The ability to reflect is perhaps one of the most critical tools we as teachers have. It grants us the ability to learn from our mistakes and our victories, the chance to better tune our lessons to our classroom's demands, the ability to form closer relationships with individuals as we begin to better understand them. It allows us to take the past and use it to create a better future.
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The theme of today seemed to be teamwork. We visited two different schools today, one a technical middle school, and the other a university. While separated by many years, these students all had one main thing in common-they held each other up. If a student was struggling with a classroom activity, they would provide assistance rather than mock their classmates. If a student has learning disabilities, they can depend on their classmates to provide support. Within a month, a student body quickly turns into a family, a classroom into a community. I've been lucky to witness this on multiple accounts since arriving to Mexicali. It bears stark contrast to the notion of independence that courses through United States classrooms, where students are left to fend for themselves and compete against one another. |
I've never been one to want to teach little children. As someone who's mind tends to go quite quickly, I'm always concerned that I won't be able to engage in the same kind of intellectual repertoire with younger children than I can with older, high school level students. This doesn't mean that I am unaware of the roll elementary level education has on student development; rather, I am painfully aware of how crucial such education is and am fearful that I wouldn't be up to the task. However, today I was able to step into a classroom chalk full of clever children, and I realized that my fear was for naught, as these children were just as mentally challenging as a classroom full of AP Biology students, just in a completely different way. These students were creative, engaged, and delightful, but also challenged me to approach teaching from an entirely different angle, to always be on my toes, to always be flexible and actively thinking. This, paired with the example given by the teacher, also acting as director, helped me learn just how rewarding teaching younger children could be. Plus, I was given an army of hugs before I left the classroom, and who would be upset with that?
Upon crossing the border into Mexicali, I was immediately aware of this stark contrast of equity and development between the United States and Mexicali. This continued as we met with those hosting the Caritas deportation relief center and those at the refugee shelter. For so many people to be deported, or, more accurately, thrown out from the United States into Mexico, is a striking representation of the value of humanity, or lack there of. Especially when considering the percentage of those being deported who are forced to leave their family behind, not to mention the treatment of those deportees in the detainment center.
To live so close to a country that has made it very clear that they want nothing to do with you or "your kind", to the point of purging you from their society, whilst also seemingly offering the only option for success, or in many instances, survival.....is a hard concept. And it's the concept that has been in my mind since arriving.
It's two nights before the trip to Mexicali and I'm excited. I'm also nervous. Are they the same thing? It often feels so.
I'm often not one to build up expectations regarding a trip.
A) I'm often too busy thinking about everything I need to get done on a day to day basis than to ponder about upcoming trips, scenarios, encounters
B) Not having expectations allows me to take in everything unbiasedly, gives me the chance to be an observer and flow along than feel like I have to shape the experience to somehow fit the predetermined mold I created for it.
Instead, my lack of expectations are replaced with an overarching desire to experience everything in full totality, to be as present as possible, and to make sure that I find a way to connect to what I witness.
I am eager to learn about the different school environments, the different classroom management types, the varying student bodies, and identify a venndiagram between the education system I encounter on this trip and that which I have experienced in San Diego.
Having already spent time teaching in other countries, namely Italy and Costa Rica, I am already somewhat familiar with the manner in which some differences may arise, though this doesn't dampen my curiosity. Just as they had significant but distinctively different impacts on my worldview, so do I believe will this trip.
My beliefs about teaching immigrant students, already somewhat shaped by my previous experience in the classroom, will now have more context specific to the immigrant groups I encounter on my travels.
My knowledge of the different triumphs and hardships these groups encounter will expand my compassion towards such students, fostering a greater understanding which extends towards the creation of a welcoming learning environment.
So far, my expectations don't extend much farther past the itinerary, but in it's framework lies possibilities for life-changing lessons I am sure to take in.
I'm often not one to build up expectations regarding a trip.
A) I'm often too busy thinking about everything I need to get done on a day to day basis than to ponder about upcoming trips, scenarios, encounters
B) Not having expectations allows me to take in everything unbiasedly, gives me the chance to be an observer and flow along than feel like I have to shape the experience to somehow fit the predetermined mold I created for it.
Instead, my lack of expectations are replaced with an overarching desire to experience everything in full totality, to be as present as possible, and to make sure that I find a way to connect to what I witness.
I am eager to learn about the different school environments, the different classroom management types, the varying student bodies, and identify a venndiagram between the education system I encounter on this trip and that which I have experienced in San Diego.
Having already spent time teaching in other countries, namely Italy and Costa Rica, I am already somewhat familiar with the manner in which some differences may arise, though this doesn't dampen my curiosity. Just as they had significant but distinctively different impacts on my worldview, so do I believe will this trip.
My beliefs about teaching immigrant students, already somewhat shaped by my previous experience in the classroom, will now have more context specific to the immigrant groups I encounter on my travels.
My knowledge of the different triumphs and hardships these groups encounter will expand my compassion towards such students, fostering a greater understanding which extends towards the creation of a welcoming learning environment.
So far, my expectations don't extend much farther past the itinerary, but in it's framework lies possibilities for life-changing lessons I am sure to take in.
Author
Hannah Youngwirth is a teacher-in-progress, hoping to bring her love of biology to the classroom and increase science literacy