Teaching Hope: Empowerment Reflection

In our schools in this day and age we will--no doubt--work with students who are part of the LGBTQ community. Many times for these students they are too worried about the social aspect of school that they aren't necessarily as engaged in the schoolwork they have to do. However, it is very important that we as teachers provide as much support at we can. In entry 138, a student feels very comfortable telling her teacher that she is gay, and that is the way it should be. As long as we can foster an environment that allows students to be themselves many things will come out that previously might have not. For example, at UB there are a large amount of students who are either gay or lesbian. Is it coincidence that UB is such a judgement free zone, and students are able to act the way they truly want to?

Entry 139 reminds me a lot of Upward Bound. This teacher is the epitome of what a teacher at UB is supposed to act like. I firmly believe that if you are not acting 100% positive 100% of the time, students will not a) feel comfortable in your class and b) not feel the confidence they need to. The words that the teacher used to describe this student are true; the only problem is that she was the first to ever say them to the student. If we can reinforce positive growth in students and keep beating it into their head that they are capable and have the potential to do anything, they will be successful. Another interesting component of this entry is what it will look like with the new proficiency based learning model. Perhaps in this case it would not necessarily matter because the student was doing well in his classes and not the standardized tests (go figure). Regardless, a student who only doesn't meet proficiency in specific standards will only need to make those standards up if I understand the new model correctly. This makes much more sense than having students retake an entire year if they only bombed a select number of standards. It will certainly have an impact on the age at which students are graduating high school.