The event that I attended as a social justice event was the
Promising Practices Conference. I decided to use this conference as my first
event because I am studying to become an early-childhood & special
education teacher and this conference was designed with teachers in mind. It
was convenient for any RIC student to get to because it was held here at RIC in
Donovan Dining Center on a Saturday morning. At this event I attended 2
workshops which were very informative. The first was about teaching social studies
through zumba dance. The teacher along with her student teacher who was also a
zumba instructor were able to teach their first graders different continents
and facts about the world through different zumba rotations. I found this to be
pretty awesome that these kids got so invested with this new fun way of
learning. The second workshop I attended was about bringing outside experience
into your classroom. In this workshop 2 professional teachers from high schools
came and discussed things they have done outside of the classroom whether it
was over the summer working on bridges or being a marine biologist on a ship.
Both these speakers showed how you can connect this experience to lesson you
can do in the classroom and even get the student interested in possible fields
they might want to go into in college.
This Promising Practices event connects with Privilege,
Power, and Difference by: Allan Johnson, and Interrupting the Cycle of
Oppression by: Andrea Ayvazian. How it connects with Privilege, Power, and
Difference is because when you become a teacher you’re going to be working with
children from all different backgrounds some may be poor while others might be
rich and some might be of a certain race while others might be of another. The
point is that everyone is different and that’s okay but it is our job as
teachers not to treat children different ways but to treat them all equally.
How it connects to Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression is because
as teachers we want to have our students know that maybe not the school
hallways but the classroom will always be a safe space for students that way
they will feel comfortable and be able to be themselves. It is our job as
teachers to take on the role of an ally if we see a student who needs someone to
have their back we should be there to reassure them. Teachers can also teach
their students about what it means to be an ally, letting the students know
about this that way if they ever see something going on they will know how to
be an ally and have that persons back.
Below I have posted a video of the first grade students at the Henry Barnard School doing social studies through Zumba dance which was what the first workshop that I went to was all about.
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