Volunteer in or join an organization or get involved in a group comprised of people who are significantly different than you

This past summer as part of my study abroad requirement for Goshen College, I attended a Study-Service Term in Nicaragua for 12 weeks. During the first six weeks, each of the 23 students in my group lived with a host family, attended language and culture classes, went on field trips around the country, and ate a lot of Nicaraguan food. This was a great introduction to the country and it definitely helped to bolster my Spanish skills for what was to come. During the second six weeks, all of the students then moved to a service location. For many of us, our service assignments had at least something to do with our majors back at Goshen College. But again we lived with host families, worked in pairs at our service placements, practiced our Spanish, and ate a lot of Nicaraguan food.

For my service assignment, I wanted to work with kids, but I didn't want to be confined to teaching English. One opportunity was to work at an orphanage for developmentally disabled children. There weren't too many details provided, but I decided to go for it. I'm so glad that I did. During my six weeks working at Hogar Belen, I had the opportunity both to work with some fascinating children doing physical and occupational therapy and got to know some of the fabulous staff who worked with them day in and day out.

One of the most important things that I learned there that is definitely applicable to the field of teaching is the need for patience. For example, on our first day there, we were told that the woman in charge of physical therapy would be back by 1:00 to introduce to us the kids and teach us about what we would be doing. It turns out that she arrived by 2:00. This was a daily occurrence of things being scheduled for one time and happening at another or completely throwing the schedule to the wind and finding something else to do. For my service partner Jonna and I, this was frustrating for our North American sentiments about time and schedule.

The other way that I learned about patience was through working with the children. They were absolutely unlike any other children who I had worked with before. Many of the children were lacking verbal, social and motor skills. In my previous experiences with children, many children do not do what they are told simply because they don't want to. These children didn't always do what they were told because they couldn't or they didn't understand. For example, several children struggled to eat with a spoon, but this was something that the staff really emphasized was important for their development. The children became frustrated with the spoon and would just give up and eat with their hands. In the moment, it was frustrating to say every minute or so, "no, use your spoon," but looking back and being able to recognize that that patience and understanding of where they are coming from is really important.

My ability to stay calm with children in sometimes very stressful situations (with the additional challenge of communicating in Spanish), I think helped the children learn how to deal with situations in a better manner. One child, Karla, comes to mind. Too often she would become quite agitated when we tried to go to physical therapy or eat calmly at the table. She just wanted to do what she wanted to do and didn't want to listen to anyone else. One day after nap time, she was a little bit calmer and I invited her to come sit on my lap. As is a habit of mine, I began whistling. Very quickly, she became quite calm and attentive. As my interactions with her continued, I learned that music was an important way to calm and focus her. I'm glad that I took the time to find ways to connect with her even though at first interaction, she was a very frustrating child to work with. My supervisor actually commented on how well we were working together, and of course, I really appreciated that feedback.

This experience in Nicaragua was important in terms of working with people who are different than me, not only because I was working with some children with very severe disabilities, but because of the tremendous patience and care that I saw modeled as I worked with the Nicaraguan care staff at the facility. Even though their job was frustrating and relentless, they still showed such joy as they worked with the children. As Jonna and I got to know them better, they shared that these children are their second families and that even though the pay isn't great, this job was still worth it. That attitude, particularly because of the financial hardships evident in this area of the country, was particularly touching to me. It also helped me to see that common bond, that no matter how frustrating a job might be, it is relationships that can hold us together.

Study Effective Teachers

One of the many opportunities that was laid out for me during my student teaching was the opportunity to study effective teachers. So during the last weeks of my student teaching this fall, I tried to observe at least one or two classes each day other than the ones with my cooperating teacher. I thought that it was particularly important to observe other math teachers, but I also observed other teachers in my block (Language Arts, Science, and ESL), to get a sense of how they deal with some the same students that I saw in my classroom. Both types of observations were definitely helpful for a variety of reasons.

One teacher who I particularly enjoyed watching was Mrs. Weatherholt in 7th Grade Science. She taught in such a conversational manner so that student participation felt absolutely natural. As part of their weekly reading time, they read an article about earthquakes and then wrote their own paragraph summaries. She was very quick to praise each student who volunteered to read theirs aloud. It was not false flattery; she found specific aspects about each student's writing that she was able to commend. She had such presence with her students that they seemed compelled to pay attention and participate, even some of the students who have caused behavior problems in my class and in others.

Another observation that was particularly helpful to me was Ms. Taylor's ISTEP enrichment class, which is targeted towards students who are having trouble passing the math portion of the ISTEP. I taught this same class for a few weeks and really struggled with it, in part because the curriculum felt very prescribed. It was nice to see Ms. Taylor including those same elements that I did in my class, but in what felt like a more engaging and helpful manner. For example, for our daily bellwork questions, we both used the same material, but rather than reviewing the answers simply on the overhead, she asked students to share their answers on whiteboards. Another step that she utilized to further student learning on bellwork was that for problems that students had a great deal of difficulty on, she gave them the first step and then asked them to continue working out the problem on their whiteboards. I thought that this showed a good balance between skipping over difficult problems and ceaselessly answering questions. They also followed the same format as my class for the "10 Questions;" however, she spent time reviewing the day's skill and gave them quite a few examples before they went through the actual "10 Questions." Though I felt like she was covering the material much more thoroughly than either I or my cooperating teacher had been able to do, I felt like her class period was paced appropriately and that she was not rushing through material. It was inspiring to see her using the same tools as I had to work with in the class, but her using them much more effectively.

Learning to identify allies

Through my i-search paper for Secondary Curriculum and Instruction, I think that I built an important ally. My topic of exploration was looking at how working professionals actually use mathematics in their workplace. As I thought about who I wanted to contact, medical and business applications came to mind and both of the individuals who I talked to were more than willing to help me out and were interested in what I was trying to look at. I found a great book called "She Does Math!" which details real-life math that female working professionals do. Many of the problems had to do with engineering, but I didn't think I knew any engineers to contact. Suddenly I recalled a new teacher at my former high school who my mother (who is an administrator at said high school) told me about.

Her name is Gail Anderson and she worked in aerospace engineering prior to obtaining her teaching license just a few years ago. Not only did she understand my quest to find out how math is used in the real-world, it is also something that she strives to incorporate into her teaching. She assigns a paper to her students asking them to explore this topic on their own and she actually requested to add my i-search paper to her body of resources to share with her students.

I certainly hope to use her as a resource again and perhaps I will have the chance to observe her classes sometime when I visit home.

Become aware that you are a role model and act accordingly

This topic might be considered to be a bit silly, but it is something that is actually quite important to me. And that topic is clothing. Now, I'm not one to spend hours in the morning picking out my clothes for the day or even one who enjoys shopping. The reason that I think clothes are important is because whether they should or not, clothes say a lot about a person. We all tend to make a lot of snap judgments about people, based on their general appearance, of which clothes are certainly a part. In fact, I was just reading something today on this very issue at feministing.com

We see a hot women on the street, for example, and automatically assume she has a great, easy life, a loving partner, a successful career--all because her hair is shiny and straight and she wears a size two! The reverse effect is ever-present these days; when a woman is overweight or doesn't fit the conventional standard of beauty in some other way, we assume all sorts of completely unrelated thing about her--she's lazy, unhappy, untalented, unloved.

At my field placements this year at both Goshen High School and Goshen Middle School, I have been struck by the way in which girls dress. Now I'm not one to tell other people how to dress, but particularly this semester, I have been very conscious of the way that I dress when I go to the high school. My goals are 1) to be professional 2) to dress attractively without showing a lot of skin or wearing skin-tight items of clothing. I think that the media tells young girls that the only way for them to be considered attractive is for them to wear a skin-tight shirt or a dress that is far too short to be considered a dress. I don't know if any of them ever think about it, but I figure my goals aren't bad ones and I happen to be an influence, well then all the better.

Get experience with all types of learners and their families - part b

I recently finished reading Jennifer Baumgardner's book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics." I had read another book by Baumgardner during my first year of college and decided to try another. Bisexuality was a topic that was briefly mentioned in my Human Sexuality class last semester, but I thought there was certainly a lot more I could learn about the topic. Though some of her experiences were a bit too far from my own, there certainly were ideas that I was able to identify with. For the some of the same reasons that I enjoyed Anne Marie's presence at the GWSA retreat (see part a), I enjoyed Baumgardner's personal experience with the topic as well as her more academic treatises on the subject.

One interesting issue that goes alongside of bisexuality is their inclusion (or exclusion) in the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) community. While they are included officially in title, Baumgardner suggests that bisexuals struggle to know their place. They typically experience alienation from the heterosexual community when they have a same-sex partner, but are treated as hypocrites from the same-sex community when they enter a heterosexual relationship. As Baumgardner points out, "Anyone who can access heterosexuality at some point is living a more socially privileged life than a lesbian is" (195).

I appreciated what Baumgardner had to offer on the subject of the relationship between bisexuality and feminism. Baumgardner describes this movement of second-wave feminism:

"Another radical argument for looking to women in the 1970s underscored the political purity and courage of women who gave up the sexist privileges garnered by their association with men. Those women were known as "political lesbians." They might not have ever slept with a woman - indeed, they might have been straight - but they disavowed heterosexual identity and men." (75)

This phenomenon of second-wave feminism helped me to understand why feminists are stereotypically portrayed as emasculating lesbians.

Through reading this book, I have a greater acceptance of those who have chosen to live life as a bisexual. Rather than being considered to be simply sitting on the fence, I think I’m beginning to understand that some individuals are sexually attracted to individuals of both sexes. My understanding of feminism also helps me to make sense of all this.

Get experience with all types of learners and their families - part a

On the first weekend of this semester, GSWA (Goshen Student Women's Association) and Advocates offered a short retreat at the College Cabin. Though it was just for a few hours, this "retreat" offered attendees the opportunity to learn more about transgender issues in a relaxed, informal environment. Our time there was moderated by a variety of college students from the hosting clubs and Anne Marie, a transgender individual, provided the topical input. We began by discussing two questions with those who we were sitting with. These questions dealt with the nature of gender: essentially, how much of gender is a social construction and how much is biological? I was sitting with a friend who has studied a great deal of psychology and so it was interesting to hear her perspective on the issue in addition to those of the others around us.

We then discussed several articles related to how transgenderism is presented in the media. One article that we focused in on was an article from ESPN that was about a transgender individual who had a sex reassignment surgery and had just won a long drive championship for golf. Anne Marie called the article out for not even being about the athlete's success; the article is only about the controversy surrounding her win and even the title suggests their bias: "Former male Lawless wins women's title." There were several issues that arose through the discussion of this article. The first was a disbelief of the biased perspective presented by the author of the article through quotes such as this: "However, if a woman has the knees, hands and feet of a man, she has genetic real estate that is more gifted." Secondly, the article seemed to disregard Lawless's transgender identity as not being real and simply to achieve success in golf competitions.

After sharing in a lunch of bread and soup, Anne Marie shared about her own experience of coming to terms with her transgender identity. She shared about her reasons for choosing not to have sex reassignment surgery. Anne Marie is a pastor of a church in Chicago and so her experiences as a transgender pastor and her experiences with the church as a larger entity were also interesting to hear about. Finally, she shared with us some of her work outside of the realm of sexuality. One item that I found to be fascinating was her evaluation of Christian language with the objective of examining how racism and violence have been institutionalized. She discussed the ever present dichotomy of light as good and dark as bad along with violent language that is common in Christian liturgy. I don't agree with all she said, particularly since I know very little about traditional liturgy, but I found her opinions to be quite interesting.

The day ended up being quite informative and enjoyable. Not only did I learn more about transgender issues, I was able to converse with my peers about a variety of issues that don't typically come up in daily conversation. Anne Marie's presence at this event was very influential, not only did she help to us to understand the issue; she helped put a face to it.