Identity journals

We will continue with identity journals from last quarter. We strongly encourage you to respond to the prompts as well as follow your own internal questions and dialogue. This quarter you have two options for doing this work.

1. Continue as usual, writing your entries and submitting them to your seminar leader. (Submit each Monday.)
   - or -
2. Engage in a dialogue with a colleague over email or another written format, still responding to prompts as well as other ongoing internal questions and dialogue. Then every other week, submit your dialogue to your seminar leader with a brief paragraph that summarizes your conversations. If you choose this option, please identify a partner who will push your thinking, not someone who is very like-minded.

As always, you may paperclip or staple together sections you would rather we not read.

Please inform your seminar leader which option you will take.

Prompt #1:

We have just watched the video, The Color of Fear and used movement, sculpting, and verbal dialogue to process our thoughts. Take this opportunity to continue processing your thoughts, ideas, and insights.

Prompt #2

Reread and consider Erikson's observations, concerns and recommendations that he names in the conclusion (105-107).

Walk yourself through the stages Erikson describes and identify the stage that has the most interest and energy for you personally. How does this lens help you to notice and wonder about what you bring with yourself as a teacher into the classroom? For example, what might be contributing to the nature of your teaching goals, your decisions about how to structure the classroom, and your responses to student's behavior?

Prompt #3

What ideas do you have about creating a safe and inclusive environment for gays, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex & questionning people who are part of your school or class (i.e. students, their siblings, parents, student's friends, teachers, visitors, historical figures)?

What questions or issues are you grappling with as you consider this aspect of anti-bias education?

Prompt #4

We want to continue pushing you to examine your experiences and conceptions about some of the students and families you'll be working with.   In this prompt you are expected to examine your life experiences and images of American Indians. The immediate purpose of this exploration, like previous identity prompts, is to tie your own personal identity in this realm to the formation of your teacher identity.

What are your earliest memories and images of American Indians? What experiences have you had with American Indian people in your life? How did Widening the Circle broaden your understanding of American Indians?

Now we would like you to think about your developing identity and practices as a teacher. American Indians have had a long history of oppression and genocide. In the book they describe who is often viewed as oppressor. Consider all aspects of your identity. How might who you are influence American Indian students' and community members' perceptions of you?

Finally, look over the Exercise for Chapter 7 on pp. 228-229. Reflect on one or two of those questions that most inspire you.

Prompt #5

In this prompt we ask you to examine your experiences and conceptions with various immigrant groups who now live in the US . Work to tie your own personal identity in this area to the formation of your teacher identity.

Examine your experiences and images of several immigrant groups. What beliefs, assumptions, values and feelings do you have about these immigrant groups and about immigration? As you engage in this reflection consider:

• When people from that group immigrated (for example, which wave of immigration Vietnamese people were part of matters in terms of class, literacy, and power in Vietnam, which affects their experiences here)
• Why you think particular groups immigrated to the US
• Your experiences/beliefs of how people from that immigrant group live in the US (including assimilation and/or maintaining home culture and language)
• Your experiences/beliefs about language acquisition.

Christine Igoa, in The inner world of the immigrant child said that students easily pick up impressions that other children and adults have about them. So similar to racism, homophobia, etc., your students' experiences are shaped by the broader social environment as well as the images you project on them. Students may try to identify or disidentify from those external images (for example, Igoa's cutting her hair so it isn't a bob-style). Consider how you as a teacher may work with immigrant students. What are some of your goals for students? What are some strategies you may use to achieve those goals? What issues do you grapple with in relation to working with immigrant students?

Prompt #6

As Orenstein's Schoolgirls invited the students to do, take yourself back through various ages and grade-levels. What did you do? What did you wear? What did you care about? (So far this is a mental activity - you don't need to write this part.) Bring yourself back to the time of your birth. You have been born on this joyous day, and you are now the opposite sex. What are some key ways in which your life would probably have been different? (You might consider going to one of your favorite places while you consider this prospect.)

After imagining what how your life may have been different (we understand that you can't actually know), describe how your mental exercise may inform your teaching.