally

The journal, “Teaching Tolerance” dedicated an entire issue to the question: what is a Teacher Ally and what does that look like? While going through and reading some of the material, I came across two articles that struck me as interesting.

The first article that really stood out to me was “Language Does Not Have to Be a Barrier.” This article describes how Anne Marie Batista advocates for ELL students in the classroom. She does this through understanding the connotations and challenges of ELL students, communicates with the families of the students, and coordinates/advocates processes and teachings that promote the ELL students in her classroom and from around her district. One of the last pieces of advice that really stand out to me is for teachers to ask for help. I am still surprised how much teachers learn from their students, even as they teach.

The article that lends its title to the issue, “Anatomy of an Ally,” was also incredibly helpful. This article breaks down the how’s and why’s of being a teacher advocate and what that looks like in the classroom. More specifically, it suggests that we need to not just see and understand oppression, how it works, and how we contribute to oppression, but it gives advice for how we change the system of education to combat oppression classroom by classroom. One thing that is important to note (that the article states under “Allyship in the Classroom”) is that allies aren’t ALWAYS center stage when it comes to eliminating oppression. Much of the time, allies stand in the back and give the marginalized groups time to convey their thoughts and feeling, as well. This is one of the big difference between and advocate and an ally. An advocate voices for, an ally voice with.

Stress and Anxiety in the Classroom

For my Teacher as an Ally Badge, we were tasked to look at groups and demographics that we could ally ourselves with. Initially, I wanted to write and talk about ELL students, because I am bilingual and understand the struggle that many ELL students go through. My second demographic are students with anxiety and chronic stress. After researching the NCTE website, the National Writing Project website, and the International Literacy Association’s website and found that they were silent on the subject of anxiety and chronic stress in students. I figured that there would be no shortage of research on stress and stress management in an English classroom, considering how prevalent (omnipresent, really) stress is in the school setting.

That is why I decided to conduct my own research into ways that teachers can help students who struggle with stress and anxiety. I think the article, “Managing Anxiety in the Classroom” by Denise Egan Stack provided some valuable reasons why we should teach mindfulness in the classroom and gives the audience some tips to make this a reality. One of the best pieces of advice in the article is to establish communication between the student, teacher, guidance councilor, and parents to keep track of her student’s progress and to help her understand what she could do to help the student overcome their stress and to prevail in her classroom.

Article:http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/blog/managing-anxiety-classroom

Ally Interview Reflection

For my Teacher as Ally Badge, I was asked to conduct an interview to get a better understand of what a Teacher Ally was and in what ways allies had an impact on their students. For this interview, I prepared 4 questions and asked them to my Aunt (a veteran teacher with numerous awards to her name), a current teacher at my high school, and a friend if mine. The questions were:

1. What does it mean to be a teacher ally? OR In what ways have teachers been an ally in your own life?
2. What impact did being an ally have on your students? OR How did your teacher ally influence you?
3. What are some traits that you need to be a teacher ally? OR What traits did your teacher ally have that allowed you to succeed?
4. If there was piece of advice that you would give to teacher allies? OR Is there advice that you would want teacher allies to know?

The most common traits I found during these interviews that Teacher Allies had were empathy, compassion, and kindness. To be an ally, as my former English teacher declares, “you need to create an environment where all students feel VALIDATED” and “you need to ally yourself WITH students, not speak FOR them.” This allowed me to really get a sense of the duties and characteristics of a Teacher Ally. I must think of myself as a collective achieving goals WITH students, not advocating FOR them. To understand what I must be an ally for, I must understand and empathize with the struggles and histories of my students. To do this, I must engage with them and be receptive to their needs.

Letter to My Teacher Ally

Dear Mrs. Q.,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the trajectory of my life, lately. How did I get here? Why am I the way that I am? I’m not vain nor entitled enough to call myself a “self-made man,” I doubt such a man exists. I had help. Lots of it. More help than I can ever untangle and give out thanks, accordingly. Though I can never put into the words the ways that you helped me realize a better version of myself, please allow me to try here. Thank you!

From the time I came into your first class to the time I attended your last class, I was undergoing a lot of change and uncertainty. In the beginning, I left all of my friends and comforts behind for a school across town and the splintering of my family. Your classroom provided me with a safe-haven that allowed me to escape and enhance myself. After that, I went two years outside of your classes and beyond point of contact. In that time, my family splintered even further, the uncertainties in life became more monstrous, and Death was hollowing me out by taking people who helped me face my bleak reality. It was in this moment that I found clarity in your acting class. “Life is an act of play,” was something I discovered while I was in your class and your guidance and empathy gave me the inspiration and the means to fight back against despair. I really wish I could say something else to help you understand what you did for me, but this is the best I can do. For that, I am sorry. Please know that your assistance didn’t go unnoticed and I am grateful beyond words and emotions for allying yourself with me in my time of need. Thanks for everything!

Best wishes,

Noah Sisson

50 Great Teachers Series

The three articles I read (or listened to) in the “50 Great Teachers Series” articles have given me a lot to think about in terms of being an ally and how to give this term my own flare. I read the articles: “How to Be a Great Teacher, From 12 Great Teachers,” “Two Days Inside a Classroom With Young Offenders,” and “Chess For Progress: How a Grandmaster Is Using the Game to Teach Life Skills.”

The article about chess is about the first African-American chess grandmaster, Maurice Ashley. He teaches how one can use the game of chess to better their lives (the strategies you can learn from chess can be used to better your life). Maurice Ashley champions for young kids in New York City, especially the disadvantaged and disenfranchised children. He uses his passions and skills to encourage kids to challenge themselves and reach for their dreams. Article: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/23/475125081/chess-for-progress-how-a-grandmaster-is-using-the-game-to-teach-life-skills

The second article is about a teacher named Lisa Elder, who teaches life skills at Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center. The podcast and article gives the details of Elder’s classroom and day-to-day routine teaching Life Skills to incarcerated children. One thing that is striking to me is the incredible amount of empathy and respect that she has for her students. Even though her students come and go and they have committed crimes, she still gives each of her students personal attention and understands that they have been traumatized and strives to be better than the system and the teachers who have given up on these kids. The impact she has is incredible, some of her students work their way through a GED, or even a college scholarship! Her successes are mostly focused on how she creates an accepting atmosphere where kids can learn life skills ranging from how to open a bank account to empathy and forgiveness. Article: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/03/29/465700118/two-days-inside-a-juvie-classroom

The final article loops together the advice and lessons from 12 different teachers in this series. The two most important pieces of advice that I learned from this article is 1) Be a teacher, not a friend (advice from Nick Haley) and 2) Believe in your student’s successes (advice from Ali Shalalha). These pieces of advice are essential in order to be an ally for your students. You must first understand that allies and friends are different and that you have a responsibility to be the adult. You must also know that all of your students (especially the disadvantaged students) can succeed and it is your duty to fight for their educational and personal success. Article: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/30/463981852/how-to-be-a-great-teacher-from-12-great-teachers

What all of these articles taught me is that the best teacher allies have a few key ingredients in common: 1) They are passionate about their students and champion for their success. 2) They challenge their students to reach far for their dreams and push them to always be better. 3) Always respect and empathize with ALL of your students and take none of them for granted. They are all deserving of your guidance and compassion.

Aspiring Social Justice Ally

In the article, “Aspiring Social Justice Ally Identity Development” by Keith Edwards, I learned the difference between an Aspiring Ally for Self-Interest, Altruism, and Social Justice. Just as a brief run down, Allies for Self-Interest have selfish motivations such as defending and being an ally to those they care about, the problem with this type of ally is that they don’t see how they contribute to wrongdoing (“I’m a good person, therefore I can’t be doing anything wrong”) and they often times end up perpetuating problems because of negligence (think: reverse racism). Allies for Altruism are motivated by demographics outside of themselves. However, their biggest downfall is they try to be beyond the system and cannot critique themselves nor their motivations. Again, under these parameters, they end up perpetuating systems of inequality. Allies for Social Justice combine the motivations of altruism and self-interests (think of it as US collectively, instead of an outside group or themselves, exclusively). The pros of this type of ally is that they can admit to their mistakes and the ways they contribute to the system of inequality while actively seeking to redefine the system to be inclusive.

I aspire to be an Ally for Social Justice and I think I make strives to be on that spectrum, however, I feel like I sometimes land on the Ally for Altruism spectrum as well. Sometimes I think of myself as a part of the people I ally myself with, but I often time will slip into thinking myself as a speaker for a group that isn’t me. I need to get better at admitting my faults and way I contribute to an unfair system and ally myself WITH the people I want to stand for.

500 Words Ally 2: Making All the Difference

It was no secret that I was the “problem child” when I was younger. I would relentlessly, almost obsessively, resist authority wherever I could. As if that wasn’t enough, I was struggling in school. I was, at one point, YEARS behind in my reading and writing skills which made it harder and harder to succeed as a student. This would only make the behavioral issues worse, which in turn would make me fall further and further behind in school. I was labeled “at risk” by the time I hit the second grade and many teachers had given up on me.

This changed after my first year of being labeled “at risk” by the school district. I was given an extra reading class, which was held in a small, windowless room that I’d never seen before at school. It was the first door on the left of the school right in the front behind a small, brick wall (which was where the school store was held every day at lunch and after school). In this room, I found the determination and the drive to push harder and reach into the advanced courses within a year or two. Don’t get me wrong, I started out completely insulted and defeated by the prospect of having to take an EXTRA reading class while the other students in my grade were doing other, more exciting things. However, it didn’t take me long for this idea to fade.

My teacher’s name was Ms. Mickelson, and she started off the lesson, not by teaching or giving us a list of her expectations (I really hated that word, at this point), but by getting to KNOW US. To clarify, she wasn’t just asking about the generic “what do you want to be when you grow up” questions in that condescending, infantile voice that I detested. She was asking us adult questions like, “what do you want to get out of this class?” “In what areas do you struggle with reading?” “What can I do for YOU to make YOU successful?” Before this class, I didn’t think it was POSSIBLE for an educator to care what I wanted to get out of my education, therefore I felt like I had very little reason to care. At last, HERE was a class that gave me control and allowed me to set my own goals and expectations.

Not only was I given control of my education and educational goals in this class, my teacher challenged me in a way that no other teacher ever tried. Not only was I “at risk” but I had a reputation that branded me as a “trouble maker” or a “bad kid.” This reputation is hard to shake and I felt like I always had teachers who accepted my bad work ethic and behavior as stable and unchangeable. This is where Ms. Mickelson differed. I remember sitting at the table, struggling to read a 1st grade book aloud (remember, I was in the 3rd grade at this point) and she walked off to get a book. This book was THE SINGLE most pivotal text that I’ve read in my life; it single-handedly set my course to the reader, writer, and person I am today. It’s a chapter book by the name of “The Tale of Despereaux.”

“Here, this is one of my favorite books or all time! I want you to try and read this out loud for me, really quick.”

I flinched at the challenge, I couldn’t believe that she was allowing me to look at a chapter book, much less read one! Nevertheless, she allowed me to struggle, lesson after lesson, reading after reading (we were assigned an hour’s reading outside of class each night to help us sharpen our skills) until I was done with it. The rest is history.

The moral of the story: one teacher, one class can make all the difference in a student’s life. If it wasn’t for this one teacher in this one class, I have no idea what I would’ve become. Because I felt like I had an ally who was looking out for my best interests, I felt empowered to stretch myself as far as I could go: I had no incentive to test my fragile limitations until then. Because this teacher challenged me, believed in me, and made an ally of me, I felt compelled to push myself forward in my educational career and prove to myself that I was better than I allowed myself to be.

Afternoon Pages: Finals Week

As a student, I felt like I would have benefitted from learning tips and tricks to pace myself and budget my time effectively. My hope is that, as a teacher, I will be able to set aside some time to give my students the necessary skills to effectively budget their time. Ideally, you want to make enough time to adequately work on a given project, essay, or study for a test, while also giving yourself enough time for relaxation, sleep, etc. I think that many teachers assume that students (especially at the college level) already have these skills, but speaking from experience, that is not true. I have a hard time getting tangible work done (I obsessively criticize my work and plan for ways to tackle tasks, leaving me with limited time to execute the plan and create the final product). I think that I started to learn these skills recently IN SOME OF MY CLASSES in college. But that was due to the fact that professors would go through certain skills and, sometimes, offer time to exercise them in real time.

Aside from budgeting time and productivity, I also wished I had more instruction in how to remain calm in times of need. Dealing with your emotions is a skill, just like writing, painting, sports, etc. You have to dedicate time and attention to hone those skills and to be productively stressed. I wish that I got more time in class to learn these skills. Hopefully, I can dedicate time and attention to guiding students to be productive with emotion.

Afternoon Pages: Gadget

These days, many people believe that technology is getting out of hand, especially in the realm of education. Many people focus on the potential for technology to be a way to distract or to cheat. While this may be true, just like any tool, I think that it is important for educators to adopt the technology and direct students to use it in a productive way. One thing that could be beneficial is to create software that fact-checks posts or resources. Many people today (especially students) rely on social media for news and information. Because the internet doesn’t have the safeguards and gates that newspapers, news channels, or reports in general have in order to provide people with information and could, therefore, be corrupted by misinformation: it is important to teach students to use resources that can check the validity and integrity of information that they consume online. This can be done with a VeraCite program that works to show misinformation online and can be a great lesson in online representation, communication, social justice, reporting, grammar, etc.

Teacher as Ally: 500 Words 1

What is an ally? The definition of ally is, “to unite or form a connection or relation between: associate.” To say that this is a “vague” or “loose” definition would be an understatement. However, I am here to talk about being an ally in the confines of school, specifically to your students.

Let’s begin be re-examining the definition under these parameters: one must associate, make a connection to, AND unite with their students for a common goal and for common benefit. I believe, as a future educator, that all of these characteristics of ally must serve a function in order to become an ally for your students. One must associate with their students (duh), but I believe that it’s all in the HOW. I don’t think it’s enough to occupy the same space as students for a lesson, dismiss them, rinse, repeat. I think that, in order for one to become a true ally, to associate with them in a more involved, compassionate manner. Ask students about their passions and views. I believe that sincerely asking students about their day itself can set the tone for your lesson or character. The sincerity flows nicely into my second point: I believe that you must form a genuinely positive connection with students. This translates more than the personal level, but the professional level as well. Many people believe that “teaching” is an endless cycle of critique. To these people I have one question for you: do you learn the best under constant criticism or when there is a balance of positive and critical feedback? Obviously, a leading question is a spider’s web. However, I hope that this lends to a better understand of effective ways to grade and teach that is positive and meaningful to students and isn’t seen just as an attack on their character. The final, and most relevant, point is that teachers must unite themselves with students. I would like to believe that teachers and students are in the same boat and that there is a fluid, interconnectivity between teachers and students. If you have the confidence and respect of your students, they will emulate and respond to you, accordingly. Personal gain aside, you need to understand that teachers are there to serve the needs of the students. Many people believe that teachers are one, neat role when the reality is far more complicated. Teachers must be coaches, models, educators, therapists, (at times) parents, confidants, and allies. You must be willing to unite with your students as part of a collective to serve their interests.